Nick Saban admits there were multiple errors when it comes to Alabama’s game-deciding play against Michigan.

That play ultimately involved a designed quarterback run to Jalen Milroe, a decision that received plenty of criticism after the loss for the Crimson Tide. While the play did not work, Saban admitted a low snap complicated things.

“It wasn’t a great snap. It was a low snap,” said Saban. “Now you don’t have your eyes up, it makes it harder to make those kinds of cuts (to the outside).”

Saban admitted snaps were an issue throughout the season for the Crimson Tide, but he also said center Seth McLaughlin thought he was hearing claps throughout the game. That led to some of the snapping issues in the Rose Bowl.

“That’s something that’s been a little bit of an issue for us all year long. You know, when you go on a clap, and you use that as a noise cadence, every time somebody hits a pad on defense… Michigan was not clapping, but our center was thinking somebody was making a noise that sounded like a clap,” Saban explained. “And he was snapping the ball early sometimes and when we weren’t ready for it sometimes and that’s a huge issue for a quarterback.”

As for the play call on fourth down, Saban explained Alabama had a different look on first down and liked the formation against Michigan’s defense. After exchanging timeouts, Saban said the third look for the Tide was not favorable but that Alabama was out of timeouts.

The head coach admitted it was a coaching error that Alabama did not have a second play ready to switch to at the line:

“The first time we went out, we had the look we wanted to run the play that we wanted to run. They called timeout. We changed what we were going to do the second time out… and we didn’t like the look we got, so we called timeout,” said Saban.

“I didn’t like the look we got (the third time lined up). We couldn’t call timeout. We should have looked the play… Lined up in the formation, see what they were in and have a second thing that you could go to. And we didn’t do that. That was our fault as coaches.”