Related
Nick Saban isn't slowing down after landing historic class for Alabama
Camar Wheaton signs with Alabama
Nick Saban addressed the media on Wednesday to recap National Signing Day. Alabama added two players Wednesday in five-star running back Camar Wheaton and Rivals100 safety Terrion Arnold. The Tide's 27-man recruiting class totaled 3,555 points in the Rivals team rankings, topping Alabama's previous mark of 3,477 points set in 2017.
Here's a transcript of Saban's Zoom call with the media. Click the play button above to watch the press conference.
Opening statement: Well, good to see everybody again. We’re obviously very excited to have two additional guys to add to the class of people who signed in December. It’s an cumulation of a lot of hard work by a lot of people in a very different circumstance. But I think what everybody did is they adapted extremely well to the circumstance that we were in. We turned in what would have been official visits and camps and all those things into virtual reality so to speak in terms of how we managed, how we developed relationships, the time we spent with the players that we recruited and the relationships that we were able to develop. We recruit as a team here so a lot of coaches did a great job, a lot of people in the university community chipped in and helped us with academic interviews and so forth even though they weren’t here.
We did them virtually. Our academic staff here at the university, the strength and conditioning, the medical staff. Everybody did what they would on a normal visit, they did it virtually. And I think that process really helped us, that adaptation really helped us develop relationships with players so that we could have the kind of recruiting class that we had. We always try to define what our expectations are, what our needs are in every recruiting year. And for the most part, we were able to accomplish what we wanted to accomplish with this recruiting class. We got five offensive linemen, we got three or four defensive linemen. So we got some quality big people, I think that can help us.
Skill guys, especially at the receiver position which was something that was a need based on what we’ve lost the last two years at that position, was a lot of pretty phenomenal players. So these guys are going to have a great opportunity to contribute. We’re always interested in getting a high character, quality quarterback, which we did. We were able to add some perimeter people on defense. So all in all, I think there’s a lot of balance in this class in terms of the kind of balance we got. But as I always talk about, we’re not really interested in rankings or ratings or anything like that because I think that how guys develop in your program is really what is the most important thing.
I think we’ve had guys that had no stars around here that became first-round draft picks and we’ve had some five-star guys that didn’t turn out as well as we thought they might. So we don’t have any expectation but to evaluate every player in terms of where they are and what they need to do to improve so that they have the best chance to be as good a player as they possibly can be. We have 15 players here that started at mid-term or in January with us. That’s going to be a tremendous benefit to them, to be able to acclimate first of all academically and as well as have an opportunity to have extra time to develop and learn and get the knowledge and experience they need to get the best chance to contribute next fall.
I want to thank everyone who contributed to this class. I think that sometimes a lot of people go unnoticed in terms of their effort, in terms of what they do to help us recruit well here, because it is a team effort. From the entire university, the academic community, the athletic department, our athletic administration contributed to developing relationships with these guys. Our coaching staff, phenomenal job. So all the way around, everybody did everything they could do in a situation that took adapting. And we adapted well and I think that that is reflected in what kind of class we had.
On the four wide receiver signees
“Hopefully they’ll be able to develop into — I think three of them are here right now, so it’ll be interesting to see how they develop. We’re certainly gonna need some people to step up at that position because we did lose some really good players. But we’ve had years in the past when we’ve played young guys at that position and they’ve made significant contributions. I use the example a lot of times when we were playing Georgia in the national championship game. Smitty caught the touchdown pass; he was a freshman. Ruggs and Jerry Jeudy were both in there. Leatherwood was playing left tackle, Najee was playing tailback and Tua was playing quarterback. So, there’s gonna be a lot of opportunity at a lot of positions, but especially at wide receiver for these guys to make a contribution.”
On recruiting techniques he’d like to use when things are back to normal
“I think using virtual Zoom, whatever you want to call it, to do home visits is something that was very beneficial to myself and the assistant coaches in terms of developing relationships with the families. We also included the families in virtual practice. We included them in virtual medical meetings, virtual strength and conditioning, academics, academic appointments. So, this was our only means to be able to adapt, too. So, is it better in person? Yeah, I’d much rather have personal relationships and be able to have people visit us and show hospitality and they get a chance to meet more people, not just the person who is actually Zooming with them. But we had a lot of people contribute in trying to do that in a lot of ways, including our players in some cases. Look, nothing’s better than being in person, aight, but we adapted and did what we had to do the best we could do it and I think a lot of people did a really good of that. Now, do we implement some of these things in the future? Absolutely. Does that mean they should replace personal relationships? I don’t think so.”
