What Utah State HC Blake Anderson said about preparing for Alabama
When Alabama and Utah State take the field on Saturday, Utah State head coach Blake Anderson will make his return to Tuscaloosa after a four-year hiatus. In 2018, Anderson led the Arkansas State Red Wolves into Bryant-Denny Stadium, falling 57-7 to the eventual No. 2 team in the country that season.
Now Anderson leads the reigning Mountain West champions to the Yellowhammer state after defeating UConn, 31-20 in Week 0. Here’s what Anderson said about Alabama during his weekly press conference:
On what the message is to his players about playing Alabama…
“It does not get any easier, we’re going to play the best team on the planet. There are just no weaknesses, there aren’t. It’s a huge challenge for our guys, we need to focus on us and focus on getting better. We cannot focus on Alabama this week or we’ll go in stary-eyed, look up the game we’ll be at halftime and the game will be over. … We have to play our best football to have a chance to be in this game, that’s what we’re going to focus on all week.
Our message is let’s improve, let’s get better, let’s go try and make a game of this and the only way we can do that is to play our best ball. We’ll see if that gives us a chance to play with these guys. You won’t know until you get there, but if you don’t play your best ball, I know exactly how it will go and none of us will like it.”
On playing in front of a sold-out crowd at Bryant-Denny Stadium…
“Enjoy it, I mean heck who gets an opportunity to do that? Who gets an opportunity to line up, strap up with 100,000 people in the stands? Don’t let it intimidate you, let it fuel you. The stadium is still going to be the same length and we’re still going to have to do the same things, but let that be an excitement, don’t let it distract you from doing the little things right. That’s easier said than done, but we’ve got to find that simplicity in the electric chaos the environment is going to be. Just line up and play ball. Throw and catch, tackle and try to improve this week. We’ll see if we can do that. It’ll be a challenge for anyone who goes down there, not just early in the season but late. Hopefully, our guys will get excited and play their best ball.”
On Alabama’s running back depth…
“The challenge is real. They just transferred in the best running back in the country from Georgia Tech. Put that behind maybe the best O-line in the country and a quarterback that can do it all. Again you can get overwhelmed by it, but we have to be lined up in the right gap, play great technique and tackle well to have a chance at slowing them down. You will not stop them, that’s not happening and that’s not what this game is. It’s about slowing them down, frustrate them, hope they make a mistake, capitalize on any mistake that they do make and make them kick the ball some. If not you’ll look up and you look at these games in the past, they’ll score 60. We want to keep the score down, keep it a manageable game, give ourselves a chance to be in it, line up right, play great technique, play super hard and tackle better than we did this week. That’s really all you can ask, but there is no weakness and they just got better. They graduated and sent some dudes to the NFL and just got better. They went out and took a wideout from Georgia, took a running back from Georgia Tech, they just got better.”
On Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr. …
“They are as advertised. Two of the best players in all of ball, they’ll play at the next level. Both are on the shortlist for the Heisman. We’re going to see Will Anderson at his best. He played with a big knee brace on for most of last year, we won’t be so fortunate. He will be primed and ready to go. He’s impossible to block, we’ve gotta have help on him or we gotta get it out get. We can’t just stand up and expect our guys to block him one-on-one all day. We’ve gotta get him tired, fatigue him and hope he’s not in great shape yet. Bryce can make every throw and beat you with his feet, everybody in the country saw that a year ago. They are phenomenal players and they are surrounded by a lot of phenomenal players too, which makes it even more difficult. By themselves, it would be one thing, but the guys right next to them to the right and left are just as good. It amplifies the problem.
On the depth at linebacker…
“I hope you’re not going to go through all of the ranks of all of their defensive players because I would assume they are ranked somewhere extremely high. It’s kind of redundant, but you can’t get focused on it. If you do and turn the page to look at rankings and all of the measurables, they are no weaknesses. Just a whole pile of great players versus great player versus great player. Every position is going to be the best position we see all year, maybe the best positions I’ve seen in my lifetime as a coach. They’re as advertised. Huge challenge, focus on what we can control, quit worrying about who is in the jersey and play our best ball. Don’t do their work for them. The last time I was down there, the whole first quarter all we did was make mistakes. The game was over by the end of the first quarter, then we settled down and actually played some really good ball and I think we may have outgained them in the second half. We just have to play good ball, play sound ball and the rest of it will take care of itself, but there is not a weakness. You look at the depth chart, they can all play. There is probably some of their best players are guys that nobody knows their name yet, they just haven’t had an opportunity to play enough yet. That’s always the scary part. We’ll expose or find somebody that nobody even knew, well he’s a future hall-of-famer, future All-American. They’ll show up when none of us want him to.”
On Xavier Willaims facing his old team and if it’s being overblown…
“I think it’s being overblown right now. He’s just trying to factor in for us. He’s played some special teams for us today and played some snaps on offense. This is a guy that hasn’t played ball in a year and a half due to an injury. I think he’s just trying to get his legs underneath him and get on the field. Obviously, you’d love to go back against your old teammates and your old friends and play well, but I think his biggest challenge right now is getting back on the field and playing at the level he’s comfortable and capable of playing at. He’s just not there yet. Alabama has nothing to do with it.”
On going up against Nick Saban…
“I’ve got to be the same way as the players and focus on us. I love the idea of testing yourself against the best, we all do, that’s why we get into this. But the best thing that I can do as a head coach is prepare our team to play our best ball. Keep it within what we can control. If we go out, regardless of the score, and play our best game, then I’ve done my job. If we go out and play our best game, the best game we’re capable of playing, then we’ve done a great job as players and coaches. That’s really all we can focus on. If we focus on anything else, we’re going to make mistakes, we’re going to get outside of what we’re capable of and we’re going to make this game one that we’re all frustrated with. That’s the best thing I can do. Go into a great environment against a hall-of-fame head coach, against a Heisman Trophy winner and go put a great team on the field and play our best and make them earn everything they get.”
On if he’s taken any lessons from when he last played Alabama as the head coach of Arkansas State in 2018…
“The best thing to take away from that game was that we were mentally and emotionally overwhelmed in that first quarter, and we did things that were super uncharacteristic of who we were. We had a corner blitz that turned out being a corner and a safety and it turned a wideout completely loose and the guy could have thrown it end-over-end for a touchdown. We misalign defensively on a play and had two gaps completely open, the guy didn’t even have to change directions. We just did really stupid things early, we look up and we’re down 21 and then we decided to settle in and play. We actually made them punt the ball, we moved the ball offensively. As I mentioned I think we may have outgained them in the second half by just doing little things right. It wouldn’t have been enough to win the game, but it would have made it a competitive game had we played that way the entire day, and then who knows what happens then. That is what we take from that game. You must go in and play your game. You can’t go in and play there’s. You have to go in there and play your ball. Play the best ball you can, line up right, tackle, defend, throw and catch, put bodies on people and let the game itself take over. It’s a great learning experience. I came back and showed film to that team and we all just scratched our heads and we like ‘Why did we do some of the things that we did?’ We let the moment and the environment overwhelm us, and then when we settled in, we played pretty good football. We want to avoid that. That is what this group can learn, I think it doesn’t hurt that Logan Bonner was right there in the mix of that group. He’s been there and he’s done it. Some of these guys will hopefully listen and be able to share from his experience. Hopefully that’ll help us.”
