Nick Saban has had to discipline several players this spring, and he went off about the state of today’s youth following Saturday’s scrimmage.
Saban was asked about senior safety Geno Smith’s status after his arrest last month for DUI, and after saying Smith has been doing what Saban has required of him, the coach turned his comments to the mindset of players.
“These guys, they all think they have this illusion of choice,” Saban said. “Like, ‘I can do whatever I want to do.’ We kind of have a younger generation now that doesn’t always get told no. They don’t always get told, ‘This is exactly how you need to do it.’ So they have this illusion they have all these choices. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to be good, you really don’t have a lot of choices, because it takes what it takes.
“You have to do what you have to do to be successful, so you have to make the choices and decisions to have the discipline and focus to the process of what you need to do to accomplish your goals.”
Saban has said he never considered dismissing Smith and has talked about trying to put kids in the best position to succeed, but he had to dismiss Jonathan Taylor a few months after he joined the team in January due to his third arrest since March 2014. The Crimson Tide have seen several players arrested in 2015.
“All these guys that think they have a lot of choices are really sadly mistaken,” Saban said. “As we all have done with our own children, they learn these lessons of life as they get older. Sometimes, the best way to learn is from the mistakes that you make, even though we all hate to have to see them make them and don’t condone it when they do. Geno has done a good job coming back doing what he’s supposed to do, and hopefully, he’ll finish that up by the end of May and go from there.”
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Saban was asked about senior safety Geno Smith’s status after his arrest last month for DUI, and after saying Smith has been doing what Saban has required of him, the coach turned his comments to the mindset of players.
“These guys, they all think they have this illusion of choice,” Saban said. “Like, ‘I can do whatever I want to do.’ We kind of have a younger generation now that doesn’t always get told no. They don’t always get told, ‘This is exactly how you need to do it.’ So they have this illusion they have all these choices. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to be good, you really don’t have a lot of choices, because it takes what it takes.
“You have to do what you have to do to be successful, so you have to make the choices and decisions to have the discipline and focus to the process of what you need to do to accomplish your goals.”
Saban has said he never considered dismissing Smith and has talked about trying to put kids in the best position to succeed, but he had to dismiss Jonathan Taylor a few months after he joined the team in January due to his third arrest since March 2014. The Crimson Tide have seen several players arrested in 2015.
“All these guys that think they have a lot of choices are really sadly mistaken,” Saban said. “As we all have done with our own children, they learn these lessons of life as they get older. Sometimes, the best way to learn is from the mistakes that you make, even though we all hate to have to see them make them and don’t condone it when they do. Geno has done a good job coming back doing what he’s supposed to do, and hopefully, he’ll finish that up by the end of May and go from there.”
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