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DISCOVER BCS NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: ALABAMA v NOTRE DAMEJanuary 5, 2013Nick SabanMIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA Q.  Good morning, Coach. A quick opening comment and then we'll go to questions. COACH NICK SABAN: Great to see everybody. Great to be here today. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Orange Bowl Committee and everybody here in South Florida for the great hospitality they've provided our team, our coaches, our football families here. We really do understand all the hard work that they do, what they put in in preparation, as well as what they do in taking care of us while we're here, and we certainly do appreciate that. You know, as a team, we certainly embrace the challenges that every season sort of brings, and we certainly want our team, our players to demand a standard of excellence that's going to help them be all they can be, whether it's personally, academically, or athletically, and certainly we're here to try to take advantage of a great opportunity that they've created for themselves in terms of what they've been able to accomplish this year against a very good Notre Dame team. And I think the thing about having a great attitude toward trying to be all you can be, it sort of shares the responsibility that players and coaches have to continue to improve so that they can reach their full potential. We've always tried to develop a sort of be‑a‑champion sort of character with our players in terms of the importance of being a team, sort of respecting and trusting the principles and values of the organization and each other as teammates. We certainly want our players to be positive in the attitude that they have about trying to be all they can be and the body language that they present, and how it affects other people and the responsibility that leaders have to affect other people in a positive way. We want our players to be responsible for their own self‑determination, which means that I can do my job. We define the expectation and they go about doing it in a way that's going to help them be successful, and that certainly takes a tremendous work ethic. That is a combination of a lot of intangibles, whether it's ability to give effort on a consistent basis, play with the mental and physical toughness to be a great competitor, and have the discipline to execute what you need in whatever it is you're choosing to do. So those are some of the challenges that we have. It's one thing to establish those things, it's another thing to sustain them, and certainly our challenge has been to sustain them, and in some ways you fight human nature a little bit when you try to sustain those things in terms of people that have success kind of want to be rewarded for it and want to be able to take it easy, and success is not something that's a continuum that you can take for granted; it's an ongoing process that you have to work at every day because you're always going to have new challenges, and that's certainly going to be the challenge for our team here in the opportunity that we have to play Notre Dame. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH NICK SABAN: No, you know, I'm kind of excited about the opportunity that our team has. It's really about our team and this game. We're always happy to come back to South Florida. We have some great relationships here and some very fond memories of being here. But you know, right now there's‑‑ we recruited and worked to develop this team for a long, long time, and it's really a lot more about them being here and having the opportunity and trying to get them prepared to take advantage of that opportunity than it is anything that's happened in my past. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH NICK SABAN: Well, it's always been our philosophy to have a two‑running back system. In some cases we've had three guys that have been very, very productive. I think the reasoning for that is we like for guys to not get wore down during the season, so that they can have a shared responsibility and not have a guy run the ball 40 times for five games and then he's out for the year, but have guys that are going to touch it 15 to 20 times and have two guys do it and share that responsibility and keep both those guys sort of healthy and going and improving throughout the season. That's always been a formula that's worked very well for us. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH NICK SABAN: Well, we've had some good combinations. Trent Richardson, Mark Ingram the most recent, and those two guys complemented each other very well. I think the two guys that we have right now are both big backs. They're both physical guys. I think they have a tremendous amount of respect for each other, and they've both done a really good job for us. It's hard to make comparisons between players, but these two guys have done a really good job all year long. Q. Can you talk about the two traditions going head to head, and can you explain the process for people who don't really understand what that's all about. COACH NICK SABAN: Well, first of all, we have a tremendous amount of respect for tradition and all the people who created the tradition, first of all, in our organization at the University of Alabama. I mean, there's a lot of coaches, there's a lot of players, probably the most significant is Coach Bryant, who had a tremendous amount of success for a long, long time, which we have a tremendous amount of respect for because of the difficulty in sustaining success and the standard of excellence that he was able to sustain. But we also have a tremendous amount of respect for Notre Dame and their tradition, having been around it very closely for 10 years at Michigan State. We really kind of understand that and have a tremendous respect and appreciation for that. And I think that having those two traditions come together in a game like this certainly creates a lot of national interest, which is probably really good for college football. Q. When you talk about the process, what does that mean? COACH NICK SABAN: Well, the process is really what you have to do day in and day out to be successful. We try to define the standard that we want everybody to sort of work toward, adhere to, and do it on a consistent basis. And the things that I talked about before, being responsible for your own self‑determination, having a positive attitude, having great work ethic, having discipline to be able to execute on a consistent basis, whatever it is you're choosing to do, those are the things that we try to focus on, and we don't try to focus as much on outcomes as we do on being all that you can be and the things that you need to do to be all you can be. Eliminate the clutter and all the things that are going on outside, and focus on the things that you can control with how you sort of go about and take care of your business. That's something that's ongoing, and it can never change. So it's the process of what