Nick Saban reveals his favorite practice drill ahead of Alabama vs LSU
Alabama coach Nick Saban is thrilled by turnovers. He loves nothing more than to see his defenders execute a clean punch-out against an opposing ball-carrier, forcing him to fumble the football. Apparently, it’s his favorite thing to teach in practice.
When asked what his favorite practice drills are as a coach on this week’s episode of Hey Coach, Saban immediately pointed to turnover drills.
“The drill that gets me most fired up, ooh boy. That’s a good one. Well, there’s so many techniques that you try to teach players, but you can take any aspect of it. And one of the things that has been the most challenging for us this year is we do turnover drills to start practice every day.”
Saban then went in-depth to explain exactly how he teaches defenders to force fumbles. It’s all about elbow angling. If you can read a ball-carrier’s elbow, you can pry that football away from him, says Saban.
“You know, how do you tomahawk the ball when you’re trying to tackle somebody, so you create a fumble. How do you punch the ball out the back one like we do. When a guy’s hand goes down, his elbow usually comes out. You see it on TV all the time when guys fumble and get stripped, alright. So when the elbow comes out, you can punch the ball at the back. If the elbow stays in, you can pull it down from the front. So just teaching players how to do that and then put them in drills where they have a chance to do it.”
So Nick Saban teaches that little elbow trick over and over again in practice, yet still sees players forget in the real games. Very upsetting for the head coach.
“And then it’s frustrating when you try to teach all these things and you don’t actually see it happen in the game like you want it to happen. But that’s one of those things. And it’s the same thing with the offensive player. How do you properly carry the ball so that you don’t fumble? So that you’re not what I call a ball violator in terms of, you know, how you swing the ball around. Like we call late fumble on punt return where you took it back like 40 yards or whatever it was, ball was swinging out here, man. When I hit the top of the ball, the tip is coming out. It’s a fumble, alright.”
A simple thing like carrying the ball correctly and taking advantage when the opponent does can make a huge difference.
“So all those things are things you teach, but it’s a little bit unnatural to carry the football. Like you need to carry it so you don’t fumble. So it’s something that players really have to learn how to do.”