TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Even though the University of Alabama football team is on a bye this week, Tuesday’s press conference was vintage Nick Saban.

In the span of seconds the coach went from offering high praise about freshman Cam Robinson and sophomore Derrick Henry to venting about the offensive miscues during Saturday’s 42-21 victory against Florida (four turnovers and 11 total penalties), and media accountability.

But it was a question about offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin, and if he gave him more latitude to open up the offense than his predecessors, that got the coach going.

“Not at all. I’ve been begging the offensive coordinators around here to open it up ever since I’ve been here. I mean, Jimbo Fisher was the best offensive coordinator that I’ve ever had, who did what I wanted to do, and everybody wants to run the ball. Now we always had a very good team to run the ball, and we had a very good defense, and it was really smart to play the way that we played.

“Now we have more skill players, who are good perimeter players, and I think we’re doing what we need to do on offense to take advantage of that. Lane does a really, really good job of taking advantage of what players can do. I think that has benefitted us so far this season. But there’s a lot of things that we need to do better on offense.

“The offensive line needs to play better with more consistency. We need to be a better inside running team. You can’t have seven administrative penalties, you know what administrative penalty is? False start, wrong formation, can’t get it started right. Bad cadence, all that stuff. And we will. The players have to do a better job of communicating and doing that. But we have made a lot of explosive plays. We haven’t always been as consistent as we need to be, and that’s what we really want to focus on doing.

“My philosophy hasn’t changed at all. I’ve always asked for this. Why don’t we throw the ball on this look instead of running this play where we can’t block everybody? Which is what we do now. It’s a pro philosophy, and Lane’s got experience as a pro coach. That’s his background, that’s what he does. And he does a really good job. And I think he utilizes the players really well and presents problems for the defense by formation and adjustment. It’s worked out well, and hopefully will continue to improve.

“In my opinion we have not arrived as an offense, and he would be the first to tell you that. And I will tell you that too. I’ve already said … a lot of things that we did in the last game will get you beat. You turn the ball over four times and have nine penalties on offense, you’re not going to win very many games. Now, we won that game, but they didn’t generate any points on their own, only off of turnovers. And we made a lot of explosive plays and we controlled the ball, especially in the second half. There’s a lot of things we need to do better.”

Incidentally, the Southeastern Conference record for receiving yards was Josh Reed with 1,740 in 2001 at LSU. His head coach at the time was Saban, with Fisher the Tigers’ offensive coordinator.

The press conference really took a left turn, though, when Saban was asked about he and Kiffin’s personalities.

“It’s never been bad. Whoever said it was bad? So why does it need to get better? I thought something had to be bad before it needed to get better. So why do you ask me has it gotten better? That assumes it was bad, that it was worse at one time.

“So now we’re in love, we fell out of love and now we’re back in love? I don’t get it.”

The reporter clarified that he wanted to know if things have improved as they became more familiar with one another.

“We communicate well together. He’s very respectful in terms of presenting the information that I need, and when I make suggestions he always respects them. We communicate well during the game. It’s always been good, is the way I would put it.

“I mean, if I did what you all thought when I hired the guy, he wouldn’t even be here. Maybe that was the assumption because nobody thought it was a good hire that all of a sudden something’s bad. I don’t know. I thought it was a good hire. Nobody else did. I got beat up like a drum for doing it and now all of a sudden it’s great.

“You guys don’t have any consequences for what you say or do. Our stuff ends up out there on the field on Saturday and if it ain’t done right there’s consequences in front of a whole bunch of people, however many people watched the game. What were the rating on the last game, like 5.1? How many million is that? (media relations person answers, “That’s a good question”) And however many was in the stadium. It’s a different kind of scorecard than you all have to live with.”