The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Big Noon Conversations: Nick Saban on the Challenges of Coaching in the Modern Era of CFB

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

The second episode of The Joel Klatt Show: Big Noon Conversations, features FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst Joel Klatt speaking with Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa. The two discuss what still drives the 7x National Champion coach. They also dive into the challenges of coaching in the modern era of the sport with the transfer portal, opt-outs and NIL. Coach Saban goes into whether the relationship between student-athlete and their university is properly balanced at this moment. They also discuss whether parity is possible in college football before concluding the conversation with a job offer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All we do is take the teams that win the most games at the end of the year and put them in the playoffs But do you really get the best teams? When they told me that we would be favorite against three out of the four teams that got in the playoff I'm like well, why aren't we in the playoff? Most influential people in the sport talking about the sport and global This time on the Joel Klas shows Big Noon conversations I talked to the legend seven-time national championship coach Nick Sabin Coach Saven, really thankful that you sat down with us and wanted to talk about the sport overall, so I appreciate your time. So I've only had the fortune of covering Alabama in a game one time.

It was last year, and you guys were about to play Texas. We got to meet in our production meeting on Friday, and I asked you a question. You gave an answer I'll always remember and has impacted me in a great deal. But I didn't want to ask a follow-up to that question because it wasn't game-specific, and I didn't want to waste your time. But if I had more time on that Friday, I would have asked you about your answer, about the chase and the capture. I asked you what you still love about this, why you're still going so hard, what you have left to prove? And you said, well, I guess I still love this because the chase is greater than the capture.

Could you describe what the chase is for me? Yeah, well, that's the process of what you go through to try to build the team, the process of what you do to try to build individuals to have the culture that they need to be the best version of themselves in terms of whether it's personal, academic or athletic. And, you know, you view the game. That's what you cover. That's what you see. And that's part of it.

But the work ethic, the discipline, the pride and performance, all the things that go in to try and to help them be the best version of themselves, carry over in their life as well. So that's the part that I enjoy, the whole process of developing young people to have a chance to be successful. And it's kind of like climbing a mountain. It's a challenge. It's an individual challenge, and it's a collective challenge for your team. Okay.

So a lot of talk about the sport and maybe what's going wrong or what needs to be fixed. But I don't think we focus enough on what's going right and what is. working in our sport. What are those things in your mind? Well, I think the first thing is, you know, coaching is all about teaching, teaching's ability to inspire learning. But I think there's a lot of mentorship that goes on in coaching that goes completely unnoticed. You know, we're really trying to create value for people's future by providing good leadership, you know, trying to set a good example for and be somebody that can emulate care enough to help them for their benefits so that they have a better chance to be successful in their life.

And we put a lot and invest a lot into all that, whether it's personal development programs, academic support, career development programs, as well as trying to help them develop careers as football players. So I think a lot of that kind of goes unnoticed, but I think a lot of those things is what always made college football great. And it's helped a lot of young people in any sport have a better chance to be more successful in life, which I always thought. that's why you went to college to create value for your future.

And you bring up a great point about the support, you know, and what's going on, not just on the field, but off the field, and supporting what they're doing physically, their mental health now. All of those things are, I would say, new in the modern day of college football, but they're really good for the overall health and well-being of our athletes. No, there's no question about that. And I don't think that people realize how much we do invest, you know, in all those areas.

And I think they're all good things that we're doing. Mental health part of it is outstanding for young people, the medical attention that get the nutrition aspects that we give them, the academic support that we give them. I mean, it's endless in terms of how we invest in players. The Sugar Bowl this year, you were asked, do you think the 12-team playoff is gonna fix college football? I thought you gave a great answer.

You talked about, well, first, you've got to tell me what's broken before we can talk about what's fixing it. Now, in your answer, you mentioned some of the challenges in our sport, Transfer Portal being one of them, NIL being one of them, opt-outs being another. If you were to start to address some of the issues in college football, where would you start? Well, I think you have to create a balance between how much do you take and how much do you give. Okay.

You know, we're giving people scholarships. We're creating name image and likeness opportunities. But what is their commitment? I mean, there's no place in the world where you don't have a contract. If you're going to receive benefits, you have a contract and an obligation to do a certain job. So when you can opt out, transfer, do whatever you want, whenever you want, I'm not sure the balance is quite right. I know there's a lot of people out there that are much more qualified than me that are trying to figure out how we fix this. But I think we do need to create some balance.

