Keon Sabb on expectations for 2024: 'Gotta get a natty'

The expectations at Alabama haven’t changed much, even if the man in charge of the football program has. Just listen to transfer safety Keon Sabb.

Speaking with Crimson Tide freshmen Ryan Williams and Jaylen Mbakwe on their podcast, Sabb was blunt about what the expectation is for Alabama in 2024: Winning a national championship.

“Gotta get a natty,” Sabb said. “Got to. Definitely this year, then y’all can figure out what y’all want to do.”

Sabb certainly knows what it takes, having transferred to Alabama fresh off two seasons at Michigan, where he played as a rotational safety on the 2023 national championship team.

And Sabb also seems to think the Crimson Tide have the good to keep on a Nick Saban-esque run — while also indicating that he seems to be planning on heading to the NFL after three seasons of college football.

“100%, we gotta win it,” Sabb said. “Y’all win it this year, y’all got two more years to go back-to-back or triple, for real. I think y’all got the talent to really really do something special. Something special.”

Sabb got a good lesson in how Alabama avoids trap games

Alabama is coming off a massive home win over Georgia and, naturally, trying to avoid a letdown. Playing usual SEC bottom feeder Vanderbilt — albeit the Commodores are feisty in 2024 — only adds to the possibility of a flat, upset-worthy performance.

So the Crimson Tide are trying to avoid the trap game and falling victim to the “rat poison” of consuming too much praise, as former head coach Nick Saban coined the term. To help hammer home the message, though, player personnel director Josh Chapman got some useful props: Actual rat traps.

“It was yesterday, Chap walks in, throws a bunch of rat traps down. ‘It’s a trap game, y’all!’” Offensive lineman Parker Brailsford said on Tuesday.

And while the “rat poison” term was coined and popularized by Saban, the message didn’t need translating for newcomers to the program like transfer safety Keon Sabb.

He first noticed some rat traps in the locker room and quickly got the gist.

“It got to me right away,” Sabb said. “Once you see it, you know, ‘OK, it’s not an infestation in here. It’s something else.’ I got it real quick.”

And Sabb shared that for him, at least, the rat traps are having the intended effect.

“Once you see it, it’s like, ‘OK,’ something in your brain that every time you see one, you know it’s not one of those games,” Sabb said.