Nick Saban Details "The Process" Rose Bowl Prep Edition on The Pat McAfee Show
The No. 4 Alabama Crimson Tide football team is 17 days away from taking on the No. 1 Michigan Wolverines in the College Football Playoff semifinals. The Crimson Tide is opening up Rose Bowl practice tomorrow as they seek to win the program's seventh national title under head coach Nick Saban.
Saban has has a particular proclivity for postseason success, amassing a 19-11 record in bowl or playoff games over the course of his 28 year head coaching career. Boil it down to his time with Alabama and his record is 16-6.
The veteran coach has clearly tweaked his process over the course of his career and it's yielded more fruitful results.
"Well I think I've learned a lot through the years. In the very beginning when I was a head coach, especially at Michigan State I think we lost five straight bowl games or something. We used to try to practice our way to the game, in other words we'd practice a couple days, go recruiting a few days, practice a couple days. So everything go stretched out over a whole month when you were playing in a bowl game or something," said Saban on the Pat McAfee Show on Friday. "When we adopted the philosophy 'it's more like a one game season' and look at it that way and let the players work on their own for a couple weeks, do some simulated training, do some stuff to keep them in shape for what they need to do, but when you start practicing actually be able to practice for the game and have those 11 or 12 practices to get ready to go. I think physiologically it's a lot better for players because I actually think you can practice too long for the same opponent."
Alabama opens up Rose Bowl practice on Saturday as the program's set to make its eighth appearance in the College Football Playoff. The Tide has won the previous six semifinal matchups, having last lost in 2014 to Ohio State.
Saban outlined how he furthered his 'one game season' philosophy with his player in his approach to practice. First it's back to the basics for the Crimson Tide, instead of diving right into game planning for the Wolverines.
"We go three days, first three days of practice is sort of like, fundamental camp practices, where we try to get guys back in the groove. One of the big things in bowl games especially when you've had some time off is getting the techniques right, tackling is a big thing in bowl games because guys hadn't played in a while. We spend three days on that and then after three days we'll go through a regular week here and then do the same then when we go out there," said Saban.
Bowl practice can often be a time to focus on developing depth and creating comfort and confidence in your younger players, but playoff games with high stakes mean you can only do so much. Saban pointed to the extra repetitions the players get as a positive in bowl season, but Alabama is reaping an even deeper reward due to its due diligence with the 2024 class.
"Well especially in these first three days. Once you get past these first three days you've got to get back to coaching the guys that can play in the game. One of the new rules that I think is really good for young guys, you can actually come to bowl practice now if you're a mid-year graduate that's starting school in January. So we'll have some of those guys in here. It'll be good experience for them to get acclimated, you know, to what college practice is like, college preparation is right, fundamentals, scheme, all that type of thing. Once you get past these first three days you've got to focus pretty much on the guys who will play in the game, but there is a lot of fundamental work that the young guys get because they're practicing, much better than if they're not out there practicing for, I think we'll have 11 or 12 practices for this game," said Saban.
That due diligence has come a small cost as Saban and his staff haven't finished game planning for the top-ranked team in America. They've spent the last two weeks traveling and recruiting to ensure next Wednesday's National Early Signing Date goes smoothly.
"No, we're really just learning and watching. This is a planning day today. So we've used all day today to sort of try to zero in. When you're on the road recruiting with the technology that we have now you can watch this stuff when you're in the plane and all that type of thing," said Saban "We've done quite a bit of that but this is the first day we've been together as a staff sort of planning it all. We'll use these next three days to do that quite a bit as we're practicing fundamentals."
The seven-time national champion continued with the former NFL punter by describing how he divides up the preparation work when preparing for an opponent.
"Everyone on the staff has really something that they're looking at. And they need to become expert in that particular part of the game, whether it's goal line, short yardage, some part of the game, red area, how you play bunch passes, how you're going to block some of their third down looks when they're on defense and they're giving you all these mucked up looks and all that type of stuff. Everybody's got a specific challenge and then we bring those things together and try to figure out what works best in all those situations."
The Crimson Tide have hovered between a one and two-point underdog in the upcoming Rose Bowl as the Wolverines have hardly been challenged throughout the season.
Alabama will get back to the basics at practice on Saturday as the coaching staff spends the weekend going over every aspect of the Michigan team and will unveil the official plan to players on Monday.
