April 28, 2015
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
Nick Saban visited Dothan for a Crimson Caravan stop on Tuesday night, but the main items in his brief appearance with the press were golf and, for want of a better word, nostalgia.
The golf came earlier in the day in Georgia, where Saban and Mark Ingram teamed up to lead Alabama to a second-place finish out of 13 teams in the annual Peach Bowl Challenge, netting UA some $65,000 in scholarship money and giving Saban a brief lesson in coaching from Ingram, of all people.
"We're in the four-team playoff, and we get to a point where I know we're going to finish at least second," Saban said. "And Mark said 'you never taught me that way.' So the player got onto the coach."
On the course, it was probably a funny moment. But the thread of keeping an edge continued to run through the conversation as Saban talked - as he has for months - about the need for Alabama to "regain its identity" for the good old days, which in this context means the time from 2008 through 2012 or so.
"I don't know that it ever really faded, but we started putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to win big games," Saban said. "In the old days, we just played to dominate the opponent and didn't really worry about what the game meant. We had momentum, spirit and enthusiasm.
"I think when we first came to Alabama, a lot of guys came to Alabama to make Alabama some place special. But when we started to have a lot of success, some people came to Alabama because of what Alabama could do for them. That's a completely different dynamic.
"We're a little bit of a work in progress. We've got to rebuild."
Whether Alabama can recapture that swagger of a few years ago remains to be seen. Saban's nostalgia didn't see to be the melancholy reminiscing of a man looking backwards, simply a prescription for whatever malaise has made the past couple of seasons something different. (As always, it is worth considering what it means when an SEC Championship and a trip to the College Football Playoff can be defined as "malaise.") The most radical prescription, of course, would be an actual bad season, not one of the "disappointing" 12-2 variety. No one wants that, least of all Saban. He continues to recruit relentlessly and to look at every angle for improvement, even when he isn't physically present, as will be the case in the upcoming summer.
"I think that's when leadership really emerges," Saban said. "That's when team chemistry takes shape, when the players are together."
So don't read a simple news item like Saban skipping the ESPN coverage of the NFL Draft on Thursday night as "slowing down." For the past five years, he has been featured on the coverage, giving Alabama a little exposure bump with just the Alabama draft association that it wants prospects to make. This year, Saban will take the year off, although it has as much to do with Amari Cooper skipping the Chicago festivities as anything else.
Want another example? At Tuesday's golf event, Alabama was paired with Ohio State for the first nine holes. Did Saban and Urban Meyer chat amiably, throwing in a Braxton Miller joke between them?
"There was no conversation," Saban reported. "Jeff Logan played with (Meyer) and I recruited Jeff years ago, so I talked to him."
So, in case you wondered if the competitive fires are still burning, you can find an answer in that little anecdote.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1761762
Cecil Hurt
TideSports.com Columnist
Nick Saban visited Dothan for a Crimson Caravan stop on Tuesday night, but the main items in his brief appearance with the press were golf and, for want of a better word, nostalgia.
The golf came earlier in the day in Georgia, where Saban and Mark Ingram teamed up to lead Alabama to a second-place finish out of 13 teams in the annual Peach Bowl Challenge, netting UA some $65,000 in scholarship money and giving Saban a brief lesson in coaching from Ingram, of all people.
"We're in the four-team playoff, and we get to a point where I know we're going to finish at least second," Saban said. "And Mark said 'you never taught me that way.' So the player got onto the coach."
On the course, it was probably a funny moment. But the thread of keeping an edge continued to run through the conversation as Saban talked - as he has for months - about the need for Alabama to "regain its identity" for the good old days, which in this context means the time from 2008 through 2012 or so.
"I don't know that it ever really faded, but we started putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to win big games," Saban said. "In the old days, we just played to dominate the opponent and didn't really worry about what the game meant. We had momentum, spirit and enthusiasm.
"I think when we first came to Alabama, a lot of guys came to Alabama to make Alabama some place special. But when we started to have a lot of success, some people came to Alabama because of what Alabama could do for them. That's a completely different dynamic.
"We're a little bit of a work in progress. We've got to rebuild."
Whether Alabama can recapture that swagger of a few years ago remains to be seen. Saban's nostalgia didn't see to be the melancholy reminiscing of a man looking backwards, simply a prescription for whatever malaise has made the past couple of seasons something different. (As always, it is worth considering what it means when an SEC Championship and a trip to the College Football Playoff can be defined as "malaise.") The most radical prescription, of course, would be an actual bad season, not one of the "disappointing" 12-2 variety. No one wants that, least of all Saban. He continues to recruit relentlessly and to look at every angle for improvement, even when he isn't physically present, as will be the case in the upcoming summer.
"I think that's when leadership really emerges," Saban said. "That's when team chemistry takes shape, when the players are together."
So don't read a simple news item like Saban skipping the ESPN coverage of the NFL Draft on Thursday night as "slowing down." For the past five years, he has been featured on the coverage, giving Alabama a little exposure bump with just the Alabama draft association that it wants prospects to make. This year, Saban will take the year off, although it has as much to do with Amari Cooper skipping the Chicago festivities as anything else.
Want another example? At Tuesday's golf event, Alabama was paired with Ohio State for the first nine holes. Did Saban and Urban Meyer chat amiably, throwing in a Braxton Miller joke between them?
"There was no conversation," Saban reported. "Jeff Logan played with (Meyer) and I recruited Jeff years ago, so I talked to him."
So, in case you wondered if the competitive fires are still burning, you can find an answer in that little anecdote.
https://alabama.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1761762
