Nick Saban breaks down his 'tough love' approach to coaching

ESPN’s cameras caught Alabama cornerback Terrion Arnold receiving an earful from his head coach, Nick Saban, during the Crimson Tide’s game at Mississippi State last weekend.

Earlier this week, Arnold was asked about getting through one of Saban’s butt-chewings.

“You’ve got to ask questions because you’ve got to see what he wants so you can make that adjustment on the field,” Arnold told local reporters on Tuesday. “So when he came to me – I actually was jogging off the field, and I was like, ‘Dang, boy. He looks mad. He’s fixing to give it to somebody.’ And then I’m like, ‘Oh, oh. It’s me.’ 

“He was telling me to time up the blitz on the motion. And I know y’all have seen (him say) like, ‘How many times do I have to tell you,’ … you know the word. When he said that, it was kind of like one of those things that just have to not hear how he’s saying it but you have to hear what he’s saying. I mean, it’s another thing when you look at it as far as never knowing when the camera is on you and being coachable. 

“I feel like the relationship that I have with him, he knows that I can take coaching like that. And it’s hard coaching. When you choose to come here, you never know when he can chew you out. Like people always say, you should be worried when he’s not saying something.”

Saban was noticeably more animated during Alabama’s 40-17 win over the Bulldogs, and after the game, he said he was doing as he was told after he received advice from his wife, Terry, who told him to get on players if they weren’t playing well in the SEC road opener.

Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, Saban was shown the clip of Arnold’s quote from Tuesday afternoon, and he discussed his approach to coaching, whether fiery or not.

“I want each and every player on our team to reach their full potential and be the very best player they can be,” Saban said. “That’s what creates value for their future, that’s what creates value for our team and that’s always the goal here. I tell the players all the time, ‘You’ve got to be it before you can become it. 

“‘So you’ve got to create the right habits. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to take the coaching. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes. And then you can become the kind of player that you really want to be. But you’ve got to be it first. It doesn’t happen the other way around.’”

He continued by talking about how he grew up with “a lot of tough love” in West Virginia.

“My dad was great,” Saban said. “If you didn’t do it right, you had to do it again, and he always confronted and demanded that you do things the right way. And I do that a lot of with the players, but I think the players understand that. And I think if the players know you care about them, they’re OK with that. I don’t think any player cares what you know until he knows that you care. I care about our players. I want them to be successful personally, academically and athletically so they create value for their future.

“But at times, I got to admit, I coach them hard. But most of them get used to it, and I tell them, ‘Look, we’re going to play at Texas A&M, there’s going to be 105,000 people trying to get in the middle of your stuff. You can’t take me getting in the middle of your stuff?’”

Saban was later asked if he evaluates the mental makeup of players during recruiting in order to see if they can handle his style of coaching but said, “You don’t coach everybody the same.”

“Some guys are obsessive-compulsive. They’re perfectionists. They want to get it right,” Saban said. “So you coach that guy a lot different because when you get on him, sometimes that’s not to his benefit or to our benefit. So it just depends on the player. It depends on the personality, the makeup, and those kind of guys are easy to see that these guys are driven to be good, so now you just want to teach them because they’ve got the right stuff. They’re trying to do everything they need to do to be the best they can be. 

“Other guys, sometimes you’ve got to make a point that this is what you need to be doing, and is this behavior helping you accomplish the goals that you have as a player? It becomes a matter of priority. We all have priority, but a single-minded purpose in what your priority is as a football player and how you develop is really important to you improving and becoming what you’re capable of being.”

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