Because I think at the end of the day, when you create an atmosphere where somebody's tentatively committed to what they're trying to accomplish, you have to evaluate, is that really a good thing? Sure. Because we all need to be totally committed to whatever, you know, our goals and aspirations are, the sense of purpose that we have if we're going to have a chance to be successful. Along those lines, do you think it would help if the players were organized so that they could be collectively bargained with so that some of those contractual obligations could take place? You know, I think that it never scares me that people are organized. I think there's some good in that. I mean, I think, you know, General Motors and the automotive industries had unions for a long time, and they survived. very well, I think.

But there's a lot of people who are a little skeptical, and I can understand why that you make college student athletes employees, and I think when you organize them, that's maybe what the ultimate result, you know, may be. And I can't honestly say that I'm qualified to know exactly what the cause and effect of that would really be. Right. The adjustments in this sport are ongoing, and they have been throughout time. There's an old expression. There's nothing new under the sun. And throughout time, coaches have had to adjust, whether it's on the field or off the field, how they're operating in order to be successful. I would make the argument, no one's done that better than you. If you look at the history of our sport, coach, very rarely do we see coaches win over cycles of recruits or cycles of style. of football on the field. You have done that, both at LSU, now at Alabama. I'm curious, what are you adjusting to and evolving

with currently, whether it's on the field or off the field? I think you're in a constant. You have to be flexible, number one. And I think if you're flexible, then you have a willingness to adapt. And I think your willingness to adapt is really, really important because things are changing. I mean, just in the last 15 years,

years. You know, we never had RPO's before. We never had advantage throws. We never had fastball offenses like we have now. So, and all those things create advantages, but they also create adaptations that are necessary for the other side of the ball. And so that's just on the field. You know, off the field, you've already talked about all the things we've had to adapt to, whether it's transfer portal, whether it's name image and likeness, whether it's expanded playoffs, whether it's, you know, bowl games not being as significant as they were before and guys often out of playing in them. You know, so there's a lot of changes that are ongoing that you have to adapt to. And I think that rather than complain about it, which a lot of people

sit around and complain, complaining is actually a distraction to the solution. And, you know, And I think that you've got to spend most of your time trying to figure out what is the solution. How can we adapt? And most of the time it comes down to if we can do a better job from a relationship standpoint and build a program that creates more value for the players, then they're going to be happier here. They're going to want to stay here. They're going to buy into the fact that long term, I can create more value for myself by staying here in the program. and that's the way we've tried to look at all these challenges

to try to improve the quality of the program that we have. And you're coming off a highly successful recruiting class, not that that's new here at Alabama, but that speaks to the ability to adjust and more so the willingness to adjust in the current environment in recruiting. Well, but the whole idea of evaluating recruiting classes, So if you had a litter of puppy dogs, how would you sit there and look at them and say which ones are going to be the best dogs and which one of them aren't?

Which one of them are going to be the best hunting dog and which one of them aren't? I don't know. And I don't know who's making those evaluations. So how accurate is it? Because really the proof is in the pudding once the players get here because the focus has to be on their development. Sure. And what do they develop into. Sure.

So and that's what we try to stay focused. on and, you know, and I always wonder, does it enhance somebody's recruiting evaluation if they get recruited by the Alabama's and Georgia's and Texas of the world? Or how does that work? I've never been able to increase, don't they? I've never, ever quite figured that out. But it's certainly great for you all to be able to have a recruiting service that you to talk about for two hours and rank and rate people and make predictions and all that.

Evaluate coaches. Yeah, and then you don't have to live with the consequences or anything. It's just a lot of fun. That's true. That's very true. I want to be like you someday so I can do that. Don't ever have to play the game. Don't ever have to win.

Don't ever have to lose. You know, I would, here, let me give you a slight pushback. Those of us who have played and love it. Like my dad was a high school football coach. I love competing. I happened to go into this industry. I always thought I was going to be a coach. You know, just like you thought you were going to be an insurance, you know, until Don James said, you know, you're going to be my GA. I thought I was going to be a coach. And this kind of found me, to be honest with you. You know what the worst part is on Saturday? Is that I don't have an outcome. And there's no locker room at the end of the game. And that's something that I still long.

for, you know, because there is a chase in my industry as well where I'm preparing for the game as best I can to serve not only the teams and the programs on both sides, but the fan bases. And then the lights turn out and you just go get on an airplane. So I'm going to ask you the same thing I ask our players. Okay. I ask them, why did you come to Alabama? They tell me they want to graduate. They weren't playing in the NFL and all that.

