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
We went ahead and took the guy we could get. If the opportunity presents itself to get a quality, young quarterback in the draft, we will do it.
We're doing a little better job of getting pass rush with four guys and affecting the quarterback lately.
Sam has worked hard and played very well for us. He has gotten better and better all year long and has especially played well in the second half of the season. He has been a good guy on our team.
Personally, I hate to release any of the guys. I feel like this is our team. These guys have been here. They've worked hard. They've all made a tremendous commitment and sacrifice to trying to make the team. I have a lot of respect for what they've tried to do and feel badly that every guy can't, maybe, realize his dreams.
We are going to get the quarterback ready that is going to play in the game and we are going to try and get the backup ready to be the backup. It is really insignificant to me, because there are players at every position that get limited amounts of reps to be backups and if something happens to the guy ahead of him, whether they are having trouble performing, they get injured or whatever, that guy has got to get you through the game.
Both guys did some good things and we're going to continue to try to feature both those players.
Even though our offensive line did a really good job this year, it is an area of our team that we may be able to add something to that might enhance it even more, especially with the kind of running backs that we have. I don't think we have an older guy on our team who is not capable of continuing to play. I think the issue becomes, can they do it and sustain it for the season? Those are the tough decisions that we have to make, but we are going to have to do that with defensive players because we need to get younger.
Every guy that we got rid of all of a sudden is the best player there ever was, and never ever made a mistake or had a problem. We're not going to second-guess. Don't ask me to do it.
Do we want to play him 75 plays in a game? Probably not, ... Do we want to play him in spots and spurts and see how he responds and reacts to it? It's almost like you would do in a preseason game -- six, eight plays, take him out for a few, put another guy in, give him six or eight more and see how he manages it.
We have total faith, trust and confidence in the guy. The guy has a tremendous amount of ability. He's going to be a long snapper for a long time in this league so the question is do we want to take the time to develop that or do we want to let him go snap for somebody else?
I'm here to say that we're here to help both guys get better and improve, and we'll make the decisions based on what's best for our offensive team to get better.
We have another one, Sammy (Morris). I think that's something we've always looked at as a two-starter position, the running-back position. That has been my history as a coach, to always have two guys at that position that can play and share the load.
Here's a guy that's had a character quality career. He's been a leader in the community as well as on his team. Obviously, we've all done something on some occasion in our life that we regret and wish we wouldn't have done.
Typically, people who can score touchdowns or create big plays, whether they affect the quarterback on defense or make the plays down the field, are guys that have a little bit more impact.