As the Tigers prepare for the 2004 football season, coach Nick Saban said the team will have to prepare for blitzes from both upcoming opponents and the media.
“We’re looking forward to having a good game Saturday,” Saban said. “I think the teams are pretty equally split up, hopefully the players will go out and compete. We’ll keep it very very simple, and I just hope everyone plays hard and gives a lot of effort and goes out there and executes, and plays together as a group.”
In his weekly press gathering, Saban said the team’s toughest challenge will be to battle expectations brought on from last year’s national championship. The challenge will begin 1 p.m. Saturday at the purple and gold spring game.
“That’s just something that we’ve been fighting against, because we don’t want to make comparisons to last year,” Saban said. “Next year is a new year. The guys on this team regardless of what they did last year, or what their role was, or how many yards they gained, or how many passes they caught, there’s no bar. There’s no standard of what they need to achieve.
They need to focus on being the best players they can be, making improvements in the areas that they can improve in so that they have the best opportunity to be successful next year, individually and collectively.”
Saban said he will be looking for help at positions left open from departing players, citing receiver and linebacker and depth in the secondary and defensive line as need positions.
“We can use some help in those areas, and I’m hopeful that those guys will be able to do it,” Saban said.
Saban also said he has been impressed with the way some of his less experienced players have developed over the spring.
“I’ve been pretty pleased with the way the younger players, the freshmen, whether they contributed last year or not,” Saban said. “They have bought into the way we do things, how we work — how we practice, whether it was off-season programs or this spring. To this point I’m not disappointed with the chemistry and the attitude of this team, but I think that’s a work in progress.”
Saban he will not rest key players for Saturday’s game, saying that it would disrupt team chemistry. But fans will see some players in positions they are unaccustomed to in tomorrow’s game.
“We’ve moved a lot of different guys around a lot of different places,” Saban said. “I feel that by gaining that knowledge of seeing guys do different things that we’ve got a better chance of putting the pieces to the puzzle back together next year.”
Saban said individual dedication, not necessarily results from Saturday’s game, will be more decisive in what roles new players will fill.
“I think the biggest reflection is what happens in the summer,” Saban said. “We’ve monitored everything they’ve done to this point, we’re not allowed to coach them in the summer, coach Moffit’s the only guy that can work with them. They have choices to make. Do they stay here and work with him all summer, come back in great shape? How much do they go home, how much do they go to the beach. That is really the true test of whether you really have the kind of character and attitude on your team that you want.”