Alabama won 38-10.

The band played "Rammer Jammer" for the remnants of the sell-out Bryant-Denny Stadium crowd early Saturday evening. But there was no joy in the Alabama locker room after beating Western Kentucky.

Postgame interviews took the feel of a loss after an uneven afternoon rich with penalty flags. Nick Saban was blunt.

"I don't know that I've ever been this disappointed after winning a game, maybe ever," he said. "We have lots of work to do. We're going to play a lot better teams. I didn't think we practiced very well this week. I didn't think we prepared very well for this game. I don't think we respected the team we played. Like I said before, when you're arrogant, it makes you complacent. It creates a blatant disregard for doing things right. If we don't start doing things right, we're not going to have the kind of success that we're capable of."

From there, Saban took responsibility for a performance lacking rhythm and pace.

"I'm almost embarrassed that I didn't do a better job for my team," he said.

Center Bradley Bozeman said there was a degree of embarrassment with the way the offensive line performed. He didn't see a happy Saban in the postgame locker room.

"He was pretty ticked off, to be honest," Bozeman. We didn't play up to our standards."

There were few smiles when players followed Saban in the media room. Receiver ArDarius Stewart said you can tell early in a game how a team is going to play.

There's a standard to which they play, he said. It wasn't met

"We're happy for the win but it wasn't the way we want it," Stewart said. "It wasn't Alabama football tonight."

WKU tied the game 3-3 in the first quarter on the strength of a trick play. Saban said he was happy with the way the Tide defense responded from there, holding a potent passing game to 216 yards and returning one interception for a touchdown.

But the 12 penalties and 84 sacrificed yards sat poorly with Saban. One holding call brought back a play ending at the WKU 1-yard line. There were two touchdown passes dropped. After leading 17-3 at halftime, Alabama added three second-half touchdowns to pull away.

A last-game fumbled handoff gave WKU a short enough field to score its lone touchdown with under a minute left.

"That's bad ball, and that's bad football," Saban said. "That's not the kind of football we want to play here, and that's not the kind of football team we want to have."

It was the kind of night that leaves a winning locker room unhappy.

"You could look around," senior safety Eddie Jackson said, "and just tell no one was satisfied with the way we performed today."