Top quotes from Nick Saban’s Sunday teleconference ahead of SEC Championship

This is a tremendous opportunity for our team. They sort of created that for themselves by making a tremendous amount of improvement throughout the season. I’m very proud of the transformation of our team from the beginning to the end, the hard work and preparation that our players have been focused on all year long.

Georgia obviously is to me the best team in the country. Got a great offensive team. They run the ball. Great passing game. Quarterback’s really, really good. They got great running backs. Their defense is one of the best defenses in the country, probably the best defense in the SEC.

There’s a lot of challenges relative to playing a great football team. The SEC Championship game is one of the best competitive venues I’ve ever been involved in. Our team is excited about having the opportunity they created for themselves to play one of the best teams in the country.

He’s had a little foot injury all year long. He tweaked it in the game. He’ll be day to day this week. I can’t tell you how much progress he’ll make. Probably the next 48 hours will tell us whether he’ll make the kind of progress he needs to be able to practice some and play in the game.

I think his transformation at the quarterback position has helped us transform our entire offensive team. The confidence that he’s playing with, the confidence that our players have in him. I think we’ve done a pretty good job of trying to utilize the skill set that he has.

He’s learned that the most important thing at his position is to distribute the ball. He’s done a really, really good job of that. I think that’s really enhanced the transformation of our offensive team to be much more effective and productive.

Well, I think winning the SEC is always a big thing. Ever since I’ve been in this league, when you played in this game, when maybe the Playoffs weren’t the significant outcome that it is right now, it was still something special to be able to win the SEC.

I mean, this is a great league. There’s a lot of good teams. For your team to get in the position to play another great team in this league… Most of the games we’ve been involved in involved great teams.

It means a lot to me. I think it means a lot to our players. I think it will mean a lot in the future, as well. I don’t think whether there’s four teams in the Playoffs or 12 teams in the Playoffs, I mean, this game has some significance in terms of what might happen in the Playoff, but that’s not necessarily true all the time.

There is a significance to playing in the SEC Championship game.

I think to answer that honestly, I hired Kirby, he was really, really young. He was a position coach and did a great job as a position coach. We elevated him to be the coordinator.

I kind of knew that he had great leadership qualities. That’s why we made him coordinator. When he was a coordinator, he did a great job of managing that side of the ball. I knew he’d be an outstanding head coach someday.

It’s phenomenal what he’s been able to accomplish at Georgia. I mean, to win as many games in a row, win a couple championships, have another chance to do it again a third time, I mean, that’s phenomenal.

It’s phenomenal to win however many games – what is it, 29, I don’t even know for sure – but how many games they’ve won in a row… We won 19 games in a row here twice. I know how hard that was. It’s hard to sustain.

So he’s done a phenomenal job of recruiting and developing players in the program. I think the result bears that out.

Well, they beat us in a national championship game the last time we played, so I don’t know that one game is more important than the other.

Obviously whoever plays the best in this game will have the best chance to win. I have a lot of respect for Kirby. We don’t jostle about winning and losing, dog each other about it. I think I have respect for what he’s been able to accomplish.

He did a great job for us when he was here. I just appreciate him a lot for the kind of person he is, kind of coach he is, kind of job he’s done.

Well, I think first of all, tight ends are bigger people. When they’re very athletic and very good receivers, it’s a little bit like basketball in a way. If you have a really talented big guy, and he’s athletic enough, you got to guard him with a smaller guy, that creates some advantages for the bigger guy. If you cover him with a bigger guy, and the bigger guy is not as athletic, that creates some problems, too.

I think it’s a mismatch issue that comes from having guys that are really good blockers. If you have smaller guys guarding ’em, then you got a mismatch in the running game, too.

Well, I think he does a really, really good job of executing their offense. He doesn’t make very many bad reads. He throws the ball in the right place. He’s very accurate with the ball. He throws it on time. He understands their offense very, very well. Executes the play that’s called and distributes the call correctly, almost flawlessly.