SEC Media Days: Alabama Returning Starters Learned from Last Year

Alabama was picked to win the SEC by the media last Friday in Birmingham, but the Crimson Tide aren’t going to let outside interference effect them this season.

Alabama was represented by the three men who landed on the preseason All-SEC team in junior running back Trent Richardson, junior linebacker Dont’a Hightower and senior safety Mark Barron. All three guys had the same mindset: not to buy into the preseason hype and that what happened against Auburn in the Iron Bowl a year ago will never happen again.

“I feel like maybe last year guys looked too far into it, maybe got a big head,” Hightower said. “This year it’s not about that. Guys are trying to stay out of the media and All-SEC’s and All-American and all that.”

While Hightower said the Tide wasn’t paying attention to preseason hype, Alabama did lead the conference in players  on the All-SEC team with 16. Alabama head coach Nick Saban believes how the Crimson Tide can handle the mental aspect of the season will have tremendous effect on the result of the season.

“Consistency and performance, how you play day in, day out, play in, play out, week in, week out, certainly determines the success that you have,” Saban said. “The two goals we had in the offseason were to play better fundamentally and to eliminate mental errors, because when we did a quality control assessment on last season, those two things were major factors in whether we were successful or unsuccessful in our games.”

Alabama has seven returning starters on offense and nine on defense, but Saban said the players will be hard to replace that the Tide lost as they all played in critical positions.

“But we do have, you know, some question marks on our team,” Saban said. “I think the fact that we lost four guys that were first-round draft picks at critical positions, two explosive players on offense in Mark Ingram and Julio Jones, a great defensive lineman who affected and dominated the game from his position in Marcell Dareus, and left tackle obviously, James Carpenter, one of the most critical positions in the offensive line.”

Hightower, Richardson and Barron were all emphatic about the way the Auburn game ended last year after leading the Tigers 24-0 only to lose 28-27.

“I think about it every day,” Richardson said. “We have signs all around the locker room. I have a sign in my room and it says never again. That’s how I feel about it, and that’s how the team should feel about it.”

Hightower likes to use the game as motivation to finish this upcoming season strong, and he thinks that the game should be talked about more often.

“Not enough to be honest (on being asked about the Auburn game),” Hightower said. “We came out fast and strong, but somewhere through the process we let up and that’s one of our mission statements this year. It’s all about finishing.”

“(Losing to them) is one of the key things this year. That’s a lot of motivation,” Barron said.

Richardson has trouble even watching tape from the game.

“You can never get over that,” Richardson said. “I don’t even like to watch the whole game over, because I know we could have done better than that.”

The offense is returning starters from every position except for the quarterback position, but Saban believes he has two capable guys that can get the job done.

“Having a new quarterback, having two very young, talented players at that position who both have not had the kind of knowledge and experience that you'd like to have at that position, but obviously both players very capable and talented,” Saban said.

The two quarterbacks Saban was talking about is sophomore A.J. McCarron and freshman Phillip Sims.

As for the defense, most people think the secondary is the real strength of this team as Alabama landed three guys on the Jim Thorpe (best defensive back award) watch list in junior safety Robert Lester, junior cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick and Barron. Barron said it’s an honor to have that many guys on the award list, but they are focused on getting better and aren’t worried about the individual accolades right now.

“We have a lot of talent,” Barron said. “The three guys up for the Thorpe award is great, but we don’t really want to focus on that. We want to come out working and try to better ourselves.”

Hightower said the changes between this year’s team and last year’s team are evident, and he believes this Alabama defense has a chance to be the best defense he’s ever been a part of.

“Other than ’09 when we won the national championship, I feel like we have exactly what it takes,” Hightower said. “It’s all about how we go out and use it and how we take advantages of our sources.”

Alabama will kick the season off at home against Kent State then will head to State College, PA, to take on Penn State in a pivotal non-conference matchup.

Jake Martin is a Member of Bleacher Report and a sports writer for the Concordia Sentinel in Ferriday, La. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained first-hand or from official interview materials from the Concordia Sentinel.