Nick Saban CFP press conference transcript continued
Q. You’ve had a chance to watch Jaylen Waddle at practice for a couple of days. What does it look like to you?
NICK SABAN: Well, I’ve already made a comment about that, so I don’t have any — first of all, the issue with injuries is when a guy does practice, how does he respond to the workload. Sometimes if a guy practices one day and gets sore the next, you can’t practice him the next day, so you just keep sort of trying to build up his workload to where he might be able to play.
So that’s a work in progress right now, so you really can’t predict where he might be. And then other guys seem to get stronger as they — every day they practice they get a little bit better. This is something that we’re trying to evaluate but not anything that we can make any kind of prediction on at this point.
Q. I was just wondering, what went into some of those conversations with guys like Najee, Alex, DeVonta that could have left for the NFL, and how rewarding is it for you to see them not only come back, but almost maybe increase their stock with the great seasons that those three and probably some others had?
NICK SABAN: Well, I think the number one goal in our program is to have players create value for themselves. Value comes in a lot of different ways: Character, attitude, how you represent yourself, the kind of brand that you
develop for yourself. Obviously getting an education and graduating from school certainly contributes to that in a large degree, and then how can you create value for yourself as a football player.
We try to help our guys make business decisions about, Okay, here’s where we think you’re going to get picked if you come out right now. Here’s the upside if you decide to come back. Football is a developmental game. I think all these guys that made those decisions certainly enhance their value pretty dramatically by the way they played this year.
But at the same time I always tell players, Look, if you’re not 100 percent committed to getting better at the things that you need to improve on, then you’re not going to improve your draft status, so it’s probably not going to do
any good for you to come back. We’ve had quite a few players here that had sort of those second-, third-round grades that have come back and become higher draft picks because of the way they’ve developed, and I think there’s a good example for a lot of guys to see when guys do that.
The money in the draft goes down dramatically, so if you’re going to be a second or third round pick you can almost double or triple your value if you can move up into the first round, and I think a lot of guys on our team have the maturity to be able to see that. I think the other thing that players need to understand is the place football players develop is in college. Every other professional sports, whether it’s baseball, minor leagues, hockey, has a minor league. Basketball has a — whatever they call it, G-league or whatever it is, where they can develop players to actually end up on their team.
Football doesn’t have that. So your development has to come in college, so it’s kind of an all-or-nothing decision when you go out, and the more the team invests in you, the more security that you create for yourself, and I think our players understand the business side of that fairly well.
Q. You talked about Dylan Moses earlier, but what has his experience, his leadership and everything meant, because you do have some young guys contributing on this defense?
NICK SABAN: Well, I don’t think there’s any question about the fact that when Dylan Moses plays for us, he makes everybody around him play better. He makes all the calls on defense. I think the players have confidence in him and his understanding of the system and the scheme. So I think he does enhance the confidence of the rest of the group because of his leadership, his knowledge, and his command of what we’re doing on the field when he’s in
there.
Q. You’ve had a lot of markers through your career. Can you pinpoint, A, when you knew this was something you wanted to do, Coach; and B, when you realized you’re pretty good at it?
NICK SABAN: I don’t know exactly what you mean by markers, if I heard you correctly. You know, I never really wanted to be a coach. I think I have to give all the credit for Don James, who was my college coach, calling me in one day and saying, I’d like for you to be a GA, and I immediately responded that I’m tired of going to school, I don’t really want to go to graduate school, and I don’t want to be a coach, so why would I do something like this. He was pretty convincing that it’s something that I should try. My wife Terry had another year of school, so I really couldn’t go on and do anything else because she wanted to finish and we wanted her to finish and we had promised our parents that if they let us get married that we’d both
graduate from college.
When I did it, I just absolutely loved it. I think that it was a lot like being a player except you didn’t have to run wind sprints after practice or anything like that. But I liked the competitive nature of being a part of a team. And the
preparation that goes into it was different, but it was something that was very self-satisfying. The relationships that you develop with the players on the team and all those things, I feel very fortunate that I’ve been in a profession where I don’t feel like I’m going to work every day because I really enjoy what I’m doing. It’s been great for me, not just the fact that we’ve had a chance to be successful, but really the fact that you really feel like you’re in a position where you have an opportunity to impact a lot of young people’s lives in a positive way and hopefully help them be more successful in their life because they were involved in the program.
Q. I was just curious your memories of two seasons at Ohio State, if there’s anything that sticks out about that. And you’ve had four jobs in the state of Ohio and graduated from Kent State; what are your thoughts on
the love of football in the state of Ohio?
NICK SABAN: Oh, I think Ohio is one of the great states in the United States when it comes to football, football tradition, really good high school football, lots of good football players. There’s still a lot of places in Ohio where the school is sort of the center of the community and there’s a lot of great support and fans for football programs. They’ve certainly produced from a high school level a tremendous number of very, very good players. Ohio State has always had great tradition in terms of the success that they’ve had on the field, and having had the opportunity to work there a few years, I kind of understand that tradition very well.