Nick Saban 'encouraged' by what he's seen from players during virtual meetings and workouts

This offseason has been a unique one as players and coaches deal with the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even as players return to campuses for voluntary workouts, social distancing is still a thing, which means lots of virtual meetings are taking place.

That can be frustrating for coaches who are used to a more hands-on approach, but Alabama’s Nick Saban said during a radio appearance on Saturday that he’s encouraged by what he’s seen from Crimson Tide players (via 247Sports):

“I’ve been very encouraged,” said Saban on Alabama Athletics’ Summer Update Radio Show on Saturday. “We’ve had really good feedback from the players. We’ve had really good contact with the players because we Zoom with them Monday-Thursday every week somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half. So, it’s not like we’ve completely lost touch.

“We’re able to monitor, to some degree, what they’re doing. … The guys that didn’t have facilities, we provided a band so they could do band workouts, which is resistance training. And I’m sure the outcome will vary from player to player, but for the most part, I’ve been very encouraged by the player response to workouts that we gave them and how they implemented those things to improve themselves. I think we’ve got a lot of really, really good teaching done with this Zoom stuff because we can take it slow and we can really teach conceptually not only what to do but how to do it.

“Even though we can’t go on the field and actually do it, we can show them players who have done it that way in the past so they’ve got a good visual picture of what they need to do when they do come back. Hopefully, even though we’re not going to be able to coach them on the field and what they do is voluntary, they’ll start trying to implement some of these things on their own.”

We’re still a couple of weeks away from players being able to return to the field, so we’ll see which teams prosper in this coming summer and which teams find themselves a step behind from the get-go.