TUSCALOOSA, Alabama - At first, it seemed that the highlight of Nick Saban's response about defensive end D.J. Pettway would be his comparison of Pettway's pass-rushing role to that of a middle reliever.

But his passionate speech was about standing up for a player who made the most of a second chance after a serious mistake and ended up graduating in three and a half years.

Pettway was dismissed from school in Feb. 2013 after an arrest on a robbery charge, but allowed to come back this January after a year in junior college. He's played a key role in No. 1 Alabama's national championship push, but he's done even better off the field.

"It's really, really good for me and I think for some of our administrators around here who, our President, who shakes hands with all of our players when they walk across the stage and graduate, when we give somebody a second chance and they do well and graduate from school," Saban said Saturday after practice.

"There's always a lot of criticism out there when somebody does something wrong, everybody wants to know how you're going to punish the guy. There's not enough for 19 and 20-year-old kids, people out there saying, 'Why don't you give them another chance?'"

And then Saban got real serious.

"So I'm going to give a speech right now about this," he said.

"Where do you want them to be? Guy makes a mistake. Where do you want them to be? You want him to be in the street or do you want them to be here graduating?"

He made reference to Muhsin Muhammad, who got in trouble while playing for Saban at Michigan State but turned into a success story after his second chance.

"Everybody in the school, every newspaper guy, everybody was killing a guy because he got in trouble and they said there's no way he should be on our team," Saban said. "I didn't kick him off the team. I suspended him. I made him do some stuff."

The receiver enjoyed a 15-year career in the NFL. He created a charity foundation called The M2 Foundation for Kids. Saban noted that Muhannad has seven children, and his oldest daughter is at Princeton.

"So who was right? I feel strong about this now, really strong, about all the criticism out there of every guy that's 19 years old that makes a mistake and you all kill them," Saban said.

"Some people won't stand up for him. My question to you is, 'Where do you want him to be?' You want to condemn him to a life sentence? Or do you want the guy to have his children going to Princeton?"