Two days after news of defensive lineman Jonathan Taylor’s arrest on charges of domestic violence and a day after his dismissal from the team, Alabama coach Nick Saban addressed the media.

His statement was simple: he was not sorry for giving Taylor a second chance but sorry for the incident. He defended signing Taylor, who was dismissed from Georgia football due to domestic violence charges.

“I think it’s very unfortunate but he came here with some very specific guidelines and zero tolerance and obviously he didn’t live up to that,” Saban said. “And while we’ve created many opportunities for players through the years and sometimes those things have worked out extremely well. We’re sad to say in this case it didn’t and we all take 
responsibility for that.”

On National Signing Day, Saban said Taylor was a player who deserved a second chance and was doing a “good job” going through the process of steps they were using to monitor him.

Saban said these steps 
included psychological profiling and counseling. He said Taylor never missed a session.

“He did everything he was supposed to do,” Saban said.

But after an incident Saturday evening where the victim had minor injuries to her neck, according to Tuscaloosa police, Taylor was arrested and held on $1,000 bond and put in mandatory 12-hour domestic violence hold.

By 1 p.m. Sunday, he was dismissed from the team.

“I’m not sorry for giving him an opportunity, I’m sorry for the way things worked out,” Saban said. “I’m not apologizing for the opportunity we gave him. We wanted to try and help the guy make it work, it didn’t work. We’re sorry it didn’t work, we’re sorry there was an incident, we’re sorry for the people that were involved in the incident.”

Saban was less clear on if Taylor’s charges changes his and the program’s stance on recruiting players with prior domestic violence charges. He said they do not condone that kind of behavior especially when it deals with how women are treated.

“That’s something we try to create a lot of awareness for with our players and we would certainly be very cautious about any player that any character problem, especially something like this, would be something that we would be very careful about in the future,” Saban said.

“But I will say this. We will continue to try to create opportunities for players and try to help them be successful, and even in Jonathan Taylor’s case, if there’s anything we can do to help him overcome his issues and problem we will still certainly try and help him be successful. But right now the guy just can’t be on our football team,” Saban said.

In the past, Saban has given second chances to players who have been dismissed from programs.

Notably, DJ Pettway was dismissed from the Crimson Tide after he and two other former players were arrested and charged with two counts of second-degree robbery in February 2013. Pettway enrolled at East Mississippi Community College and played there for the 2013 season. He returned to Alabama after working through the judicial system.

“We’re not apologizing for what we did and we’ll continue to create opportunities for people in the future and we’ll very, very closely evaluate anyone’s character that we allow into the program because we all have a responsibility to represent The University of Alabama in a first class way, not to mention how we should represent ourselves and our family,” Saban said.

Senior safety Geno Smith was arrested over the weekend on charges of DUI, his second such arrest at Alabama. Saban said Smith has things to do in the next few days and in the future that he wouldn’t share. When he’s done those things, they will allow him on the field, and he’ll be able to practice again, Saban said.