Nick Saban jokes about straightening out Miss Terry over 'relief syndrome' for Iron Bowl question

Nick Saban and Alabama got a huge win over LSU over the weekend. It would then be easy to fall for what Saban likes to call ‘relief syndrome.’

Basically, relief syndrome is what happens when you think you’ve accomplished something and then you relax. Once that relaxation happens, mistakes can happen. So, he wants to fight it on his team. However, it’s so pervasive that even Miss Terry suffers from it.

“I’ve got to straighten her out this week with relief syndrome too,” Saban said on The Pat McAfee Show. “I wake up on Sunday morning. She looks at me and says, ‘Man, it’s gonna be hard playing at Auburn.'”

"I woke up on Sunday morning and Miss Terry said it's gonna be hard playing at Auburn..

I said are you kidding me we're playing Kentucky this week and we gotta focus on what's in front of us" ~ Coach Saban

That is AWESOME 😂😂 #PMSLive pic.twitter.com/52QJAf6ReZ

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) November 9, 2023

“I said, ‘What’re you talking about? Are you kidding me? We’ve got to play Kentucky this week. Then Chattanooga the next week.’ We’re worried about that when we get to that. I said, ‘Why are you thinking about that? You’ve got relief syndrome.”

Eventually, Nick Saban will turn his focus to the Iron Bowl. For now, though, he can’t afford to fall into that same trap and look ahead to it.

“It’s pervasive. The fans have it. Everybody has it. We can’t have it.’ Focus on what’s in front of us right now.”

One of the reasons why Nick Saban is so concerned about the Kentucky game is the Wildcats’ ability to test Alabama’s run defense throughout the game.

“We’ll get tested this week because these guys will run it. They’re bigger. They’ll be in bigger personnel situations and we may not have all of our defensive players ready to play. We’ve got to get the guys that are ready to play physical on the line of scrimmage,” Saban said.

“Strike blockers up front. Have good hand placement. Everybody fit their gap right. Make good adjustments to all the formations and motions so we’ve got edges where we need to have them. This is really a challenging game for us from that standpoint. We’ll see how good we are against the run.”

The best advice Miss Terry has given Nick Saban

For Nick Saban, Miss Terry has always been a key piece to his success. Throughout their lives together, she’s been able to teach him plenty about life. That includes finding a better way to interact with the media as a head coach.

“She’s given me so much advice through the years. Probably the greatest advice really wasn’t about something in football but when I was first a coach at Michigan State, I had this Attila the Hun reputation with the media. I would go home and I would say, ‘Man, this is not like me. I don’t know why they portray me this way. This is not really how I am.’ She looked at me and she said, ‘Well, do you ever watch yourself?’ She says, ‘You’re nervous. You’re anxious. You don’t treat them very well. You don’t smile. You don’t ever joke with them. You’re disrespectful to them. You act like they’re not asking good questions sometimes. Why would they like you? I mean, why would they?'” Saban said.

“I got really mad that she said that. But then, like a lot of times when somebody says something to you, you go think about it. And really changed. That changed my whole image as a coach, and it started with changing my image with the media. It helped so many ways in recruiting and relationships with players and all kinds of things. [Media people] have a job to do but you also have a way that you can project who someone is by how they treat you and what they do. That’s probably the most important lesson she ever gave me.”