[Tuck4Bama]

“I’ll probably get asked about this, so I am going to address it on the front end. I do think it was to our advantage to play a team like Cal in the opener, particularly with the schedule that we have coming. It doesn’t take away the sick feeling in your stomach, and being really mad yesterday and Sunday. Getting back to practice was probably the best medicine that you could possibly have, and getting back around the team and seeing them make the corrections and starting to work on the next opponent and to improve in the areas we need to improve in. But I think in the long run, it will pay dividends for us through the season.

“The first area we addressed yesterday was the kicking game. I told the football team for two weeks leading to Cal that we would win the game or lose the game as a team, and that the kicking game would be a very, very important part of that. We did not play as well as we would have liked to, starting with the kicks. We stayed after practice and worked diligently yesterday and we’ll continue to on the kickoffs. I don’t think we would be having this problem at all if Britton (Colquitt) was healthy and out there, because he certainly can kick it where you want it and as deep as you need it. It starts with the kicks, but even with that, our kickoff coverage was not good. We addressed that yesterday and we’ll make those corrections.

UT Sports Official Site