Alabama's Top Fall Camp Priority Is Creating More Turnovers on Defense

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — When Nick Saban wasn’t talking about how well he thought the summer went, injured running back Bo Scarbrough’s four-game suspension or how he’s someday going to write an autobiography, he established Alabama’s most pressing priorities during his first press conference of training camp Thursday.

While most would think picking a starting quarterback would head that list, it didn't as Saban is pretty confident that competition will eventually work itself out. Instead, his top area of emphasis was something else entirely.

“The last couple of years we have not done very well in turnovers,” the coach said. “We had a minus-two turnover ratio last year for a team that won 12 games—almost unheard of.”

While stressing the importance of turnovers isn’t necessarily new for the coach—Saban made it a team priority in both the spring and summer—the first practices of the fall are when he’ll start seeing if his months of effort are starting to paying off.

He doesn’t just want turnovers to be something that's talked about. He wants the pursuit of turnovers to be ingrained in everything the Crimson Tide defense does.

“Stripping at the ball, running backs falling to the ground, trying to strip the ball,” junior defensive end A’Shawn Robinson said about turnover drills, which have become a bigger part of practice.

A steady decline in the Crimson Tide’s statistics, which culminated with last year's 11th-place finish in the Southeastern Conference in turnover margin (71st nationally), led to Saban's renewed focus on this aspect of the game.

Team	Fumbles recovered	Interceptions	Total	Turnovers lost	Margin
Georgia	13	16	29	13	+16
Missouri	13	15	25	16	+9
Kentucky	8	15	23	15	+8
Ole Miss	10	22	32	25	+7
Arkansas	12	12	24	17	+7
Auburn	5	22	27	20	+7
Florida	14	16	30	24	+6
LSU	10	10	20	17	+3
Tennessee	8	16	24	22	+2
Miss. State	7	16	23	23	+0
Alabama	9	11	20	22	-2
S. Carolina	8	11	19	21	-2
Texas A&M	8	5	13	20	-7
Vanderbilt	7	6	13	29	-16

Texas A&M (five), Vanderbilt (six) and LSU (10) were the only SEC teams with fewer interceptions than Alabama (11) in 2014. The Tide's 11 picks were less than half of what they recorded during their 2009 national championship season, and the total brought the program’s average during the Saban era down to 16.6.

In comparison, Saban’s LSU teams averaged 15.2 picks per year (with a high of 21 in 2003), and his Michigan State squads averaged 12.4 (with 15 in 1995).

Moreover, Alabama’s defense only recovered nine fumbles in 2014, tying for No. 67 in the nation. Again, that was low for the Crimson Tide overall, though it was actually up from the previous season’s eight.

"A lot of people weren't really stripping at the ball in the past year," said senior linebacker Reggie Ragland, who led Alabama in forced fumbles with three last season. "We had a down year for turnovers really, so coaches gave an idea for guys to really just start trying to get at the ball and get the ball out."

Year	Interceptions
2007	19
2008	15
2009	24
2010	22
2011	13
2012	18
2013	11
2014	11

Actually, they had numerous ideas.

It started with Saban hiring former Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Mel Tucker as Alabama's defensive backs coach and promoting Tosh Lupoi to outside linebackers coach. Among other things, both were tasked with making their position groups more of a ball-hawking force.

“I think he’s kind of reestablished the standard for expectation in terms of how we play back there in terms of the effort that we give,” Saban said about Tucker.

Next was the creation of the continuous “Ball Out Champion” award, a boxing-style belt that will regularly be passed around among defenders who make big plays. It was on the move a lot during Alabama’s A-Day scrimmage, in which they tallied six interceptions, a fumble recovery and broke up eight passes to go with 19 tackles for a loss, including eight sacks.

Then, Saban changed the messenger. He’s big on having guest speakers regularly address the team, and one of the reasons why is that sometimes some things sink in more if they come from someone else. (Saban compares this to a parent telling a child the same thing over and over, but as soon as another person says it they believe it.)

So during the offseason, Saban called upon one of his former assistant coaches, Jason Garrett, the current Dallas Cowboys head coach who was his quarterbacks coach with the Miami Dolphins and had an invitation to follow him to Tuscaloosa.

“He had NFL stats from five, 10, 20 years,” Saban said. “When you are plus-one in turnovers you have an 80 percent chance to win. When you’re plus-two in turnovers you have a 95 percent chance to win, and it goes up from there.”

Marvin Gentry-USA TODAY Sports

Finally, the coaches decided that the members of their defensive front seven needed to come into training camp leaner and ready to go, and all indications Tuesday were that they did just that. Among those who appeared a little trimmer were All-SEC preseason selections Ragland and Robinson, and Robinson told reporters that his weight was down to 314 pounds.

That’s down from a year ago when he played at 320, and Robinson’s hoping to be closer to 310 when the season starts Sept. 5 against Wisconsin in Arlington, Texas (8 p.m. ET, ABC). Jarran Reed, who is often next to him on the defensive line and is listed as 313 pounds is also trimming down.

“He’s a lot better,” Robinson said about Reed. “He’s lighter, he’s quicker. He’s faster off the ball, can convert and run the pass just as well as anybody on the team. And so he’s been working on that and just about everything.”

Quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Christopher Walsh is a lead SEC college football writer. Follow Christopher on Twitter @WritingWalsh.