Nick Saban on idea that 'weird stuff' happens at Jordan-Hare Stadium: 'I don't see it'

Earlier this year, Lane Kiffin said “weird things happen” when teams play Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Alabama has had crazy games over the years on The Plains — from “The Drive” in 2007 to the “Kick Six” in 2013 — as part of the storied Iron Bowl.

To Nick Saban, though, nothing “weird” happens at Jordan-Hare. His mentality, as he said earlier this week, is simple: The team that plays the best, wins the game. He said it again on his radio show Wednesday night and used the “Kick Six” as an example.

“People talk about this stuff all the time, and I don’t see it,” Saban said on Hey Coach and The Nick Saban Show. “Because the games that we haven’t been successful in, we made the errors and didn’t play well enough and they played really, really well. I mean, even in the Kick Six game that everybody talks about, I think we had the ball inside the 25-yard line five times and never scored a point when we were ahead by seven points in the third and fourth quarter — whether it’s missed field goal, blocked field goal, penalty in the end zone after getting the ball on the 7-yard line, whatever it is. That was ultimately what was the deciding factor in the game.

“But all those other things that happen before that that were missed executions, basically, and mental errors led to that circumstance having a chance to have significance. So when you look at the whole game as a total and you analyze what you did, we didn’t play very well, aight? The team that plays the best wins the game, and that’s what I’ve been trying to emphasize with our players.”

Part of Saban’s plan with his message to his players is keeping their minds clear. If they worry too much about other “weird stuff” that happened at Jordan-Hare, it’ll be hard to get rid of those thoughts come game time. That goes hand-in-hand with Saban’s winning mentality. If players think they’re going to win, they’ll win. If they don’t, they won’t.

But if they’re too worried about “weird things happening,” that’s when it gets messy no matter which stadium Alabama plays.

“When you get stuff in your head — it’s the same thing I said before. People who lose think they’re gonna lose, people who win think they’re gonna win. People who think weird stuff happens, weird stuff happens, aight?” Saban said. “And weird stuff doesn’t really happen. You’ve got to focus on what happens on the field. If you focus and can stay focused on that, it’s a tough place to play, it’s a tough environment.”

Nick Saban on getting players ready for hostile environments: ‘Could you tie your shoes in this noise?’

Playing in the SEC, Alabama sees its share of hostile environments. The Crimson Tide experienced Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium and LSU’s Death Valley last year and had to go into Texas A&M’s Kyle Field earlier this season. That doesn’t account for other traditionally tough places to play such as The Swamp at Florida and Georgia’s Sanford Stadium.

Saban takes an interesting approach to making sure his players focus solely on what they need to do to tune out the noise.

“Like I said to the players, could you tie your shoes in this noise? ‘Yeah, Coach, I can do that.’ Well, how come? Because all you’re thinking about [is] tying your shoes,” Saban said. “Just think about playing and what you’ve got to do on the field, not about the noise and all this stuff. But when you start thinking about all that stuff and that gets in your head, it leads to something real, and it’s not really at all, that, at all. It’s how do you execute and play on the field? How do you adjust, how do you execute and do your job?

“And preparation is a really, really big part of that, especially against a team … they do a lot of stuff on offense, man. They’ve got a lot of formations, they’ve got a lot of adjustments, they’ve got unbalanced line, they’ve got a lot of quarterback runs. They’ve got two quarterbacks that can run, aight? There’s a lot of challenges that go into preparing so you can play well in the game and you’ve got to be focused on that all week long.”