Nick Saban reflects on Ohio State coaching stint, Woody Hayes dispelling coach-speak

Prior to the start of his head coaching career, Nick Saban spent two seasons at Ohio State as an assistant. Saban, now Alabama’s head coach, was at Ohio State during the 1980 and 1981 seasons. He learned a great lesson from former longtime Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes while there.

Hayes coached for 28 years at Ohio State, his last being in 1978. Even after his coaching career was over, Hayes was still impacting Ohio State. Hayes coached to a career 205-61 record, making 11 bowl appearances and winning five.

Saban learned at Ohio State to always practice as if you’re preparing to take on the best

Many coaches today talk about focusing one game at a time and only looking at the next opponent. For Saban, he learned from Hayes that might not be the best approach. If you prepare to take on the best every week, you should be able to take care of business against everybody.

“When I was like 27 years old coaching at Ohio State, Woody Hayes, all of his players would come back and tell stories about how they would practice,” Saban said on Thursday. “It would be the second game of the year. He would say, ‘You’re practicing today to beat Michigan.’ It would be like the second game of the season and we’d be playing Illinois or somebody. And I was always taught play the next play, the next game is the most important game and all that.

“His whole theory was, and he would tell the players, if you’re good enough to beat Michigan, you’ll beat these guys this week. So you need to be practicing for that. But now, I understand what he was talking about. It’s not about playing this game or this team. And no disrespect to them or their program or their coach because they’re well-coached and they play hard and they’re a good little team. But if you’re good enough to beat the best teams and you have the right mindset to do it, you should be able to have success throughout the rest of the season.”

Back when Saban was at Ohio State, Michigan was the powerhouse in college football. The Buckeyes prepared as if they were always facing off against Michigan.  

“What made me a believer was, we played Northwestern the week before we played Michigan. We never practiced one play all week for Northwestern. We practiced all week for Michigan. Well, we beat Northwestern 63-0 and then we beat Michigan the next week too. My theory of taking it one play at a time, one game at a time which I always preach to the players, is not necessarily right. You should really be challenging yourself to be the best player you can be. When you get the opportunity to play the best team you’re going to play, you’ve created the right habits to do that.”