Saban's Weekly Press Conference - Transcript for those that missed it

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Opening statement:
"I would say that we're very, very excited to open the season for a lot of different reasons. First of all, I think our players are probably tired of practicing against one another and are looking forward to the season, the competition, and trying to create an identity for themselves, which I think is always the challenge for any team. Also maybe for the sake of our community, from the standpoint of giving people from a spiritual standpoint something else to think about, something else to be passionate about, something else to create hope about and also to continue to create awareness for the community. A lot of people are going to come to the game and see Tuscaloosa maybe for the first time and maybe that will inspire some people to continue to try to help to rebuild our community."

"I think the number one thing that is a priority for our players is you've got to take the attitude in first games, especially when you're playing against a team that has a new coach, which you're not always exactly sure of what you're going to see. They've got a coordinator from Purdue on offense. They've got a coordinator from Youngstown State on defense. You see what they did last year. You see what their personnel is. You don't know if they're going to run Ohio State's offense. There's a lot of unknowns, more unknowns than you usually have in preparation for a game. Really the key thing is to take care of business. Everybody take the approach to take care of business and challenge themselves to prepare well, play the best football, see where our team is and work to create an identity of who we want to be, what we want to be, what we want to accomplish and spend our time focused on those things."

"We don't have any players injured. Trent Richardson is excused from practice today because of a death in the family. Everybody else will be practicing today. The Duron Carter situation, although we're optimistic that it may get done at some point today or tomorrow, we still don't have verified information that we could say it is done. He may be at practice today; he may be at practice tomorrow. We don't have the information. He has to be admitted to school and until that happens, I'm really not free to comment on what that circumstance or situation is. We are optimistic that it is going to get done. Even if it is done, we would put a plan into action to try to work him into shape. He probably wouldn't have a lot of opportunity in this game; we would try to use this week to help him implement into what he needs to do as a football player to try to get ready for some time down the road. Maybe a week or so from now, he could be a guy that could work his way into something if he performs well."

"We have a tremendous amount of respect for every team that we play. We certainly have a lot of respect for them [Kent State]. They have a lot of players back from a team last year that made a lot of progress and played well as a football team. Their defense was in the top ten in the country. They played very well. They're physical. They were tough, especially for their league. They say they have five starters back, but you really could figure they have nine back. They say they have nine starters back on offense but you really could say they have all eleven back based on how guys played. They have a lot of returning people; they have a mature team. They've played in places like Penn State last year and all that. I'm sure they're looking forward to coming here and playing in front of 100,000 people. We certainly have a lot of respect for the kind of team they have, what they're capable of. It's going to be about our team taking care of their business."

"I'd again like to thank the players that came down here and contributed to the cleanup and worked with our players this summer. I think it speaks volumes of somebody who would take their time to serve and help other people, and we certainly appreciate all they did."

On Barrett Jones:
"The only place he hasn't practiced this fall camp is right tackle. I'm not one that likes to make multiple moves when you lose someone, but we feel like we have a little more depth in the offensive line, and that there are advantages and disadvantages to both when Barrett plays left tackle and to when Barrett plays guard. "

On Cyrus Kouandjio:
"We want to see how Cyrus plays in this game. We will play him some, and we'll kind of make a determination as to where we go from there. He's done well. I think a lot of these guys have very good physical ability, but they haven't had to pay attention to detail when it comes to technique. It's almost a new horizon for them when all of a sudden if they don't do it right, they aren't just physically better than the other guy, so if they don't use correct technique it creates an issue and a problem. They don't even have a great capacity for learning technique because they've really never had to do it that much. I think that's what a lot of our freshman go through, and I'm not just talking about Cyrus. I think they underestimate the importance of that in terms of their quality of performance as a college football player. I think Cyrus has made good progress in that area and will continue to do that. He's a guy we would like to see develop through the course of the year, and one of the parts of his development will be to see how he responds when he gets in a game situation and plays."

On the defense's experience:
"Well we obviously have a lot of guys who have some experience and have played a lot of football. You've heard me say before it all depends on what they do with this experience; is this a challenge for them to play at a higher level or does this experience create a comfort zone for them to think that they already have it and don't need to work to do things better, and with the kind of effort, toughness and execution that will help us be a better defensive team. So I like the experience, and I like the leadership. We just have to continue to work."

On the defensive line rotation:
"We have lots of competition in the defensive line, where we have players returning but have also lost some very good players over the last couple years up front. Jesse (Williams) has made a contribution up there. (Josh) Chapman is a very good nose guard, Quinton Dial, (Damion) Square, we might even end up playing a freshman, Jeoffrey Pagan, some if he continues to develop. We've still got competition at a lot of positions. We have depth at some positions. We've utilized different personnel packages to try get guys roles and opportunities. That's something we'll continue to work on throughout the course of the year."

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