Nick Saban talks about 'yummy rat poison' after SEC Championship win

After some struggles early on, Nick Saban says an SEC championship victory really validates this season for his players, especially in the face of some harsh criticism throughout the year.

Of course, Saban has long called the outside noise and criticism “rat poison” and urges his players not to listen to any of it. Boy, was there plenty of rat poison and distracting conversation off the field surrounding this Alabama football team. But by the end of the season, this Crimson Tide team was able to shut ’em up with an SEC championship victory over Georgia.

Following the win in Atlanta, one reporter asked Nick Saban if the “yummy rat poison” throughout the season actually helped motivate this particular Alabama team after the slow start. The Crimson Tide head coach responded:

“I think that’s an interesting point that you bring up because one of the motivating factors for this team all year long is… they wanted to prove who they were because of the criticism that they got.”

Against the Bulldogs, Alabama proved exactly who they were.

“Now, this validates. Winning the SEC, beating Georgia, the No. 1 team, kind of validates who they are,” Saban added.

Though, the veteran head coach never gets too ahead of himself and spun the question back around towards his team, wondering how they’ll respond to stay motivated amid the positive attention they’ll get in wake of the Georgia win.

“The next challenge is… how do you deal with success? That will be the next challenge for this team. If we have an opportunity to do something else, what’s going to be our internal motivation to want to continue to be successful?”

Before moving on to whatever lie ahead in the rest of the postseason, Nick Saban did admit that the team should enjoy and reflect on the incredible achievement that is winning an SEC championship.

“Because, I think I agree with Jalen, that we should acknowledge the fact and celebrate the fact that we won the SEC championship. That’s significant,” said Saban.

Alabama just keeps performing better and better by the week, starting with the guy Coach Saban mentioned in Jalen Milroe. The Crimson Tide quarterback has developed into as dangerous a dual-threat QB as anyone in the country aside from LSU’s Jayden Daniels and produced the highlight of the season and one of the all-time plays in Iron Bowl history when he connected with Isaiah Bond on a back-corner touchdown pass on 4th and 30+ to win the game.

Right now, this is a completely different Crimson Tide team than the one who lost to Texas by 10 at home and who barely scraped by South Florida using multiple quarterbacks. Alabama has found themselves as we barrel down the stretch of the season.