Nick Saban shares the message he has for Alabama players to stay focused on Arkansas

Fans and media members are looking ahead to the SEC Championship Game, but, unsurprisingly, Alabama coach Nick Saban is trying to keep his Crimson Tide players focused on Arkansas instead of looking ahead to the game against Florida in Atlanta.

The topic came up on Saban’s weekly radio show.

“I have a tremendous amount of respect for this team,” Saban said of Arkansas. “I’ve been trying to talk to our team all week about how important — because it goes back to the whole rat poison thing I talked about a few years ago. If you listen to the media and read the newspaper, aight, it’s a foregone conclusion that we’re going to go there and win this game. Aight? And when you hear that so much, it starts to affect your focus, your intensity, the way you prepare and the way you think you need to go play to be able to have success in the game.”

Saban shared that he’s reminding the players of the unique opportunity to go 10-0 against the SEC in the regular season.

“I’ve just been on our players all week long about you got a chance to create a legacy as a team. You win 10 SEC games, go undefeated in the SEC, or you can create the biggest loss in college football this year. The biggest upset in college football,” Saban said. “It’s really all up to you. All up to how you think, all about how you want to approach the game. All about your motivation and intensity to go be the best player that you can be and improve and build on the momentum that we’ll need down the road when we have other opportunities.

“You never get a chance to retrieve a loss. When it’s over, it’s over. They’ll always say — no matter what you do after that — they’ll always say, ‘Yes, but. Yes, but they had a good team but they lost to Arkansas. Yes, but.’ That’s all you’re ever going to hear about the team after this. I don’t care what we do after this. So it’s important to have the proper respect for your opponent and know what it takes to go win on the road in this league.

The Crimson Tide head coach also pointed out that the Razorback offense had a higher output against a common opponent.

“It’s a team that scored 48 points against Missouri,” Saban said. “I don’t know why we sort of don’t sort of respect what they’re capable of doing. It’s an important game for us, in my opinion, and we’ve got to have the right mindset to do it.”

Alabama defeated Mizzou 38-19 in Week 1. Saturday’s game in Fayetteville is set for an 11 a.m. in Fayetteville, airing on ESPN.

SDS Staff

Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.