Given the circumstances, Nick Saban wasn't stunned by some of the mistakes he saw from his defense opening night. He knew Louisville was going throw some exotic looks at a young group still finding their sea legs.

Expecting it and see it are two different things.

And Saban wasn't celebrating a win early Sunday morning as much as he was teaching the corrections. Of the 10 penalties, seven were charged to the defense. Two came on third downs during the Cardinals first touchdown drive of the 51-14 beating in Orlando. Those made Saban particularly mad.

A few players explained some of what happened in certain breakdowns that didn't threaten Alabama's win but left a sour taste for its coach.

Linebacker Mack Wilson took the blame for communication issues getting play calls distributed to the defense. It was the first time he was in the true quarterback-of-the-defense role and he said he did "OK."

"I kinda was confident going into this game and I feel like (Louisville) did some things that we didn't go over and I was kind of like 'What should I call?' or whatever," Wilson said, "but I made a call and we were on the same page and we kinda executed that play but of course it probably wasn't the right call but at least we ran something."

Wilson then gave some interesting insight into how calls are made when things move fast.

"Coach Saban always says if we mess up, make sure we all mess up so we're all on the same page," Wilson said. "So I just say something similar to what we should run and we kinda try to go out and execute it."

It's worth noting Alabama held a 34-0 lead into the third quarter before Louisville got its first score. The Cardinals netted just 16 rushing yards.

So, it wasn't like Alabama lost the game.

"I was encouraged by the effort," Saban said Monday, "I was encouraged by the toughness, I was encouraged by the resiliency that the players showed in competing. Guys really played hard in the game. The mistakes, we can fix. So that's what we're looking forward to."

Among those misfires were a few coverage busts. Safety Deionte Thompson didn't remember the exact number of those mental errors but it was too many.

"When you see a guy running wide open and nobody's around him," Saban said after the game, "that means somebody messed up. Because we don't have any defenses where a guy doesn't get covered. We don't have any."

Louisville had a 47-yard pass to receiver Seth Dawkins but nothing longer than 30 yards after that. The Alabama corner covering him on the big play, Saivion Smith, came on a blitz and the quick pass didn't have anyone nearby to help. Dylan Moses tracked him down from behind from the middle linebacker spot to save a touchdown at the 6.

Thompson took responsibility for the communication breakdowns on the back end of the defense since Wilson relays those calls to him. It all happens in a matter of seconds.

"It has to be very quick," Thompson said. "But it's what we work on in practice, so shouldn't be a big job. Just have to do a better job of it."

Missed tackles also bothered Thompson after going back to the film. Bad angles taken to the ball carrier were to blame most of the time.

"We kind of got sloppy towards the end," he said while noting these were all fixable issues.

Alabama opens the home schedule at 2:30 p.m. CT Saturday against Arkansas State.

Michael Casagrande is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.