it takes to be successful, very simply. Q. Kirby talked yesterday about the mental aspect of the game as it pertains to you coaching now, and he said you're probably more involved with that now than you are the actual defense. Can you talk a little bit about how you get your players to believe in what you say and all the things you do to get their mind right? I know brainwashing is a negative connotation, but in this case is that kind of a good thing? COACH NICK SABAN: Well, I never thought of what I try to get the players to do as brainwashing, but really what we're trying to do is to get them to be all they can be and try to understand the things that they need to do to do that. And so many times something as simple as running a 40‑yard wind sprint, I'll say, we want you to run as fast as you can run, but a guy will run fast enough to beat the guy next to him. So is that really being all you can be, or is that putting sort of a self‑imposed limitation on all you can be relative to what the guy is next to you? And that's not really what we're trying to get people to aspire to. I think really great athletes, whether it's Michael Johnson, Michael Jordan, Mariano Rivera, those guys sort of get it, they understand that the last race doesn't really matter. No matter how many game‑winning shots I've made in the past, the only one that really counts is the next one. So what do I need to continue to do to prepare to be able to take advantage of those situations. I think that's what we're trying to constantly get our players to do, and it's a battle. It's a battle versus human nature, because sometimes they like to get casual in their approach, in their preparation and not do things the way you need to do them to be successful, and that's the challenge that we always have, and we're always looking for ways to inspire them to continue to be all they can be. Q. You mentioned Bear Bryant earlier. I've heard people say that if Alabama wins this game, that Nick Saban is in the same conversation as Coach Bryant. COACH NICK SABAN: I wouldn't agree with that at all. I wouldn't agree with that at all. I mean‑‑ and it's not about that. It's about this team, these players, all they've done all year, embracing the challenges that they've had, especially after having success a year ago, to get themselves in a position to have this opportunity, it's all about trying to help those players be successful, and that's really all we're focused on and all we care about. I don't think it would be fair at all to Bear Bryant and the tradition that he created and the standard of excellence that he sustained for years and years and years to‑‑ really there's no one that I know that I would say should be even spoken of in the same sort of circumstance at all. Q. For the past several days some of your players were asked how to define the word "dynasty", and they didn't even want to mention the word. COACH NICK SABAN: Well, you know, I think to this team, this is about what this team can accomplish. You know, two days after we won the game last year, we had a team meeting, and the first thing I said to this team was, you guys are not the national champions. Some of you played on the National Championship team, but the challenges that this team has are all in front of you in terms of what you're able to accomplish and what you're able to do to sort of set a standard for this team, this year, and what you did last year is not going to have any impact or effect on what you do next year other than make the game that you play against whoever you're playing against a target. You're going to be the target. Everybody is going to bring their "A" game to beat you because of what you've accomplished. So you need to be focused on what you need to do to be all you can be as a team, and see what this team can accomplish. So it's sort of separate. This team is separate from everything that's happened in the past and anything that can happen in the future, and it's sort of precious, present moment of what this team can do. So I can see why. I wouldn't want to comment about those types of things, and I can see why the players wouldn't, because we're trying to get them to focus on today, this play, this time, the next play, the next quarter, the next game. I mean, that's what we've always tried to do with our players. I think those are external factors I call them. That's clutter, that when you start thinking about those things, it's very difficult to focus on the things that you need to do to be successful right now. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH NICK SABAN: Well, I really can't comment on that. I mean, I think the way they play in the game will probably say a lot about whether they've been able to embrace that challenge and actually live that challenge, because regardless of what we think as coaches, you never really know for sure how a team is going to respond and react and play in a game. I mean, you just never know. I mean, sometimes you practice really well, sometimes your team really overachieves, sometimes your team underachieves, and as a coach you're constantly trying to figure out maybe why that happens and what you've done to affect it positively or negatively. But you never really know for sure until you get out there and start playing. Q. (Inaudible.) COACH NICK SABAN: Well, I think that the question is, could I comment on our seniors' success. They've certainly been an instrumental part in all the success that we've had, and I think the thing that people need to understand is their roles have constantly changed, you know, as they've grown up in the program and their years in the program. They started out being young players who needed to mature to be able to develop the consistency and performance to be good players, and they depended on leadership of others to set an example for that so that they could sort of develop the characteristics that would help them be consistently successful. And now their role has completely changed to where they're the leaders that set the example and embrace the challenges, and I had one of them early in the season ‑ I won't mention any names ‑ say, I had a meeting, we have a leadership group, so I have a meeting with them on occasion, and I was telling them that I think they need to do a little bit more and take a little more responsibility for affecting other people with their example and that type of thing. One of the guys said, "I just want to do my job." And I said, "It is a part of your job now. Your role has changed. Not just to do your job but to help other people and affect them so that they can do their job more effectively. Somebody was in that role for you, now you need to be in that role for somebody else." And it was like a light went off like, oh, I get it now; it's not just about me playing my position but it's about me playing my position and being willing to take a responsibility to affect other people in a positive way. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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