Alabama’s quarterbacks were sacked 12 times during Saturday’s spring game, threw a total of four interceptions and had several passes dropped by the wide receivers supposed to catch them.

But as Nick Saban began his opening statement of his postgame news conference, there was an optimistic tone struck as he recapped a 15-practice spring period and looked ahead to his 17th season in Tuscaloosa.

“I think all in all we had a good spring,” he said. “I really like the spirit and the energy of this team.”

It was a reinforcement of what Saban said 10 days earlier and a glimpse into what Saban saw behind closed doors in practice, even as his starting quarterback remains a mystery entering the summer.

Will the 2023 team win a national title for the first time since 2020? Make the playoff but fall short of a championship? Miss the playoff for a consecutive season? That did not seem to be the point of Saban’s praise, which felt less focused on the outcome and more on the process.

For the potential challenges this team might face, including at quarterback, Saban feels his players have adopted the right approach needed to overcome them.

“I like this team,” Saban reiterated Saturday. “I look forward to this team. Are there things that we need to do better? No doubt. We’ll focus on those things and look to improve, so that they’re not issues for us in the fall.”

When asked to evaluate the physicality of his team, Saban elaborated on what has fueled his optimism.

“I like this team’s toughness. I think they’re physical. They play hard,” he said. “We don’t have a bunch of guys that are soft or looking for an easy way. They try to please the coaches. They try to play with intensity. I think we have better practice habits than we’ve had in the past.”

Explained senior defensive lineman Tim Smith: “Nobody wants to be embarrassed in practice … Our main emphasis is guys finishing, straining to finish, making sure they’re getting to the ball. It could be play No. 8, 10 — it doesn’t matter. Are you going to make that choice to run to the ball and get to the ball?”

How that translates to wins on the field this season remains to be seen, and Saban in the past has praised the camaraderie and attitude of teams that have experienced varied success.

At the start of the 2020 season, Saban said he “like[d] the spirit” of that team. It showed. Alabama swept a 10-game, SEC-only schedule, then won an SEC title and a national championship. After being carried onto the field for the postgame celebration in Miami, Saban called it his “ultimate team.”

Two years later, Saban opened the 2022 season by saying, “I like this team, I really do.” But by early November, it had lost two games and effectively fell out of the running for the playoff. Even so, Saban still spoke his like and love for that team, and how it approached its work. That included during its preparation for the Sugar Bowl in December, when he called those weeks the most enjoyable before a non-playoff bowl game he had experienced.

There is clearly a large gap between what Alabama’s 2023 group showed Saturday inside Bryant-Denny Stadium and the buzz saw that tore through college football in 2020 to win the program’s most recent national championship. But Saban indicated Saturday there is at least a foundation in place to get better.

“It’s really simple,” he said. “It’s all about people being committed to the team, respecting what they have to do to play winning football. I’ve said this all spring long — we’ve got to eliminate some of the negative plays, which would be interceptions, which would be turning the ball over, which would be dropping balls, which we had too many of today. … Also giving up plays on defense, making mental errors. Those kinds of things are what get you beat.

“The way you eliminate that is players are committed to doing what they need to do to play winning football, which means they are committed to what they need to do to help the team be successful, and they don’t ignore the things that are important to winning. They respect those things, they buy into them, they do those things every day to create the kind of habits that will enable us to go out and be the kind of team we’re capable of [being].”

Mike Rodak is an Alabama beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @mikerodak.