On running back depth for next season
“Najee had a great year for us, and we don’t ever try to compare players and we’re not trying to replace Najee. But we do have some other players that I think can make contributions this year and their experience is probably gonna be helpful as their role is going to probably increase. But look, every team is different and I can’t predict the development of -- everybody’s role is gonna be different and how players buy into doing the things that they need to do to accept that role and embrace that role is gonna be the key to how these people develop at these positions. But it’s the way it goes in college football. You lose 25 percent of your team every year. It creates lots of opportunities for other players, and how they take advantage of that, to a large degree, determines how successful they can be and how successful we can be.”
On Jalen Milroe
"We had Jalen in camp way back when and we really liked his skill set. He’s really athletic. He’s really accurate as a passer. He’s got a strong arm. He’s got a really good disposition about himself as a leader and a great personality that I think people can sort of follow. And we’re excited to have him here. He was one of the top guys in the country in our opinion, and we were really happy to get him here.
"And obviously there’s a lot of competition with Bryce and the quarterbacks we have coming back, but we want to help develop them all because we need to develop not only a starter at that position but also depth at that position."
On replacing staff members and what he was looking for in a staff
"First of all, the staff that we had last year did a phenomenal job, and we’re happy for those that got better opportunities. Several guys got head coaching jobs, and one guy got a coordinator job. So we’re excited about the opportunities that they got for themselves.
"I’m also excited about the people that we’re able to hire. So a lot of questions have been asked about these are NFL guys. Sark and Kyle Flood were NFL guys when we hired them, too. But they’ve been in college, they have college experience, they know the college game. And I think when it comes to offensive coordinator, quarterback development, you need knowledge and experience, and I think I think offensive line is the same kind of deal. The other coaches that we were able to hire are great position coaches that are good recruiters, so we’re excited about the staff that we have right now. But we also have a tremendous amount of appreciation for the job that last year’s staff did as well.
"There’ll be new energy, new enthusiasm, new ideas in terms of how we can improve what we are doing, but we’ve never reinvented the wheel here when we hired new people. We’ve just tweaked what we do to feature the players we have, and that’s what we’ll try to do with this group."
On what was attractive to you about Bill O’Brien as offensive coordinator
"If you look at Bill O’Brien’s track record, he was a really successful college coach. He was a really good coordinator in New England when he was an offensive coordinator for the Patriots. He did a tremendous job when he was the head coach at Penn State in one of the most difficult circumstances that anybody could ever be in after the Joe Paterno deal. And he did a really good job in Houston in terms of I think they went to the playoffs three or four years.
"So you’re talking about a guy that has a really good track record in terms of whatever his responsibility has been, and he’s someone I’ve always had a tremendous about of respect for. So we felt very fortunate that the timing of the situation allowed us to hire someone like that. I’m excited about it, and I think it’s a great addition to our staff here."
On what challenges he foresees with lack of experience at quarterback
"I think this year was harder to help certainly get guys experience playing games because we played all SEC games or playoff games. So we’re going to have to do a good job of helping these guys develop knowledge and experience and play with confidence.
"But I don’t see how having an older player — I mean Bryce actually played behind a guy that won the Davey O’Brien [Award] this year all year long, saw him practice every day. So I don’t really see how having another guy helps develop a younger guy. I don’t get that for sure or where that sort of assumption comes from. I don’t know that we’d do anything different."
On Ga’Quincy McKinstry and Terrion Arnold playing football and basketball
"Well look, I’ve told players that they can play other sports. We kind of what them to do what they have to do in football when they’re freshmen so that they kind of learn the ropes. We’ve had guys run track here, several guys. We don’t have issues with guys playing other sports. Holcombe played baseball. And I had several guys at Michigan State that played basketball, tried to play basketball, tried to do both.
"I’m happy with these guys, and Coach Oats and I have a good understanding of how we try to do it. It’s a little bit more difficult to play basketball because the seasons run together a little more, but if guys can contribute to our basketball program here, I’m all for it. And we’re going to do everything to help them develop as football players, and when they don’t have football responsibilities they can certainly go play basketball. If they can contribute to our team, I’ll be happy for them and happy for our basketball program."
Camar Wheaton signs with Alabama
