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 tried to create a little bit of an identity as a team today. I'm proud of the effort that we put in and the way we persevered and overcame adversity. The big thing that this team did today was they had a little tenacity, a little perseverance. And I think that's something you definitely need in this league relative to the competitive balance and what you have to do to win games.
Junior is a little bit up in the air right now. We don't know exactly, the extent, so I would be guessing if I made any kind of prediction on what his status would be, relative to the next week or so.
If a player isn't performing relative to the so-called investment that you have in him, sometimes you have to make tough decisions. We were committed to the guy. He was committed. If anything, I feel personally responsible that we didn't make it work with the guy.
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've obviously started our research in terms of what the options are going to be for us. One of the goals that we have is to develop the players we have so somebody can be a starter for our organization in the future, or to bring somebody to the organization that has the potential to be a future starter relative to our situation.
It's going to be a very difficult circumstance for people to operate systematically and have the kind of money to be actively involved in free agency. It changes some of the rules relative to the system in how you can calculate a guy's salary.
It's going to be a little bit of a process for us to get used to what's best for us to do offensively with those two guys in the game. . . and for those two guys in the game to get used to doing what their roles are, relative to that circumstance which we will continue to try to develop to some degree in the future.
I think those are the kinds of decisions we would certainly like to have some input into. Our goal and focus is, number one, to respect the player. Ricky did an outstanding job for us on the field. Secondly, (we want to) respect the decision of the league, relative to what they felt it was necessary to do.
The competency and the chemistry that you can create certainly helps make for a good team. Those are the situations that we would consider relative to Terrell Owens.
We tried to put ourselves in a position that that wouldn't be a factor for us right now.
We just want to continue to be able to let them develop and progress. We're not disappointed in anybody. We're actually encouraged by our ability to throw the ball with consistency in the game by all the quarterbacks.
What's the occasion? ... Like I don't know.
We lost two great players who were part of a dominating front, ... Young players are going to determine the depth and quality of the kind of defensive team we're going to have.
We missed a couple of throws and had a couple of turnovers. . . We made some big plays on defense, which helped us. We just have to take advantage of the field position when we get it.