Nick Saban Wants Crimson Tide To Get Identity Back (Video)

Coach Nick Saban spoke to reporters just before the second stop on the Crimson Caravan tour in Dothan, Al on Tuesday evening. Check out the video below as well as the highlights to see what Saban had to say.

Saban had just arrived back from playing in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl Challenge charity golf tournament with Mark Ingram where the pair came in second to earn $65,000 for various charities and scholarships. Saban and Ingram paired with representatives from Georgia Tech in a playoff. Saban told reporters that he told Ingram “I know we’re at least going to win second”. Ingram was quick to come to his former coach with “You never taught me that way”. It’s obvious the former players takes those lessons with them.

Tide fans will remember the heartbreaking College Football Playoff loss for the Tide to Coach Urban Meyer and the Ohio State Buckeyes. Saban and Ingram were paired with the Meyer and Jeff Logan during the front nine. One of the reporters asked what those conversations were like. “There were no conversations. We were just playing”, Saban said with a grin.

For the second stop in a row for the tour, Saban talked about wanting the players to get their hunger and identity back before the next season starts. “Well I think the No. 1 thing we want to do is try to get our identity back, in terms of the kind of team we want to be and how we want to dominate the competition,” Saban said. “I think we had too many people worried about winning and losing and not enough about what we need to do play our best and be our best all the time and be physical and aggressive. That’s what we need to get back to, and that’s what I’d like for our expectation to be.

“The players have been great in the offseason, had a good spring, made progress. They’re a little bit of a work in progress on offense with all the players that we lost. But defensively, I liked what I saw in the spring. We’ve got some good specialists. It usually comes around that way. Last year we lost a lot of players on defense, so we’ve got to kind of rebuild something. That’s what we’re focused on trying to do.”

He went on to say that he didn’t think it really ever faded but he didn’t think they finished strong. Saban said that he feels the players put too much on themselves trying to win the big game instead of going out and trying to dominate your opponent on every play.

Saban expects the team chemistry to grow as well as the leaders emerging during the summer when the coaches aren’t allowed to work with the players and someone has to step up to motivate. What does he mean by getting the mojo back?

“It’s your enthusiasm, your spirit, what your purpose, goal in what you’re trying to do”, he said. When we first came to Alabama, a lot of guys came to Alabama to make Alabama some place special. But when you have a lot of success, sometimes people come to Alabama for what Alabama can to do for them.

“That’s a completely different dynamic in terms of how you motivate, what your goals are, how you develop team chemistry. But I like the group that we have now, and I think we’re going to get some of these things back.”