🏈 CNS Says Players Played Not to Get Hurt in the Sugar Bowl

[bama alum]

The article is full of tweets, which don't copy and paste too well. I agree with him. Those draft stock announcements need to be pushed back.

http://collegespun.com/sec/alabama-...yers-played-not-to-get-hurt-during-sugar-bowl

 

[riz]

Narratives, man.

 

[planomateo]

We lost, I don't want to hear any excuses.

 

[UAgrad93]

We all know Coach has an agenda each time he speaks at media days. He has some issue brought out. I agree with the idea of holding that information until after their last game is played so to keep the goal of winning as top priority.
Problem is, when you speak about this following a loss, it is automatically considered an excuse.

 

[PhillyGirl]

What happened, happened. Just don't let it happen again. Play your hardest every game, and bring home #16 this year!

 

[Max]

Excuses, excuses.

That was the main topic at SEC Media Days in Hoover on Wednesday as hundreds of attendees were breathlessly writing or Tweeting that Nick Saban was making “excuses” for Alabama’s loss to Ohio State because he suggested that the NFL’s early draft entry date (Jan. 15) might have been a distraction for some Crimson Tide players.

Never mind that Saban has said since his postgame press conference in January that Ohio State deserved the credit for winning. Never mind that his main-room comments came on a question (from Chase Goodbread, a former colleague here at The News who now works for the NFL Network) that directly addressed the draft, not the Ohio State game. To be fair, he also made the point in a smaller group session earlier in the day. But in neither setting did it seem like his purpose was to “explain” or, if you prefer, “excuse” the Crimson Tide’s loss to OSU.

Nonetheless, he said what he said, and what do you expect reporters to do? Tweet about Mark Stoops?

Lost in the kerfluffle was Saban’s actual, perfectly valid point: the college season lasts longer, the NFL Draft has been moved back, but the date for underclassmen to declare remains the same. Pushing back a week or two would eliminate a potential problem. (There is an unspoken implication that the problem affects Saban more than most coaches because those coaches don’t have to worry about playing in mid-January.) In an earlier draft of this column, I took some writers to task. Upon reflection, I think it’s more fair to say this: if you aren’t around Saban on a fairly regular basis, you can miss the way that the thought process works. Did he think about the NFL Draft as one possible issue that affected “team chemistry” leading up to the Playoff semifinal? Yes. Does he think constantly about every possible variable out of hundreds that may have affected that game? Yes. Did he bring in former Ohio State offensive coordinator Tom Herman earlier this year so they could talk about NFL Draft dates? Of course not. It was part of an exhaustive self-review.

Losing bothers Saban, tremendously. That’s part of why he wins so often. But he isn’t give to reflexively making excuses about it. His off-season thought process hasn’t changed from what it was in 2008, when he also lost to Urban Meyer. He is thinking about every possible way to keep it from happening if the two teams meet again this season. Remember, Saban got the same heat that season when he said that Alabama wasn’t interested in the Sugar Bowl against Utah (it wasn’t) and that losing Andre Smith in an agent mess that week didn’t help matters (it didn’t.) “Excuses,” the critics cried, but it was obvious in the following season that he had worked relentlessly on improving, not on standing still and looking for alibis.

Perhaps Saban would have been better served to have simply given a meaningless “we lost to a fine opponent” answer and then moved on. Sadly, some commentators seem better equipped to handle the bland answer, no matter how much they complain about “coach-speak.” It doesn’t push them out of a quick-take comfort zone. If Saban came across as more concerned about what affected his own team last January, then maybe that doesn’t sound gracious, or humble. But it is the way you ultimately fix a lingering problem.

From the Tuscaloosa News...

 

[alabama mike]

The reason we lost the game was because OSU controlled the LOS on both sides of the ball in the 2 nd half and C. Jone made some timely plays on 3rd and long. Getting a draft report had nothing to do with winning or losing a game. We got beat, plain and simple. Let's move on to this season.

 

[Destiny's Child]

Let's face it. The only reason this was spun this way was because it's the middle of July and they have absolutely nothing to write about. Any article that starts with Alabama or Nick Saban will draw eyeballs to websites, magazines and news stations. So the media is just waiting for anything they can spin to boost ratings during a dead time.

PS. Saban is right. Not that it cost us any game, which he never said by the way, but that it can be an unnecessary distraction at a time when they need to be focused. The draft was moved back the championship was moved back and the release of that information needs to be moved back also. Far be it for the truth to get in the way of a good story.

 

[psychojoe]

We lost to Ohio State because on the night we played them, they were clearly the better team. Did we play our A game...obviously not. Would our A game have been enough...we'll never know.