Nick Saban opens up on national championship nerves, other anxiety as coach

The nerves never went away for Nick Saban. During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Monday, the former Alabama head coach pulled back the curtain on the anxiety he’d feel before taking the field with his team.

“I think I had nerves going into every game,” Saban said. “Sometimes I was more nervous about the games that we were supposed to win, like when you’re a big favorite, but you’re playing a pretty good team. You know your team’s probably not looking at the game like you need to.

“I think all players and all coaches have anxiety when you into games like this. And I always thought as a coach, the most important thing I needed to do was manage that anxiety, because that anxiety was not going to help you perform well. To keep things simple — play in, play out, do your job, dominate your box, don’t worry about the scoreboard — all those kinds of things minimize anxiety because everybody wants to win.

“Can we focus on doing the things that we need to do to win? That was what I always tried to promote to the players. And I didn’t want to make them think that I was anxious because if they saw me nervous and anxious, then that means I don’t believe in them.”

If Saban still got nervous for games after winning seven national titles, Notre Dame‘s Marcus Freeman and Ohio State‘s Ryan Day have every right to be terrified ahead of the National Championship tonight.

Of course, it’s important to not let that fear paralyze you but instead to use it as incentive. After spending over 50 years as a coach, Saban knew how to do this better than anybody.

While Nick Saban didn’t have any tricks to calm his anxiety, he emphasized the importance of staying prepared for any scenario.

“I never listened to music. I just kind of thought things through. I did a little stretching,” Saban said. “I tried to keep busy, but I always made notes like of what I was going to say to the team. …I was anticipating what was going to happen so that we didn’t have to respond in spur-of-the-moment-type things.”

Freeman and Day are certainly both hoping to be able to deliver a victory speech tonight. On Monday, the Fighting Irish and the Buckeyes will square off at 7:30 p.m. ET in the College Football Playoff National Championship. The game will air live on ESPN.