Nick Saban Discusses Preparation and Team Mentality Heading into the Cotton Bowl
DALLAS — One would think that preparing for a College Football Playoff Semifinal game would be something that Alabama football coach Nick Saban had grown used to at this point.
Of the eight four-team playoffs to date, the Crimson Tide has made it to seven of them. While the 2021 CFP has yet to play out, Alabama has won its semifinal game a total of five of its six previous appearances and won the national title three of those five times.
When it comes to preparing a team for the CFP, no coach is more familiar or as well-versed in the process as Saban. However, when speaking to the media on Thursday morning, Saban said that in the final week leading up to the semifinal game, it's always a rush over the last couple of days.
“I think when you have this much time between games, when you start practicing way before Christmas, you're practicing, it seems like the game is a long way off," Saban told the media via Zoom. "And then when you really finally arrive at the site, you say, 'wow, this is for real. It's coming up quickly. We have a regular week to go through.'
“And the goal from a coach's standpoint, from our standpoint, is to get the players gaining a sense of urgency, a sense of focus the closer they get to the game and not having practiced so much they start getting bored with what they're doing. And I haven't seen that from our team.”
The No. 1 Crimson Tide will face the No. 4 Cincinnati Bearcats on Friday in the 2021 Cotton Bowl (2:30 p.m. CT, ESPN). The winner will advance to the CFP National Championship Game, to be played on Jan. 10, 2022 in Indianapolis against Michigan or Georgia.
Saban might be the best-prepared coach to get his team ready to play in the CFP, but that doesn't always directly translate to the players. While preparing for several weeks for a single playoff game might be something that Saban has grown accustomed to through years of repeated success, there will always be players that are experiencing the process for the first time.
Preparing his players for the big stage is the ultimate challenge. To Saban, that all starts with ensuring that his team's mindset is in the right place. The mindset doesn't need to be right just at kickoff, though. It's something that needs to be developed and cultured throughout the season.
"I think that's the most important thing: keep the main thing the main thing, which is the game and how you play in the game," Saban said. "And you determine that by the choices you make. What you choose to ignore, whether it's something you hear in the media, whether it's how you played in the last game, past performance, none of that really matters in this game.
"It's how you look forward and focus on what you need to do to be able to execute, do your job, be accountable to your teammates in this particular game. So I think having the right mindset and the right focus is very important to being able to play well."
While Alabama finished the regular season with a 12-1 record, including upsetting then-No. 1 Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, Cincinnati brings its own new set of challenges. While the Bearcats might often be discounted because of their status as a Group of Five team, the program is the only undefeated team in this year's playoff with its 13-0 record.
While the Bearcats might have a better record, the Crimson Tide is still the favorite to win the game. Currently, Alabama is a 13.5-point favorite to win the game. The Crimson Tide is used to being the favorite, but along with that comes something that is dangerous: overconfidence.
Alabama capped off the 2020 season having won both the SEC championship as well as the program's 18th national title. While last year's team was near perfection, this year has been something else entirely. The Crimson Tide might be 12-1, but it has struggled to find consistency on offense — especially in the latter portion of the season — and its defense, while showing improvement in the final weeks of the season, has been hit-or-miss.
The confidence developed by the 41-24 victory over Georgia in Atlanta could come at the team's benefit. However, should Cincinnati prove to be a worthy opponent and the Alabama players' minds aren't in the right place, things could get out of hand in a hurry.
That being said, Saban is very well-aware of this fact. After all, he's had plenty of experience in the CFP — in both wins and losses — to get a good feel for what players need to have their minds adjusted heading into the game.
"I think it's always challenging when you come off of winning a championship for players to have the same hunger, to have a sense of urgency to prove something," Saban said. "I think this is sort of a part of the human condition, that when you have success, you want to be rewarded, you want to relax. You can be a little complacent. So I don't think it was unusual from that standpoint. I think we anticipate that when we have a successful season and we're coming off a successful season.
"But because we were young, I think it took this team a little longer to maybe respond on a consistent basis like we wanted them to, because that sense of purpose is what keeps people focused on the task at hand. And when you start thinking about a lot of external factors and letting other things sort of creep into it, you've heard me say before it's what you choose to ignore sometimes that's just as important to being successful as what you choose to buy into and commit to. And I think it just took a while for us to get everybody on the right track."
Preparation, focus, mentality: these are all words that Alabama fans and the media following Saban have grown used to over his 15 years with the Crimson Tide. While all of those factors are crucial throughout the season, they are at their highest level of importance when the team steps onto college football's largest stage.
At the end of the day, Saban said that he never truly knows the mentality of his players until they step out onto the field for the game. In this case, Saturday's game at AT&T Stadium against Cincinnati.
"You never really know," Saban said. "I can sit here and tell you that I can tell or can't tell. There's been games when I was concerned that we had the right mindset and went out and played well. And there's been games where I thought we were really ready to play and we didn't play very well.
"You really never know until you get out there on the field and kind of start the game and see the look in their eye and how focused and how important it is for everybody to maintain intensity."