And you know what my next question is? Do you understand what that entails? All right. So you got this nice job that you have. have right now. And you want to be in the locker room and you want to compete, you want to have an outcome. But do you understand what that entails? Are you willing to work from seven in the morning to 10 o'clock at night, four or five days a week, not be around your kids very much? Don't see them grow up, I or any of that. And that's what I was unwilling to do, right? So mine

was a whole family decision for me in terms of the industry. I just wanted to make sure everybody was clear on that. Crystal, I love it. That's amazing. Okay, last thing that I wanted to touch you on before we get out of here. You have a great grasp of the sport overall. And I'm not talking about it on the field. I'm talking about the overarching sport. You've been very humble in saying that you don't have the qualifications for certain conversations. But I'm always so fascinated with what you say about the sport because it seems like at the heart of it, you have the sport globally.

and what's best for it at heart, are you ever conflicted at any point between what's good for the sport overall and what's good specifically for Alabama? Well, if you would ask anybody else in our profession, they would answer that yes, because they think that everything that I say about the sport globally is to benefit Alabama, which is not really true. what I think we have a great sport, and I think it's been great for a lot of people for a lot of years, including myself when I had the opportunity to play for Don James, who had a great impact on my life, I mean, even got me headed in a direction that has been, you know, something that I've enjoyed tremendously for many, many years.

So I do look at the sport and the big picture of the sport and what's best for the sport, and not just for football, but what are the consequences of some of the things that we're doing now if we've continue down this road and how it impacts other sports and how it impacts opportunities for other people to play other sports that may not be revenue producing sports, but yet for many, many years have created opportunities for people to get an education to better their quality of life down the road and have a chance to compete as college student athletes. I mean, I don't know. How does that impact all of them?

So I really do try to think about what's best for the sport. And I mean, we have to deal with name image and likeness now. But when we started this a few years ago and I said, is this what we want college football to become? I got criticized for saying that. And now people are saying, whoa, you know, maybe we should be looking at this a little closer because, you know, maybe this isn't what we want college sports to become.

Do you think we need more parity in our sport? You guys have been dominant. There's other teams that are also dominating at times. Would you like to see more parity? And do you think that that's coming with the expanded playoff? Well, I think all leagues want to create parity. If you look at the NFL, you know, they would love for everybody to be eight and eight going into the 17th game of the season. because every fan base and every city would be excited about what's the outcome of the next game.

So parity creates a lot of excitement. I think it's harder to do in college football because we have so many different teams. And the fundamentals are different at the University of Alabama as opposed to another school. And I don't want to mention another school, but a 1-A school, a Division II school, even a lower half, you know, Division I school. The money's different. The dynamics are different. The investment that's made and the athletes and the program are different.

And the value created for the athletes is different. So it's not all the same. So if we want to create parity, we would have to take, okay, this is a group of 60 teams or however many. I don't know what the number is. And these are the four or five leagues that we're going to have and we may consolidate them. And we're going to try to create parity. in a more refined group.

I don't think that's the only way, that's probably the only way that you could accomplish that. But in the NFL, you know, if you lose, you draft early. If you win, you draft late. You play a harder schedule if you win. You play an easier schedule if you lose.

So, you know, all those things are rules are for parity so that there's interest. So our fan, they want to dominate. So my job is to try to create a program here where we have the best chance to succeed and have success relative to the competition. But I think even in the SEC, when you add Texas and Oklahoma, there's going to be more parity because there's probably going to be six, seven teams ranked

in the top 20 that are going to be playing each other. But the problem with the way the whole system is, there's no account of, accounting for that. Right. So all we do is take the teams that win the most games at the end of the year and put them at the in the playoffs. But do you really get the best teams? When they told me that we would be favored against three out of the four teams that got in the

playoff, I'm like, well, why aren't we in the playoffs? Sure. Does that mean they have a better team or does it mean that those people don't know what they're talking about? I really don't know that. but and I'm not being critical of anybody. But if you're going to have parity, you have to have a better way of figuring out who has the best teams,

not just because you lose two games on the last play of the game that knocks you out when you may be better than somebody else who didn't have the same circumstances that they had to play in. Coach, I know that you've got meetings coming up. I really appreciate your time today. Love talking about the sport globally, deeply care about it. I know you do as well, so I appreciate your time. Thank you.

I appreciate you. Thank you so much. And, you know, we got a job for you. You want to be a coach. I mean, whenever. Listen, don't float that out unless you're serious because. You shouldn't be broadcasted unless you're serious. Thanks, coach.

All right, man, good deal.