With one of the biggest games of the season for Alabama this Saturday against No. 14 LSU, head coach Nick Saban is trying to capture his players’ attention.
Usually, Saban will try and get through to his players by way of a rant during one of his press conferences. This Wednesday after practice, he used a different tactic.
During his weekly Thursday appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show," Saban talked about his new tactic to get his players' attention. Saban told McAfee that he asked everyone to cover up one ear so that what he said would not go in one ear and out of the other.
“I try to do different things to get the players to pay attention," Saban explained. "So like yesterday after practice, I said I want everyone to put their hand over their ear because I don't want what I'm saying to go in one ear and out the other.”
“It was like the ultimate attention-getter," he added. "What is he going to say now? And I said the same thing I said all week but they listened. I don’t know if they listened before, but they listened yesterday. You're always trying to come up with a new way to get them to pay attention and not focus on the wrong things. We live in a very outcome-oriented world right now so to get people to stay focused on what you need to do to get the outcome is always challenging.”
Saban is undeniably one of the most legendary college football coaches of all time, thanks to his ability to evolve with the game. Now, at the age of 72, after celebrating his birthday on Halloween, the coach is still able to connect with the players despite such a large gap in age. McAfee noticed this connection with his players and wanted to know how he could still keep it up despite his age.
“I really like doing it, and I think the sort of key to it all is you want players to respect you,” Saban said. “There was probably a time when we all coached with a little bit more intimidation to create fear so people would do things the way we wanted because they were afraid not to. I know that’s how it was when I played. But I think, now, and I enjoy this so much more if you really want players to respect you.”
“And I think that’s my philosophy for the last 15-20 years, I don’t know," he added. "[It] makes coaching fun, makes it more fun for the players.”
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