HOOVER, Ala. — It sounded as ironic as a fat person espousing the benefits of long-distance running, but there it was.

Alabama coach Nick Saban referred to his team as a n0-huddle offense. This just months after adamantly campaigning against the fast-paced trend enveloping college football.

The Tide still are adapting to the new paradigm, as Saban acknowledged multiple times last season. His most interesting contention was that the team’s defense played the equivalent of three additional games in 2014 due to the additional tempo of the Bama offense.

“I think it’s important that, if we’re going to be a no-huddle team like we were last year, I think we have to manage the season better with our team, because I think at the end of the season last year, we ran out of gas a little bit,” Saban said.

“We’re going to have to do a better job of keeping our team where they need to be so that we can finish strong.”

Asked whether the team indeed ran out of gas at the end of the season, linebacker Reggie Ragland and center Ryan Kelly mostly deferred.

“The SEC’s a grind. I don’t think anybody can deny that,” Kelly said, adding that strength and conditioning coach Scott Cochran has tweaked the team’s workouts to try to better prepare the Tide for the end of the season.

Alabama’s traditional offense alleviated some pressure on the defense, especially when the team could run the ball, march down the field four yards at a time, huddle, and be in no hurry between snaps. But it’s difficult to imagine the Tide abandoning the strategy this season.

Offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin is a big reason the team won an SEC title last season, and the unit broke all sorts of school records while averaging 36.9 points per game. Fifth-year backup Blake Sims emerged and threw for 3,487 yards.

The tempo changes and lack of huddling in college football also have drastically altered Alabama’s recruiting and strategy on defense, Saban conceded Wednesday.

“I think it’s affected (us) tremendously. Being an old NFL guy, the way you play defense in the NFL is you play a lot of specialty defense because everything is based on situations,” Saban said.

“You have to basically play the same players in every situation because, if you do play situational defense and you’re not allowed to sub in that particular situation, you can’t get the players out of the game. So it affects how you recruit. You can’t recruit as many specialty players. And you have to be able to match up in all circumstances and situations with teams that actually play that way, which is more difficult.

“I don’t think there’s any question about the fact that it’s more difficult to play defense, and I think that’s why you see more points being scored, and I don’t think that trend’s going to change any time soon.”