Alabama coach Nate Oats sent a message with the benching of star Mark Sears. Here's what Oats said of his decision to bench Sears vs. LSU:

Nate Oats and Mark Sears cleared the air after practice Tuesday in the aftermath of Sears' benching last Saturday against LSU.

The program's bigger than any one person including the head coach so let's build such *** strong program, such *** strong culture by everybody in it that we don't rely on just one person all the time,