NOTEBOOK: Penalties plague Alabama; Taylor makes appearance
Nick Saban found plenty of problems with the offense in Saturday's 38-10 win over Western Kentucky. Turnovers, dropped passes and missed assignments all grated at him.
Then there were the 12 penalties called against the Crimson Tide, most in the last 42 games for Alabama. Ten of those were against the offense.
"How do we have four last week and then 12 this week?" Saban said. "We'll just go back and try and do what we did before. We have officials in practice every day to call penalties on guys."
Five different players were called for false starts: offensive linemen Korren Kirven, Alphonse Taylor, Cam Robinson, Jonah Williams and tight end Brandon Greene. Left guard Lester Cotton and running back Bo Scarbrough were each flagged for holding.
A delay of game, illegal formation, and substitution infraction rounded out the miscues for the offense. The 12 penalties added up to 84 yards, but some were even more costly than that. Cotton's holding penalty negated a 63-yard pass that would have given Alabama first-and-goal on the one.
"The disappointing thing about a lot of the penalties is that they're self-inflicted," Saban said. "They're like unforced errors. False starts, things that are really lack of focus and discipline type penalties. The good thing is they are correctable. And we certainly need to get them corrected, and that's certainly my responsibility."
Taylor returns
Senior guard Alphonse Taylor returned to the lineup, replacing Ross Pierschbacher at right guard late in the first quarter. Taylor and Pierschbacher rotated back and forth for the remainder of the game.
"We said we were going to play Alphonse Taylor in this game," Saban said. "He started at right guard last year. So we need the guy to play. We'll evaluate how the guys played and try to play the best five guys that we can, but he was the starter for the whole year."
Taylor started all 15 games last season and helped Alabama win the Joe Moore Award, given to the nation's best offensive line. He was moved to the second team in spring when he was overweight, then suspended for the season opener.He'll have a chance to win a job back, Saban said, but he hasn't done it yet.
"Probably needs to get in a little better shape," Saban said. "Hopefully he'll be a productive player for us. I hope both those guys are productive players for us."
Notable numbers
Punter JK Scott averaged 46.4 yards per punt on five attempts against WKU. Three of his kicks were downed inside the 20 and he had two kicks longer than 50 yards, including a 58-yarder.
Sophomore wide receiver Calvin Ridley tied a career high with nine catches. He had 129 yards and a touchdown.
Alabama had 42 pass attempts against the Hilltoppers, the most since it threw 59 times in last year's loss to Ole Miss. Alabama had just 16 passes last week and had not thrown more than 33 passes in any game since the loss to the Rebels.
Tide Bits
Freshman linebacker Mack Wilson came in at fullback to block for Bo Scarbrough's fourth-quarter touchdown run on the goal line … Freshman defensive lineman Raekwon Davis made his Alabama debut in the win. He was declared eligible on Wednesday … Governor Robert Bentley was in attendance … Former Southern Cal head coach Steve Sarkisian, who was hired as an analyst this week, watched the game from the upstairs coaches' box … Team captains were left tackle Cam Robinson, linebacker Reuben Foster and defensive end Jonathan Allen … WKU won the toss and chose to receive.
Reach Ben Jones at ben@tidesports.com or 205-722-0196.