University of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban on Monday evening addressed the media via video teleconference following the first full day of fall practice.
Speaking at about the same time that the 2020 SEC schedule was released, Saban began the virtual press conference with an opening statement.
“Well it’s obviously great to be on the field,” he remarked. “I think the players are really excited about having the opportunity to go out and practice together as a team, which has kind of been a long time coming.”
Much of the press conference, as expected, was about how COVID-19 has affected — and continues to affect — the season. However, as is typical with the legendary coach, everything came back to the fundamentals of football and being a competitor.
Saban advised, “I think our players did a great job of managing all the uncertainties that we’ve had the entire summer. They’ve worked hard. The strength and conditioning coaches have done a great job with them. We’ve made significant progress physically with a lot of our players, which we’re very pleased with. The days that we’re allowed to have one hour on the field with them, one hour in meetings, went extremely well. It was pretty much like a mini-camp, except we just couldn’t do full-speed, team-type stuff. But the players did some of that on their own, like seven-on-seven, and it went very, very well.”
“We continue to try and give our players an opportunity to play,” he continued. “They want to play, to be able to compete and be able to create value for themselves. And we’re working very, very hard to give them an opportunity to do that in a safe way.”
RELATED: University of Alabama data shows less than 1% of students testing positive for COVID-19
The coach outlined that players need to be diligent in following health and safety protocols, especially while not at the team’s facilities.
“We’re acting in the direction of the SEC medical task-force, the CDC, a lot of other folks, to try and comply 100% with everything we can do to create a safe environment for our players,” Saban explained. “And I think it’s two-fold. The ‘bubble’ we have here, we’ve been very successful with. We’ve had a less than 2% positive rate [over] the last month or so — less than 1% the last couple of weeks. So, the personal bubbles that guys have to form outside of here I think will be a real key to us being able to keep the players safe and keep them healthy. That’s relative to what they do as a student. So, we’re trying to give them direction on that.”
He added, “We have the surgeon general speaking to the team tonight … we’re trying to inform our players and give them the best possible education on every possible health and medical issues that COVID-19 can possibly present to them. And we’re constantly weighing the [potential] consequences of playing, but we’re also weighing the consequences of not playing and how that would impact the players in what they would do and the isolation it would create for them and how we can manage it for them.”
Saban subsequently fielded questions for approximately eight minutes.
He emphasized that “player safety is the number one concern for all of us.” The coach opined that if teams are able to go forward with the regular season, a four-team playoff should ultimately be conducted and a National Champion crowned afterwards among competing conferences.
“That’s one of the biggest questions our players ask us. ‘Coach, if we play, will we be able to play in a playoff?’ We want to be able to play in a championship if we have a good season,” Saban noted.
Later on, he stressed the need for people to follow social distancing and other COVID-19 related health guidelines.
“[W]e certainly have respected those things. … We’re doing everything we can to stay safe, and I don’t fear this because we’re trying to do the right thing and we have great medical care here. And we’ve got great medical protocols to try to keep people safe, and I feel very confident in trying to respect and do those things as well as possible,” Saban commented.
Watch the full press conference:
RELATED: Crimson Tide 2020 schedule — Three key questions
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.