Bryce Young shares one of his favorite Nick Saban stories

With Nick Saban retiring a host of stories have begun pouring out of his former players and colleagues, painting a pretty up-close-and-personal picture of the man who dominated college football for the better part of three decades.

Former Alabama quarterback Bryce Young chimed in on Friday with one such story, speaking with former Tide quarterback Greg McElroy on Always College Football.

Young outlined a memorable moment from practice during his freshman year.

“We go down, two-minute drill to end practice,” Young said. “We go down, get down to like the maybe like the 25, 30. And I’m with the twos, so it’s like the very last thing we do. And there’s like six seconds left, so it was the last play of the drill.

“I dropped back. I like scramble, roll left, roll right, make a couple people miss. Then throw the ball off my back foot and then put it up for a receiver. He makes a great catch and we win the two-minute drill at the end. We were all going down and celebrating, receiver throws the ball up, we’re all running and jumping just to finish practice. And after like a minute of us settling down I turn around and coach Saban’s there just staring like dead through me.”

Not a fun place to be, to be sure. Nick Saban has a way of staring daggers through a player when he’s upset, as cameras captured several times over the years.

Here Young was in practice, having seemingly just completed a big play, only for his head coach to start glaring at him.

“All he does is like, ‘How many times have I told you about the ball?'” Young explained. “I was running around with the ball in one hand. ‘How many times have I told you about running around with the ball? You’ve got to tuck the ball, keep the ball.’ I’m like, ‘Coach, I’m a freshman, I’m just happy to win the drill.’ And then I dismissed him, I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, you’ve got it, my bad.'”

The words, though, would remain ringing in Young’s ears. And before long he’d get the opportunity to learn firsthand exactly why.

“Then fast forward, like Game 1 we play Missouri and it might have been like the first or second drive I get in at the very end,” Young said. “And I scramble, roll right and as I’m moving, as I’m scrambling someone comes from behind and sacks me and the ball comes out and I fumble. And right when I fumble I look up and I immediately make eye contact with coach Saban.

“I can see him from the sideline and I walk straight to him and he lets me have it on the sideline. And from that point forward I was like, ‘All right, I probably should have listened to him the first time.’ And for the rest of my college career I always made sure I had two hands on the ball.”

See? Some lessons are worth learning.

And Nick Saban handed out more than a few of them over his years in coaching. He’ll be missed.