Nick Saban shares why he was 'frustrated' with recent teams

For just the second time in the last eight seasons Alabama and head coach Nick Saban were not playing in Monday’s National Championship game. After Georgia secured back-to-back National Championship victories, Bulldogs’ head coach Kirby Smart joined Saban as one of eight coaches to win back-to-back titles. On Monday, Saban was on set for the National Championship and gave his perspective on the difficulties of repeating as champions.

“There’s no question about it, but some guys buy into it and some guys don’t,” Saban said. “And just like our team last year, after we won in ‘20 and ’21. I was so frustrated with our team because we weren’t practicing, we weren’t preparing, we weren’t doing the things we needed to do.”

Saban has won a record seven National Championships, six with the Crimson Tide, but has only repeated and won back-to-back titles once in the 2011 and 2012 seasons. He elaborated on the challenges of keeping his team focused, especially during the regular season, following a National title victory by using their game against Texas A&M in 2021 as an example.

“And we go play at Texas A&M and lay an egg, get behind 24-7, come back, get ahead 38-31 with five minutes to go in the game,” Saban explained. “I look at the scoreboard and I say, ‘What am I gonna say to this team if we win? We played so poorly.’”

The Aggies would go on to score 10 unanswered points in that game and secure the upset win over Alabama, so Saban didn’t have to give that challenging post-game speech to his team. But when winning is the standard and you consistently do so despite not playing your best, it presents an interesting dynamic for coaches of teams like Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and others who consistently aspire to play in and win National Championships.

“And the worst thing you can do, to me, in any sport, is play poorly and win. Because then nobody wants to respond the right way to correct the things you need to correct. So, it’s a really, really difficult task,” Saban said.

Since Saban started his tenure at Alabama in 2007, he’s never gone more than two seasons without winning a National Championship, which would make the Crimson Tide due for a title victory next year in the 2023 season. They lose key players like Bryce Young, Will Anderson, and Jahmyr Gibbs, but have plenty of motivation as many are crowning the Georgia Bulldogs as college football’s newest kings and dynasty.