Penalties irk Nick Saban in Western Kentucky victory

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (TNS) — A lot seemed to bother Nick Saban after Alabama’s 28-point win over Western Kentucky.

The general mindset led to mistakes of all varieties. An uncommon number of yellow flags irked Saban the most.

The 12 penalties were the most since committing the same number at Texas A&M in 2013. Of that total, 10 were called on the Alabama offense that had issues finishing drives most of the afternoon.

The Tide would not get another first down on drives following six of the offensive penalties. One brought back a 63-yard pass on a play ending at the WKU 1-yard line. A delay of game on a field goal sent Adam Griffith back to the bench in favor of a punt.

“The disappointing thing about a lot of the penalties is that they’re self-inflicted wounds, they’re like unforced errors — false starts and things that are a lack of focus and discipline-type penalties,” Saban said. “The good news is they are correctable and we certainly need to get them corrected. That’s certainly my responsibility.”

Five of the flags were thrown for false starts on five different offensive linemen. Another was for an illegal formation while two were for blocking infractions.

With a trip to a recently-expanded and always hostile Vaught-Hemingway Stadium coming Saturday, Alabama won’t have much time to correct the misfires.

“We only had four last week and what did we have, 12 today?” Saban said. “And probably 10 of those on offense. How do we have four last week and 12 this week? So we’ll just go back and do what we did before.”

The only defensive penalty was called on Tim Williams’ late hit on WKU quarterback Mike White late in the first half. It kick-started a drive that covered 57 yards in just over a minute — one that ended in a blocked field goal to end the half.

A year ago, Alabama ranked 60th nationally in penalty averaging 5.9 penalties a game.