Nick Saban
Nick Saban
Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. is an American football coach. He is the head football coach at the University of Alabama, a position he has held since the 2007 season. Saban previously served as head coach of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and three other universities: Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, and the University of Toledo. His eight-year contract totaling US$32 million made him one of the highest paid football coaches, professional or collegiate, in the United States at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth31 October 1951
CityFairmont, WV
CountryUnited States of America
From an intangible standpoint, it's about things like effort, mental toughness, the ability to stay focused and execute, and be a little relentless in the way you try to go about your work, ... We're gladiators out there. We're modern-day gladiators and that mental toughness has got to permeate your team.
Ideally, we would like to keep many of those players on our roster, but we are simply not able to do that.
I am so happy for Ricky. He has played a great role for this team all year. He has been unselfish and has been a really good team guy.
I am surprised that I keep getting asked the same questions that I have been asked for the last six months and I keep answering them the same way,
But what happened in their first game is no indication of the kind of team that they have.
This was just a conversation about would I be interested or not,
This was probably Ricky's best overall game out there, in terms of him having some space to work in, not only as a runner, but a couple of times as a receiver as well.
This was a big step in having success, ... The next one's a big step in how to handle it.
What people do on the field is kind of your calling card in terms of the quality of work. When he was a defensive coordinator at Jacksonville and Pittsburgh, they did some pretty quality work. They had top-line defensive teams. He did it in different situations featuring different types of players. That will be helpful to us.
What is is and what's now is now and we're going with what we've got.
We go in and had the same situation because of our turnover (Brown had fumbled on the preceding possession), and make a sack and get a turnover. It doesn't get any bigger than that.
We gave him the work we thought he could handle. Do I think he got enough work in the preseason to be ready for the first game? I didn't make the decision to come to practice when he came to practice. We did the best we could under the circumstances.
We want to pick the quarterback that's going to give us the best opportunity to win. I'm not prepared after watching that game to make a statement about that.
We want to duplicate enthusiasm and team energy,