Mark Ingram shares legendary line from Nick Saban during Alabama recruitment

Nick Saban has made it well known he has high expectations for his players at Alabama. This week, Mark Ingram shared an all-time quote from the legendary Crimson Tide coach.

Speaking on a Twitter Spaces on Tuesday, Ingram told a story about his recruitment. In the process, he discussed a legendary line from Saban about just how high his expectations are in Tuscaloosa.

“If you come to Alabama you can become a great player,” Saban said, according to Ingram. “If you don’t, it’s your own fault.”

Talk about telling it like it is.

Ingram certainly met those expectations. He won the Heisman Trophy in 2009 as he helped lead Alabama to a national title before becoming the No. 28 overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. He played for the New Orleans Saints, Baltimore Ravens and Houston Texans before returning to the Saints last year.

Mark Ingram: Georgia needs to thank Alabama for national championship

Mark Ingram went out on a limb Tuesday regarding Georgia football’s national championship victory against Alabama this past season. According to AL.com’s Michael Casagrande, the former Crimson Tide running back attempted to downplay the Bulldogs’ achievement by pointing to the fact that Kirby Smart is a former Nick Saban assistant.

“The only reason they even have a national championship is purely because their head coach came from ’Bama,” Ingram said in a recent discussion hosted by the NFL. “So they should be thanking ’Bama. We’re going to be back there again. I don’t know about them but we’re going to be back again.”

Smart spent eight seasons in Tuscaloosa as the defensive coordinator for Saban from 2008-2015. In that time, the Crimson Tide won four of their six national titles so far in the Saban era. A Georgia alumnus, Smart left to take over the Bulldogs in the 2016 season, and by 2017 had already led them to the College Football Playoff Championship. There he ran into the Crimson Tide and his former boss, who handed him a 26-23 loss.

Four years later though, Smart had Georgia back in the national championship, once again against Alabama. This time the Bulldogs came out on top, delivering the school’s first title since 1980. Ingram still managed to make that look like a bad thing, pointing to Alabama’s seven championships in that same time frame.