TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The latest championship arrived in dramatic fashion — in overtime, with freshman quarterback Tua Tagovailoa connecting with DeVonta Smith, a 41-yard bolt for the touchdown and yet another national title. As the confetti rained down moments later, Nick Saban told an interviewer: “I’ve never been happier in my life.”
Five months later, Alabama’s fifth national championship in Saban’s 11 seasons is, like all those others, a thing of the past. The dynasty continues, but "the Process" moves ever forward; neither the coach nor the program he has built show any signs of slowing down. As the SEC’s annual meetings begin in Destin, Fla., Saban seems relaxed, content, and yes, happy — don’t mistake that for complacent, ever — and ready, as always, to tackle the next challenge. He will turn 67 on Oct. 31, square in the middle of what projects to be another season of the Crimson Tide vs. the rest of college football.
Earlier this month, Saban spoke with USA TODAY Sports on a variety of topics — everything from the quarterback competition to whether he’d like to be a selection committee member for the College Football Playoff. (The latter would of course require retirement from coaching. We asked about that, too.)
Q: Five national championships in 11 seasons. Knowing you don’t look back, but does all the success surprise even you? Do you say, ‘Wow, we’ve actually accomplished that much?’
A: I don’t know. I don’t really, because it’s sort of become the standard and the expectation, so it’s kind of hard to feel good about what you’ve done in the past when you know the expectation is can you continue to do it in the future? Which may be unrealistic in some ways but certainly challenging in others and is certainly what we try to do.
Q: Would you like to be on the College Football Playoff selection committee if you were retired?
A: Would I like to be? Not really. I haven’t ever really thought a lot about what I’d like to do if I wasn’t doing this, aight? But that’s not something that I’m aspiring to be a part. But if I wasn’t — I’d love to be involved in the game, you know, even if I’m not coaching. So maybe that would be one of the ways that I could stay involved in the game. So I shouldn’t make an emotional response.
Q: So here’s the question you get every offseason: How much longer do you go?
A: You know, I really don’t have any — I enjoy what I’m doing. And I don’t have some — I mean, what scares me more than to continue to coach is, what do you do if you don’t? I mean, I really enjoy what I’m doing, I enjoy the relationships with the players, I enjoy the competition and challenges of trying to maintain a high level of organization. I’ve been a part of a team for God knows how many years, since I was nine years old and been the leader of a team for what, probably 20-something years now.
I get a lot of positive self-gratification for it, the relationships, to see the players graduate, do better. To have Ha Ha (Clinton-Dix) and Amari Cooper and Derrick Henry come back to graduate — I mean there’s just so many good things that happen, because you know it’s not necessarily how you live your life, but it’s what significance did your life have on other people? This is a great venue to help and do that. And just to say well, I’m gonna quit when I feel great about doing it is, I don’t get that. I mean, it doesn’t make sense to me.
Now, I will say this: If I wasn’t healthy enough to do it and feel like I was doing it well, I wouldn’t want to continue to do it and ride the program down or anything like that. But I certainly don’t feel that way and that’s not where my mindset is right now.
Q: The competition between Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa is ongoing, but what do you look for in a quarterback as you make a decision like this? Have you had a situation like this at Alabama, this sort of competition?
A: You know, we kind of did when A.J. (McCarron) was a young player and Philip Sims. Not quite the same because neither one of those guys had played, they were just both high-profile guys. So look, my responsibility and obligation to the two players is to be fair and honest with each player and give them every opportunity to compete and play if they deserve it. And my responsibility and obligation to the team is play the best players.
And that would be at any position so why would it be different at quarterback?
Q: We’re heading into the fifth season of the College Football Playoff. Is there something about the Playoff that has changed things for you and your program?
A: The Playoff is not the only reason, I think player safety is another reason. We’ve made some changes in workload, how we practice, because the season’s longer. I think if you get in the Playoff, and we’ve been in a few times now and played both games a few times, it can get a little physically and emotionally draining on the players. So we’ve tried to, even on a yearly basis, have downtime, psychologically, physically, emotionally. And we’ve tried to do the same thing during the season, to look at it less like a sprint and more like a long-distance race that you have to be able to maintain the pace. But other than that, I don’t think we really change a lot.
Q: Has anything been lost in college football because of the Playoff?
A: Oh, I think the significance of bowl games has been diminished dramatically and that was one of the unique things about college football: If you had a successful season and went to a bowl game, that was a real positive gratification for your team, your fans and everybody in the organization.
Right now the Playoff becomes the standard, and if you don’t get in the Playoff it’s a disappointment and to go to a bowl game is kind of a consolation prize. And I think the attendance and the interest and all of those things have diminished, and that’s very unfortunate, really unfortunate. But I said that would happen. It’s hard for bowl games and a playoff to coexist. It’s a tradition we’re trying to maintain and I appreciate it, but … now the solution is if you have more teams, don’t have bowl games. Just have an eight-team playoff or whatever.
But the bad thing about the way we do the Playoff is because we try to tie it into the bowl games and all that, you’ve got to wait a month before you play and then you play two weeks in a row. So that’s really hard on your players. Where in Division II they just keep playing. I mean, it’s like high school. They just have a game the next week.
Q: You’ve had plenty of staff turnover in the last couple of years, especially at offensive coordinator. How does that impact your team?
A: Systematically we don’t change. First of all, the offensive coordinator (Mike Locksley) we hired was here, so he completely knows the system. He completely knows the players? So that always makes a transition better. The defensive coordinator (Tosh Lupoi) was here? So that makes the transition better. Because you’re not changing terminology, you’re not changing system, you know. You’re not making changes for everybody in the building (including) the most important ones, the players.
So now, does that mean you don’t improve the system or do something a little different or some of the new coaches that you have have new good ideas that you implement into it and make some subtle changes? But we don’t make wholesale changes, and I think that’s the key to the drill. Where a lot of people, when they hire a new offensive coordinator, let the guy do whatever he wants. Well, that means everything changes for everyone.
Q: If Alabama had not gotten into the Playoff last season — and obviously they chose y’all over Ohio State — would you have understood the selection committee’s reasoning?
A: That would have been a little bit hard one for me, because you’re talking about a team that had two losses vs. one. Our loss was one on the road against a ranked team, a pretty highly ranked team. One of their losses was a very bad loss against an unranked team. It was hard to make comparisons, but you know, it’s a difficult job that they (the Playoff selection committee members) have, too. I recognize that. Because the standard is not the same in terms of, no matter how you try to calibrate strength of schedule and conferences and those types of things — hey, I know I’m in the minority on this, but I think the whole scheduling thing in college football needs to be revamped.
I think College Five (Power Five) conference teams should play all College Five conference teams. You know, and we should play more conference games. Then to me, losing two games wouldn’t knock you out of this, because you’d be playing more good teams. You can barely have a bad game in college football and survive it. And if you have it late in the season like we did it seems to have more significance in terms of how people feel about it than if you lose games earlier.
But a lot of the reason people don’t want to do a stronger schedule is, a lot of people worry about can we win six games and be bowl-eligible? So my answer to that is, why don’t you pick the teams to go to bowl games just like they pick the teams that get into the NCAA basketball tournament?
You know, rank 'em and it’s not about your record. It’s a little bit about your RPI or however they figure it out. And pick the best teams that way.
Q: Do you have a favorite memento here in your office?
A: You know, I’m probably, I mean championships and the things that represent those championships are special, but I guess I’m a little more sensitive to relationships. So when I look around and I see pictures of Mal Moore, Bobby Bowden, Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry who won the Heisman Trophy, coach Stallings, those relationships are kind of pretty sentimental.
