Nick Saban addresses how the transfer portal has impacted his approach to coaching players

It’s a new era in college football and the world of college athletics. College coaches across the country might have to rethink their treatment of players, because if they’re too harsh or hard on them, they might just immediately jump in the transfer portal and see what type of NIL deal they can get or find another coaching staff that might treat them better. For Alabama head coach Nick Saban, he hasn’t changed his approach one bit.

On Thursday night on the Hey Coach & The Nick Saban Show, the Tide head coach talked about the NIL and transfer portal era and whether it’s affected the way he coaches his players.

“No. No. Somebody played a video of Terrion Arnold talking about me getting on him on the sidelines, during a game. And you know, I always tell the players, when somebody goes in motion, they’re actually telling you when the ball’s gonna be snapped,” Saban began. “So, if you’re blitzing, you time your blitz on the motion. So, here this guy comes in motion all the way across the field. And I know they’re not gonna block him if he blitzes right. And he waits until the ball’s snapped before he times up his blitz. And nobody blocked him. They completed a ball. F angle to the back and he got a first down.”

“So, it was one of those moments where….but I think players…as long as they know that you care. They don’t care what you know until they know that you care. And I still care about the players the same way I always have. I don’t care anything about that stuff,” Saban continued. “I don’t try to treat them better, worse. I don’t envy anything that they have or the opportunities that they get. I’m all for them being able to have a better quality of life while they’re going to school.”

“But I also continue to try to encourage them that these are the things that you have to do to be successful. You have to really become what you want to become before you can be it. You know, if you want to be the best player you’ve got to become the best person at playing and then the same thing with being a champion,” the legendary Alabama football coach said.

“You know, you’ve gotta be a champion before you can win a championship. So, you’ve got to do all of this stuff up front and taking certain kind of habits. And sometimes, different guys respond different ways,” Saban said. “And none of that has changed for me. I don’t think one bit about any of that stuff relative to how I respond to players. Because I’m really all about, what is the best way for me to try to get this guy to get it right. And it’s really not about me, it’s about them and it’s about helping them be the best players they can be. The best people they can be. Make them do what they need to do in school to have an opportunity to develop a career off the field.”

“All of those things, and they’re challenging. I mean, it’s a challenge. To get guys to do the things they need to do. You know, one of the things I think we all have to live with a little bit more in society is, people are a little bit more affected by external factors. And I think that’s you know, a consequence of the internet. TV and all of the things that you see. These guys are constantly getting feedback from external things,” the Crimson Tide head football coach said.

“And you know, we’re really trying to get them to have sort of, internal goals and aspirations of what they want to accomplish and what they want to do. And not be affected so much about what happens outside. I even told the players, I said, listen, you know when we get criticized you guys really respond in the right way,” Saban continued.

“Like after the South Florida game, even though we won the game, we didn’t play very well. And we were getting criticized and everybody was like, what can I do to get better. How can I do this? Can we practice better? What can we do? And, why do you have to get criticized from somebody you don’t even know from Adam’s house cat to get motivated,” the Tide head coach said. “You should be motivated because you want to be the best and based on what you do, based on what your performance was. How can you make that better?”

“So, that’s something that we really have to deal with a lot with young people now. And it’s challenging to get them to be focused on what they can control and not worry about what everybody else thinks,” Saban said.