Nick Saban explains using media to send messages his Alabama teams as a 'remedy to squelch the rat poison'

Nick Saban wasn’t shy during his tenure as the Alabama head coach in calling out what he deemed “rat poison” in the media, i.e. praiseful coverage of the Crimson Tide that could lull them into a false sense of security. But the head coach wasn’t just using his team meetings and practices for his counter-messaging campaign.

Speaking with Paul Finebaum on The Paul Finebaum Show on Tuesday at SEC Media Days, Saban explained that he’d readily push his own messaging to his team via his press conferences and various appearances, such as his weekly radio show. Whenever there was a chance to sharpen the mindset of his players, he was going to take it.

“Yeah I used the media a lot to message my team,” Saban said. “I’m figuring that you all are putting out a lot of rat poison, so I was going to put out my own sort of remedy to squelch the rat poison as well as try to send a message to the team in terms of the way I wanted them to be thinking about the season.” 

Finebaum likened Saban’s messaging machinations to a game of chess, the head coach making moves to counter the various breakdowns in the psychological defenses he built up for his team.

And that psychological edge, Saban said, goes a long way into keeping the success coming. But it’s easier said than done to find the right balance between confidence and hunger to prove oneself.

“I think the psychological disposition is hard to get perfect, but that’s what you’re trying to do,” Saban said. “Sometimes you have a young team, maybe they have a lot of anxiety, maybe they’re not very confident, so you need to approach them one way. Then another year, you have a very mature team, lots of experience, lots of guys coming back, good leadership, lot of maturity on your team, so you’re going to approach them a little differently. So it just depends on what you’re dealing with and every team’s different.”

And before they moved off the subject, Saban made sure to get a little jesting jab at Finebaum for contributing thoroughly to the rat poison the Crimson Tide encountered over the years he was in charge.

“And you were actually one of the — those that sort of contributed to that, manufacturing of that, as well as anybody in your profession,” Saban said as the two chuckled.