Alabama Crimson Tide College Football Pregame Quote, 12/05/2021

LUKE FICKELL: Obviously, we’re incredibly excited to have this opportunity. For us in our program, we don’t want to think we’re carrying some flag for, you know, the non-big schools, so to speak. We just want to be us. And our guys have done an unbelievable job all year of kind of handling all the different distractions and different things that we’ve kind of gone through with people trying to tell you how you need to play and what you need to do to have any chance.

But I think more than anything, our guys are just incredibly excited to be challenged against obviously the No. 1 team in the country with Coach [Nick] Saban and the Crimson Tide. So, for us and the program, it’s an incredible opportunity and a great measuring stick in all that we’ve been doing.

NICK SABAN: We’re really excited about having the opportunity to be in the College Football Playoff and playing in the Cotton Bowl. It’s something we’ve experienced before, and it’s been a first-class event in every way.

I’d like to congratulate Coach [Luke] Fickell and his team at the University of Cincinnati for being undefeated, 13-0, great accomplishments, team plays. Great on offense, one of the top scoring offenses in the country (and) very good on defense. This will be a real challenge for us in every way, shape, and form. And we’re happy to have the opportunity to play against one of the top teams in the country.

If I can just address Nick [Saban], because I know Luke [Fickell] has been getting this type of question a lot. Nick, apparently, when you look at college football, I think often it seems like you think of the health of the sport in general. Do you think it’s good for the sport that a team like Cincinnati that had been considered at times sort of on the outside looking in because of the conference is getting this opportunity, that it shows that everybody who plays at the highest level of college football does have a chance to play for the national championship?

NICK SABAN: Hey, I played at Kent State, all right? It was the Mid-American Conference, but we played and tried to be the best that we could be.

And Cincinnati certainly deserves what they have accomplished this year. A very good conference. I mean, they beat Notre Dame. They beat Indiana. I have a lot of respect for the teams in their conference, and I think it’s good for college football that everybody in every conference feels like they have an opportunity, if they have success and their team is consistent and performs in a fashion that the University of Cincinnati performed all year long ‚Äì I mean, how many undefeated teams are there out there? And it’s very, very difficult to do.

So, you’ve got to have a special mindset and a special group of young men to be able to do that. So, I absolutely think that everyone who participates in college football Division I level should feel like they have an opportunity to get in the playoff.

Coach [Nick] Saban, I know it’s been early, and I don’t know how much time you’ve had to look. But what are your first impressions on the Cincinnati secondary?

NICK SABAN: I haven’t looked at them yet. I don’t know what you guys think, we don’t sleep or don’t eat. We’ve got a banquet tonight for our team that we’re trying to get ready for. But they’re very, very good. I’m a secondary coach. If your pass efficiency defense is what theirs is, they’ve got to be pretty good.

For both coaches, you know, for Luke [Fickell], what have you seen from Jerome Ford since he came into the program? And Nick [Saban], what do you remember from him as a running back at your program?

LUKE FICKELL: For us, Jerome has obviously done an incredible job this year. I think last year, the best thing that he did was kind of embrace his role. I think that was really, probably a difficult thing for him walking in the door.

He was able to grow, grasp the people around him, recognize that there was more to this game than just carrying the football. And I think it’s kind of been enlightening for him to have to struggle this first year here of not being able to play on the field, but I think it’s really helped him in the long run because he developed some relationships and some different things that really helped him in a year like this where he’s played very well for us.

Yes, I did have one for each coach, if that’s all right. I did want to ask Coach [Luke] Fickell about getting ready for Alabama back in the 2014 College Football Playoff and really what you remember about that first ‚Äì it was brand new, the BCS was going away. What do you remember most about getting ready for the Crimson Tide, being part of that Ohio State staff?

LUKE FICKELL: I knew it was going to be an incredible battle. Obviously, that’s probably the only time I’ve played them other than when I was in college, we got beat by them in a bowl game that might have been ’94 in the Citrus Bowl.

All three phases of the game, I know I was just on the defensive side of the ball when I was at Ohio State. But I did a lot with the special teams. And I’ve seen great programs play on all three phases of the game, and there’s no weaknesses. Their players played on special teams.

I think we used their example back then, and we use their example here at the University of Cincinnati. We take the amount of reps that their star players have played on special teams. Great indication for us that, you know, a group that – or team that plays in all three phases is really important to them.

And Coach [Nick] Saban, if I could, a comment or two about Bryce and how he’s developed this year and maybe just overall as a team, how coachable has this team been for you this year, Coach?

NICK SABAN: Bryce [Young] has played well for us all year long. I think he’s made some incredible plays down the stretch here on our last couple of games that certainly enhanced our chances of being successful in the game. I do think in this last game the players around him played a lot better, which gave him a much better opportunity.

