Nate Oats institutes ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for Alabama players in 3 key areas
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Nate Oats shared details on the new standard Alabama players will be held to moving forward while speaking with reporters on Saturday night.
Oats is planning to bench players who don’t meet certain standards during games. The policy includes giving lack of effort, failing to make adjustments based on the scouting report and committing turnovers. Oats held players accountable on multiple occasions during the Tide’s 96-83 win over Kentucky on Saturday.
Oats was asked about making 9 substitutions in the first 6 minutes of the game vs. the Wildcats.
“I basically said there’s going to be zero-tolerance for [lack of] effort, scouting report screw-ups … and then just dumb turnovers,” Oats said. “We’ve got to stop turning the ball over. I don’t know that it worked, but that’s the way it’s going to be moving forward.
“I’m tired of guys not being locked into the scouting report. And if you grade our effort levels 1 through 10, it’s not like we’ve got anybody giving a 4, 5, 6. But there’s levels to this thing and we can’t be giving an 8 or a 9. We need a 10. We’ve just got to challenge the guys and I thought they responded well.”
Whether or not Oats’ policy made a significant difference in the game is up for debate, but the overall game plan undoubtedly produced a good result for Alabama. After Kentucky jumped out to 12-point lead midway through the 1st half, it was all Crimson Tide from that point onwards. Alabama took a 7-point lead into the break and then built on that edge in the 2nd half.
We’ll see if Alabama can keep this momentum going on Tuesday when it hosts Mississippi State.
Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
