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Nick Saban calls out Alabama players for sub-par practice, calls for ‘right mindset’ against Arkansas
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Nick Saban has extremely high expectations for his program. Regardless of whether it’s a little-played freshman or an All-American upperclassman, or a coach, for that mater, Saban holds everyone at Alabama to a high standard.
The Crimson Tide will need to be at their sharpest as they host Arkansas on Saturday, knowing that a loss would spell an end to their College Football Playoff hopes. Meanwhile, it’s been a resurgent season for the Razorbacks, who have drastically improved under Sam Pittman.
Apparently Wednesday’s practice wasn’t to the standards Saban expects from his team, and he said as much during his weekly press conference afterwards.
Nick Saban on Wednesday’s practice: “We got a lot of guys that had the poor me’s, whatever that means. So you get into your feelings, you don’t do the things the way you need to do them to have success and when you get that way, you don’t create good habits. …"
— Mike Rodak (@mikerodak) November 18, 2021
“… it’s not a good thing and it’s not something that we can accept and it’s something that we got to do a better job of."
— Mike Rodak (@mikerodak) November 18, 2021
Saban also cautioned against the Tide not having the correct approach, considering that they’ve been on the verge of losing a couple of other games this year.
“We need to have the right mindset playing in a game like this,” he said. “We need to have the right mindset in preparation in practice, how we practice, how physical we need to be. That’s everybody’s choice. If you don’t have that choice, you need to change the way you think.”
More often than not, the Tide usually get the message, and they’ll look to clinch the SEC West on Saturday with a victory against the Razorbacks. Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m. ET on CBS.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
