Nick Saban explains the daily mindset he preaches to Alabama players

The first half of the season was an up-and-down experience for Alabama. The Crimson Tide suffered an early loss and struggled at times in games nobody expected them to. Now, however, the Crimson Tide have seemingly righted the ship behind head coach Nick Saban.

During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Saban spoke about how the daily mindset of players is important during the course of a season.

“I think that players really need to understand, the team needs to understand it but every individual player needs to understand it, is it’s almost like being in show business,” Nick Saban said. “You audition for a part and you either get it or you don’t, but the next time you audition you got to do the same thing, whether you got the part last time or not. So, whether you win a game the last time or not.”

The Texas loss was an example of things not working out despite the process. However, since then, Alabama’s process has been leading to better results.

“Because, in show business, you’re only as good as your last game, you’re only as good as your last play. And that’s certainly how it is in sports. So, if players can’t keep the right mindset of what they need to do to play well all the time, even when you’re practicing, there’s pro scouts out there watching practice, whatever it is, you’re either creating more value for yourself about how you’re going about your work or you’re not because what players don’t really understand is people are looking for reasons not to pick you,” Saban said.

“So, when you don’t do the right things, that’s not going to help you increase your value, and the individuals on the team make the team what it is. So, I want every guy on the team trying to increase his value every day, every practice, every play, and in every game. You asked me how I’m trying to keep the right mindset, or how we’re trying to keep the right mindset, that’s kind of how we’re trying to do it.”

The Texas A&M win was huge for Alabama. However, Nick Saban wants them emotionally excited but not relieved. That way they can keep their focus moving forward.

“I think that’s what I just talked about is trying to keep people looking forward. Always looking forward to the next challenge. Learn from any failing that you had. Learn from the positives that you had, but if you’re gonna stack positive performance, you’ve got to keep looking at the future, be able to self-assess, in terms of what do I need to do better. What do we need to do better as a team and as an individual so that you keep improving?”

Nick Saban then used the example of someone who wants to get stronger. They set a goal and strive to reach it, but you can’t stop halfway.

“It’s like if you bench press 180lbs and your goal is to bench press 300lbs. You don’t want to stop when you get to 250lbs. You want to keep working toward that goal and keep climbing the mountain and that’s what we’re trying to get our players to be able to do. Look, outside noise is a big factor in being able to control the mindset of the team because of what they hear from other people, whether it’s good or bad how it impacts their frustration when they don’t do well and how it impacts their complacency when do do well. So, this is something that, I mean, it’s human nature for all of us. So, you can’t allow human nature to sneak in,” Saban said.

“You’ve got to have that special mindset to try to be the best because we’re entitled to nothing. When you get up every day, you’re entitled to nothing. You’re not entitled to playing time, you’re not entitled to anything. So, you need to understand what you have to do to continue to be the best that you can be because that’s the only thing that’s gonna help you because talent without discipline and ability to stay focused and execute is not worth anything. It’s nothing. So, these are all things that players have to understand, coaches have to understand, everybody has to understand.”

Nick Saban says coaches should text players

Recently, Nick Saban shared that he likes to text players as a way to better communicate with them and thinks that coaches should do it more frequently.

“I actually think the best way to do that is text it to them so they can read it on their phone, aight?” Saban said.

“Sometimes, they don’t listen. But if you text it to them, they’ll read it, aight? That might be a new technique that we try. We should text them what they’re supposed to do on the field. They’ll probably get it then.”