Nick Saban defends decision on Jermaine Burton, philosophy on discipline

A controversy came following the field storming by Tennessee fans. Jermaine Burton, a wide receiver for Alabama, was caught on camera striking a woman who was wearing Tennessee colors. Head coach Nick Saban chose not to suspend him for Alabama’s game against Mississippi State. Instead, Burton is now in a counseling program.

The decision to play Jermaine Burton has drawn tons of criticism. Then, during the weekly SEC teleconference, Nick Saban was asked how it impacts a team when they see one player being disciplined.

“I think that everybody is always looking at what you do,” Nick Saban said. “I think the difference in what a lot of people think is, is discipline necessarily punishment?”

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“Punish your children, only if you think that’s going to change the behavior. Otherwise, you try to have them learn lessons from things that they do, and that’s basically how we look at discipline and how we try to discipline our players.”

So, for Nick Saban, the focus is less on punishing a player who makes a mistake and more on learning a lesson from a mistake. He’d rather someone understand and grow as a person, rather than see them only act a certain way to avoid punishment.

“It didn’t have any issue with our team,” Nick Saban said. “I think that’s [counseling] what we’re basically trying to do and see if that’s helpful to him.”

Nick Saban previously explained his thought process

Nick Saban argued that Jermaine Burton was actually scared in that moment. That fear is how Saban justified not suspending Burton.

“But, I talked to him,” Nick Saban said. “He was scared, I was scared. Some of our other players were scared. I think you learn to respect other people because we have a responsibility to do that, regardless of the circumstance that we’re in. I talked to the guy. We have him in a counseling program.”

You can view the video of the incident, here:

Video of WR Jermaine Burton allegedly striking female Tennessee fan in head while exiting field Saturday

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Josh Heupel reacted to the decision to play Jermaine Burton

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel was asked for a reaction to Nick Saban’s decision not to suspend Jermaine Burton. He chose to avoid the question, though, and keep the focus on his program and making sure that the Volunteers are doing what they can do to improve on the field.

“I’m going to be honest, I haven’t seen the video or paid much attention to anything that’s happening outside of our program,” Josh Heupel said. “There’s enough going on here in Knoxville that we’ve got to continue to develop our roster and our program, so don’t really deal with hypotheticals as far as that happening inside of our own program.”