Nick Saban
Nick Saban
Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. is an American football coach. He is the head football coach at the University of Alabama, a position he has held since the 2007 season. Saban previously served as head coach of the National Football League's Miami Dolphins and three other universities: Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, and the University of Toledo. His eight-year contract totaling US$32 million made him one of the highest paid football coaches, professional or collegiate, in the United States at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth31 October 1951
CityFairmont, WV
CountryUnited States of America
Last year was a mountain climb -- we were fortunate to be able to plant the flag at the top of the mountain and win the national championship, ... This year, we have won zero games. We are at base camp at the bottom of the mountain looking up at the climb. And it will be very difficult.
Olindo has had a fantastic camp. He has made a much higher percentage of his kicks than what our standard would be.
I felt like Ricky Williams played well. He didn't have many opportunities to do much, because he didn't have much space.
I can't sit here and say that our players aren't as good as their players. I feel terribly that we didn't get the result that we wanted.
We need to make sure we have an adequate backup at that position. We're trying to work through that right now, either with the players we have on our team or some who are available in free agency.
There are times when we are getting an outstanding performance from the running back. There are times when we are getting a hat on a hat to finish a block. We just have to do it more consistently. ... It's just a matter of execution on a more consistent basis from the entire unit.
There are lots of players who have had this injury. There are lots of players who come back and play from this injury, and they actually come back to full mobility and full speed.
Maybe this guy (Denney) won't mess up twice in a year after he's done it in 10 years, ... But if we were to cut this guy, he would have gotten claimed. And if you watch him snap you would feel the same way. We're not going to second-guess anything that we did.
Nobody wishes that anybody has to go through what one of our colleagues is having to go through right now relative to his loss in this holiday season.
We worked hard for four years to get here and I really enjoy it, quite frankly, and wasn't really anxious just to walk away from it,
We didn't have, maybe, the precision that we needed at times to get things executed, in terms of the protection, route-running and the decision-making at the quarterback position, so it is not really any one area.
There's an old saying, ... If a rattlesnake bites itself, it still dies.
Absolutely. He's done an outstanding job in practice and he finishes every play. He has done everything that anybody could ask of a player. If you asked me, give me the top five guys that are the best practice players, he would be one of them. If Jason Taylor had played in a 3-4 system somewhere, he would have been a Hall of Fame outside linebacker. He's smart and he's got great instincts to learn things, better than I ever hoped for.
The most disappointing thing to me is I don't think we showed improvement,