Nick Saban uses text to Kirby Smart to highlight silver lining of Alabama loss to Vanderbilt

Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban was disappointed with the way the Crimson Tide played last weekend against Vanderbilt, but he also is well aware that the Crimson Tide can still go on to have a special season.

When Georgia lost to Alabama a couple of weeks back, Saban reached out to Bulldogs coach Kirby Smart with a message. That same message now applies to Alabama, too.

“I texted Kirby and told him after the Alabama game, ‘This might be the best thing that ever happened to you,’” Nick Saban said Friday on The Pat McAfee Show. “Because losing early sort of gives your team a wake-up call.

“So all the things you’ve been preaching about – focus, attention to detail, discipline. Now all those things seem to have more meaning, because you had a consequence, and you got humiliated, to some degree. … just like Alabama did last week.’”

Alabama losing to Vanderbilt for the first time in 40 years was certainly humiliating, but it also could be just what the Crimson Tide need. Players and coaches may not always realize it at the time, but Saban feels that losing a game can be a positive and can help a team refocus.

“Now when you lose a game and you’re a coach or a player, that doesn’t resonate very well, because you’re kind of down in the dumps because you didn’t win. But in the long run, sometimes it helps,” Saban said.

He went on to point out that out of the seven national championships he won, the majority of the time his team dropped a game during the season. Yes, Saban was upset with the losses, but deep down he also knew that it could help moving forward.

“We only had two teams that went undefeated the whole time I coached. We won national championships with one loss most of the time,” Saban said. “And most of the time we lost, we needed to lose, because we weren’t focused on the right stuff.”