Nick Saban and Alabama dodged a couple of bullets earlier this year in wins over Texas and Texas A&M.

But the Crimson Tide couldn’t dodge a 3rd on Saturday in Knoxville against Tennessee.

The Volunteers won 52-49 on Chase McGrath’s 40-yard field goal on the final play of the game.

The outcome likely would have been different, however, if Alabama’s Will Reichard had converted a 50-yard FG attempt with 15 seconds to play.

The kick, however, missed wide right and Tennessee took advantage, handing the Tide their first loss of the season.

It was a great game by any objective measure, and after the game Saban met with the media and offered his thoughts on one of the best college football games in recent memory.

“You gotta give them a lot of credit,” Saban said. “They did a great job with their offense based on what we were trying to do on defense.  But we didn’t execute well enough. You gotta give our players a lot of credit for fighting back, getting back in the game … and having an opportunity to win at the end. I wish we could do some things a little different in the end.”

Saban added that his team needs to take the loss as a teaching moment and that there’s still a lot of football to be played.

“The big thing our players need to do is learn from this experience, have more respect for playing with discipline,” he said..”… But I also told the players that we can accomplish every goal that we had at the beginning of the season.”

You can see all of Saban’s comments in the video below: