Alabama coach Nick Saban watches the first half against Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark.Tide, take three• 1. Alabama improved to 7-4 all-time against No. 1 teams following Saturday's 25-20 win over Mississippi State, with that 63.6-percent win clip the best in college football.• 2. Crimson Tide freshman punter JK Scott leads the nation by having placed 53.5 percent of his attempts inside the 20-yard line.• 3. Alabama has defeated Western Carolina in three previous meetings by the combined score of 153-6.
Alabama football coach Nick Saban admitted Monday that he really likes this year's team.
He just doesn't like the thought of the No. 2-ranked Crimson Tide looking ahead.
Alabama is coming off its biggest win of the season, Saturday's 25-20 topping of previously undefeated and top-ranked Mississippi State. The Crimson Tide control their destiny in making college football's inaugural four-team playoff, and traveling to Bryant-Denny Stadium for a visit this week is Western Carolina.
"It really becomes for everyone, 'Do you want to take advantage of the opportunity that you've created for yourself, or do you just want to go do what you've got to do to win the next game?'" Saban said Monday at his weekly news conference. "If that's the case, then we're probably not going to improve a lot. We have a lot of things we have an opportunity to improve on."
Western Carolina is 7-4 this season as a Championship Subdivision member and 5-2 in Southern Conference play. The Catamounts were battling UTC for league supremacy until Nov. 1, when the Mocs demolished the Catamounts 51-0 in Cullowhee, N.C.
The Tide hosted Western Carolina two years ago and won 49-0, taking a 42-0 halftime lead before Blake Sims capped the scoring midway through the third quarter with a 5-yard touchdown run.
"We're never going to overlook a team," senior tight end Brian Vogler told reporters. "This is another team standing in between what we want as a team as far as our long-term goal. We know that if we come out and execute on every single play like we're supposed to that things will take care of themselves."
Alabama's 2012 team won a second consecutive national championship and a third in four years. While Saban doesn't want his players looking past this week, he did admit the 2014 Crimson Tide will rank among his favorites.
"As a head coach, when you have energy vampires on your team who never do what they're supposed to do, they take up all your energy as a coach," he said. "So you've got five guys who take all your energy, and you never get to enjoy the other 95 guys who do everything right. We just don't seem to have those guys on the team, and we seem to have a lot more guys who like each other and seem to buy in and try to help each other and do what's best for the team.
"It's a pretty selfless group of guys when it comes to everybody being all in to do what they have to do, and that's always more fun to deal with as a coach."
The "energy vampires" reference was from the 2007 book by Jon Gordon titled "The Energy Bus," which has been a popular motivational read for several Southeastern Conference football coaches.
Alabama players had the day off Monday and will practice this afternoon. Saban said tailback T.J. Yeldon, receiver DeAndrew White and kicker Adam Griffith will be monitored the next couple of days due to injuries that have nagged them the past few weeks.
Tide tidbits
Alabama's Amari Cooper was the only SEC receiver named Monday among the 10 semifinalists for the Biletnikoff Award. ... Alabama is 5-0 at Bryant-Denny Stadium this season, winning by the average score of 44-11. ... Saban on suspending Altee Tenpenny from last week's game after the sophomore tailback was late for a team meeting: "If it was not important enough for him to be at a meeting, then it was not important enough for me to dress him for the game."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.