Alabama coach Nick Saban is a guy who likes to talk about the "process" of building a championship team, not immediate results or day-to-day evaluation.

That's probably a good thing, considering the way the Crimson Tide finished with a 7-6 record and closed out the regular season with four straight losses, including an explicable home loss to Louisiana-Monroe, a second consecutive loss to Mississippi State and a sixth straight loss to rival Auburn.

At Alabama, the process better lead to championships. In his second spring on the job, Saban didn't define where the Tide is in that process but he did insist the program had made progress.

"Our goal was to get every player to improve as we can have more guys play to their potential," Saban said. "We (wanted to) improve relative to effort, togetherness and responsibility and we made a lot of progress in those areas.

"Our second goal was to make some decisions about what our strengths are and what our needs are for the future."

The most immediate strengths appear to be the offensive line, the running game as a whole, the secondary and experience at quarterback. The primary questions come with the lack of depth throughout most of the depth chart and the lack of proven players at receiver and linebacker.

Based on those strengths and weaknesses, the Tide won't enter the season as a favorite to win the SEC West. Based on what Saban sees building from the inside out, the Tide could be a lot better than outsiders expect.

"We wanted to build leadership and team chemistry," Saban said. "We've made some progress in that area. It starts with everybody understanding what the expectation is as far as representing this institution and understanding why that is important.

"We're seeing more players starting to affect other players. We're seeing that peer pressure can work in some cases and that does have an effect."

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