Look, this team was a young team when we started out this season. We had a lot of adversity to overcome. I think they’ve shown tremendous resiliency. And I think that, you know, in this last game, we seem to play to the standard that we wanted to play to against a very good team.

And now it’s going to be everybody’s choice as to whether we can, you know, maintain that and be consistent with that moving forward as we play in the playoffs. And it doesn’t get any easier. It gets just, you know, a lot more difficult. Especially when you’re playing any of the four teams in the playoffs are going to be tremendous challenges.

Is there any update on John Metchie and any other guys who got banged up in the game?

NICK SABAN: John Metchie has an ACL, and he’ll be out.

After the game, you said a couple of guys may have been injured. Do you have updates on them?

NICK SABAN: No. I don’t have any injury updates. We don’t play until December 31. So, we don’t have anybody that’s been ruled out of that game that was injured in the game.

We saw JoJo Earle back in uniform, at least for this game. Where does he stand with his rehab? In those three weeks, how much further do you think he can progress?

NICK SABAN: Well, that’s something we have to evaluate when we start practicing again. But he is getting to the point where he’s dry-land running and has some opportunity to come back and play in this game.

On your roster from the State of Maryland, talk about Chris Braswell from Baltimore. What does he bring to the team during the season?

NICK SABAN: Chris is a backup outside linebacker for us and plays on special teams, and he’s been used in some pass-rush situations. And has done a very nice job for us.

Coach [Luke] Fickell, I was wondering about last year’s experience in the bowl game against Georgia and the guys that are coming back can take anything from that experience as you prepare for this game.

LUKE FICKELL: I think for sure. The experiences you have in the past help you in the future, especially if you use them in the right way. And we have the majority of that team back.

And I think, first and foremost, just even the venue. We don’t probably see a lot of the venues like that last year. And we’ll see another venue that obviously will be an incredible opportunity for these guys and something they haven’t played in. So, we at least have been there last year.

And I think obviously playing against a great football team like Georgia last year just gives us that much more of an idea of what that we’re facing. So those guys experienced ‚Äì those guys probably, like I said, 34 seniors I think we had that all played in that game last year in some way.

I would expect that they would be able to at least, preparation-wise, be able to have a better idea of not what we’re going to see because obviously it’s a different football team, but the caliber and a lot of things and the atmosphere of what we’re going to expect.

Coach [Nick] Saban, I’m curious putting the Group of Five, Power Five thing aside, this is the first appearance in the College Football Playoff for Cincinnati and Michigan in this era. How good do you think it is for the sport to maybe see some new faces, see some new names in the College Football Playoff?

NICK SABAN: Good for who?

The sport (laughter).

NICK SABAN: The sport? Look, I think it’s good that we have a balance in college football in terms of people who can be successful. I think it’s good for the fans that they all have hope that their team has an opportunity to get in the College Football Playoff.

I think the whole atmosphere of college football changed as I brought up when we started this whole playoff. We would minimize the importance of bowl games, which we have succeeded at.

And now everybody just talks about the playoffs and who’s in the playoffs. It used to be in college football if you had a great season and you got to go to a good bowl game, everybody was excited. Players all wanted to play. Fans were excited. And that doesn’t happen anymore.

So, you only have four spots for everybody in Division I college football to have an opportunity to get in the playoff. So obviously, a lot of fans are going to have hope that we can get in. It does create a lot of excitement.

But I’m not apologizing for trying to have a program like a lot of people have tried to have a program that can get in the playoffs as many times as possible. I’m sure that’s the goal of a lot of folks. So even though I think it might be healthy for the sport because it’s healthy for fans, as competitors, as coaches, we’re all trying to get our team in the playoff because that’s sort of the standard of college football right now.

Coach [Luke] Fickell, I’m going to leave this intentionally kind of vague. When you look back ‚Äì you’ll probably have more time in recapping the season. But to this point, what do you think is the biggest thing you’ve learned about this season, having been through the season so far?

LUKE FICKELL: Every year is a different year. Whether you’ve got a very veteran team coming back, a team that played really well last year obviously in a big bowl game, it’s a completely different team with just how the attitudes and how the ‚Äì how they all ‚Äì all the guys meshed together, what guys are in new roles, maybe they’re the senior, maybe they’re the captain. And all those things, you know, going into the season is completely different than even last year when a lot of the core nucleus of what we’ve got is the same.

So, to me, this was probably my first experience in having the ‚Äì being in a head coach position, having some high-end guys with some real expectations early on to play at the next level, to be all the different things and how we had to handle that, mesh all those kinds of personalities and attitudes together, and really kind of eliminate that selfishness to be a team. And if we couldn’t do that, we were going to struggle. So, it was a different year for me. It was a different group of guys, even though it was the same probably core nucleus of them.