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
Our doctors felt comfortable about the circumstance of his injury, where he is in his rehab and where he can be in the future. It's our goal to get him ready for this season. He's on schedule to do that.
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.
At this point, I'm not ready to say that changing quarterbacks is going to solve all our problems, so that's where it's at.
To be honest, I didn't even get a chance to watch the game. We came back from practice and watched film on our practice, so I didn't get to see any of the game. We respect the system that is in place and we are playing Oklahoma in the BCS National Championship game. It's a tremendous opportunity for our program and right now all we are focused on is getting our players ready to play Oklahoma.
I think he got enough work in the preseason to be ready for the first game. We did the best we could under the circumstances. We'll continue to try to develop him in the beginning of the season.
We didn't do what we needed to do to get a stop. We have to do a better job as coaches getting our players ready so we have a better chance to be successful in those situations and we have to be more consistent in the way we perform.
I don't think he's ready to carry it 45 times. We're going to have to keep playing him into it, but hopefully we can get him in that 12- to 15-touch mode.
I would have liked to determine it a month ago or two weeks ago. I would like to determine it. I don't have a problem with determining it. We are trying to determine it. But we don't want to upset the apple cart of what we are trying to accomplish with the development of both of these players by trying to determine something that is not ready to be determined.
We gave him the work we thought he could handle. Do I think he got enough work in the preseason to be ready for the first game? I didn't make the decision to come to practice when he came to practice. We did the best we could under the circumstances.
It's kind of hard to get everybody ready to start.
It's difficult to know what 15 players are going to get picked before we pick. This is a time when nobody really ever really tells the truth about what they plan to do. We have to be ready and have every player evaluated.
It's most important that we use caution right now, in terms of trying to keep some of our better players and more experienced players that have impact and leadership ready for the season,
It will be a challenge for our players to face the defending Super Bowl champions in their first game. It just reinforces the importance of our off-season program and training camp to make sure we're ready to play at a high level to begin the season.
He's going to have to carry a little more than maybe he's ready for. We're very pleased with his development, but in the absence of Ricky, we're going to lean on him a little more than we would like to.