Nick Saban delivers furious rant on players listening to outside noise
From positive reviews as “rat poison” to outright criticism, Nick Saban always made a point during his coaching career to get his players to shut out the outside noise. And he evidently still feels strongly on the subject.
Sitting with the College GameDay crew for a Friday evening show at Notre Dame ahead of a College Football Playoff first round game vs. Indiana, Saban unleashed a tirade about not only about the need to silence outside noise, but the fact there is so much of it to begin with.
He specifically was spurred on by a conversation about Ohio State’s Ryan Day, who has been under fire for four-straight losses to Michigan as the Buckeyes head into the CFP.
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“I think every coach has got to define how he wants to do it and I have a lot of respect for Ryan Day and how he’s tried to do it. For me, I always wanted to get every player in the organization to reach their full potential. So it wasn’t so much about the outcome, it was about what you had to do to make everybody better. But a big part of that was insulating the players from external factors. Criticism, internet.”
Saban began to pick up steam, and really started to let loose.
“I used to tell the players all the time: Why do you care about what some guy puts on the internet who’s a fat guy, in his underwear, living his mother’s basement? Why do you care? Why does that mean anything to you? Why does that affect you in any way, shape or form? We should be focused on what we control and what we can do,” Saban said, before starting to turn his message back to the Buckeyes. “And it’s the same thing for the fans. I would tell the fans the same thing. If Ohio State wants to beat Michigan, they need to be positive about their coach and the players. There’s nobody wants to beat ’em worse than the players and the coaches. That’s No. 1. No. 2: They have an opportunity to win the national championship. Everybody ought to be supporting the hell out of them so that they have the best opportunity to do it, and quit all this negative bulls***.”