Nick Saban has high expectations for everyone on Alabama’s football team and that includes the backups.

The Crimson Tide head coach lit into the second group during his press conference Saturday after practice.

‘The second group, both sides of the ball, lots of mental errors still, lots of struggles, lack of confidence in terms of how they play and how they execute,” Saban said. “Obviously we need to get more guys that can play winning football.”

Ouch.

Saban spent much of the six-minute press conference sounding off on the second group. He didn’t single out a player or a position group and Saban didn’t spare anyone from criticism.

“One of the things that the players need to do is they need to be able to respond after a bad play,” Saban said. “We have too many guys, young guys, inexperienced guys, second-team guys…they have a bad play and it effects the next five plays.”

It’s not surprising for Saban to occasionally use the press conference as a chance to send a message to his team, especially if he feels like the press clippings have been too kind. We all remember his issues with ‘rat poison’ right?

So is this Saban sending a message to some young guys that might think they are better than they are or possibly something more?