Offensively, we struggled a little bit in the second half. We didn't move the ball as well as I thought we should have. At the end of the third quarter, we were a little tired, which is a bit of an issue for us. When we needed to put a drive together on offense and answer the bell to score and make it a two-score game, we put a great drive together. We made some critical third-down conversions.
This is a really good football team that we played today - they're really hard to stop - and I think our defense did a fantastic job holding them to what we did. We held them to 13 points with 15 seconds to go in the game, and we were trying to shrink the game in the end. It would have been great to stop them, but we did it well enough to where even if they did get the onside kick, they wouldn't have had a whole lot of time to score.
I can't tell you how proud I am of how our players competed in the game. You have to give Mississippi State's players a lot of credit they really came out in the second half and played outstanding football. They're a great team. At halftime, when you play teams like this, they're going to come out in the second half and compete no matter what. It was a little like the Auburn game, the Cam Newton game here. We got ahead 24-(7) or whatever it was, and they came back in the second half. That's what good teams do, that's why they're No. 1. But our team has shown that they have an ability to do that. We made plays when we had to today, and I think that was a sign of great competitive character for our team as well.
Coach Nick Saban
Comments following the 25-20 victory
over #1 MSU at Bryant-Denny 111514
No comments:
Post a Comment