Alabama football has taken some public shots from some of its ex-players this week. After a 34-24 loss to Texas at Bryant-Denny Stadium, a group of alumni, including George Teague, Bo Scarbrough, Reggie Ragland and Reuben Foster have posted on social media criticizing the current Crimson Tide.

Earlier in the week, current players Roydell Williams and Kool-Aid McKinstry said they didn’t pay attention to the outside criticism. On Wednesday, Nick Saban agreed with them, but didn’t fault anyone for being negative about the team.

“People call me and say ‘This guy’s a jerk for saying this about you,’” Saban said. “No, he really isn’t. I mean, it’s right. We didn’t play good. I’m responsible for that.”

Alabama struggled mightily in the loss to Texas on both sides of the ball. Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers had a big day, throwing for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns, while the Crimson Tide couldn’t finish drives and had multiple penalties take touchdowns off the scoreboard.

Saban said his team has responded well to to the loss in practice throughout the week, ahead of a road matchup with South Florida on Saturday.

“The standard comes from here,” Saban said, motioning toward his chest. “Motivation comes from out there. We would like for everybody to have pride in performance so their standard is something that’s important to them and they’re willing to do the things to invest in their future that they need to do so that they can be the best players that they can be. Nobody can really have the poor-me’s about my circumstance, my situation, how I feel, we lost a game, none of that. Don’t waste a failing. Do everything you can to try to improve and get better.”

Saban said he hadn’t listened to the radio or read a newspaper since Alabama lost to Texas, focusing all of his time on righting the wrongs of that game and preparing for USF. He wished all of his players would as well, preferring them to focus inside the program.

But he knew that the criticisms were still going to come.

“In the real world, when you don’t perform and you don’t produce, you probably get criticized,” Saban said. “Sometimes you get penalized. Some people lose their job when they don’t perform well. That’s maybe even worse than losing a game, when you can’t feed your family and your children and all that, can’t make their house payment, I guess that’s worse.”

Alabama and South Florida are scheduled to play at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Tampa. The game will be aired on ABC.

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