Will Anderson details preseason ‘rat poison,’ locker room motivation

Alabama head coach Nick Saban has referred to some of the media hype of his team over the years as ‘rat poison’, and something that he doesn’t want his players to buy into or indulge with a front-runner mentality. The USA Today Coaches Poll was released today and had Alabama ranked No. 1, which Crimson Tide edge Will Anderson deemed rat poison.

“Well I didn’t even know nothing about that until you just told me, I’m pretty sure the team doesn’t know, so we don’t even probably know anything about that so it is rat poison,” Anderson said.

A key to Alabama’s success historically has been blocking the outside noise, the rat poison, and keeping their focus on winning championships versus listening to the narrative of them being favored in most of their contests. Like last season when they were favored heavily in the College Football Playoff semifinal versus Cincinnati, and they avoided the ‘fatal’ rat poison and the media ‘telling you that you’re going to win’. Anderson elaborated on what’s been keeping the Tide motivated this offseason and throughout training camp.

“Well you know for us, we don’t really know anything about the polls, that’s not something that’s talked about in the locker room, that’s not something that’s put on the board, or like we’re here. We don’t know anything about that stuff, and the motivation in the locker room is everything that we did last year, all the bad things that we did last year, that’s the only motivation that we need, that we didn’t get out end goal, that we have a participation trophy sitting in the cafeteria that we look at every day,” Anderson.

It’s clear that Saban’s high expectations have trickled down to one of the leaders of his team, as the Crimson Tide strive to bounce back from their National Championship loss last season, a season Saban deemed a ‘rebuilding year’, and end the season as champions.