Nick Saban learns valuable lesson through missed call vs. Ole Miss

Alabama is coming off of a strong victory over Ole Miss last weekend. In the victory, Alabama head coach Nick Saban learned a valuable lesson when it comes to substitutions. Saban talked to reporters on Thursday about the lesson that he learned after a missed call by the officials in the game.

“I think we had a much better scheme to play defensively against them. We weren’t trying to substitute people all the time,” Saban said of Alabama’s defense facing Ole Miss. “One time, we got caught with 12 guys on the field. They actually did sub. The officials missed the sub, the play was toward their sidelines. But we learned something. We always watch for the sub in the press box. So, as soon as the other team subs, and they’re fastball team, we sub a guy to slow the game down. That’s part of the plan. But after, I learned something and probably a valuable lesson. Just because they sub, if the officials don’t come out and put their fist out, they’re not holding for substitution.

“And when you have a play that goes out of bounds on their sidelines, which was the previous play, now you’ve got 42 guys standing there. Who knows who came in and who went out and that was kind of the situation. So, we need not to sub unless the officials give us the two fists. Because if they miss it, then we won’t get caught with 12 on the field, which was a big play because it was a third down and four which we could potentially have gotten a stop and they got a first down on that. But we learned something, so we’ll be able to do a better job of managing that so it was probably worth the lesson that we learned in that situation.”

Saban and Alabama remain the top team in the country after a 5-0 start to the season. Against Ole Miss, Alabama outgained the Rebels 451-291 and rushed for 210 yards in the win.

Saban wants Alabama to stay motivated

While Alabama is undoubtedly regarded as the best team in all of college football, Saban doesn’t want his team to lose focus. If players lose the motivation that they came into the year with, it will be easy for them to slip, and a single slip can be detrimental to a team’s eventual fate in the current landscape of college football.

“It doesn’t always have to be because somebody disrespects you from the other side or you get motivated for some external reason,” Saban said. “It really should be all about internally what you want to accomplish, what you want to do. Everybody’s got to respect winning: what it takes to win, the kind of preparation, the kind of work ethic in practice, the kind of habits you gotta create so that you have an opportunity to do that.”

Saban and Alabama take on Texas A&M and Mississippi State on the road over the next two weeks. They then return home for a matchup with Tennessee in three weeks. Saturday’s game against Texas A&M will kick off at 8 p.m. ET.