Nick Saban reflects on Alabama’s attitude entering the Sugar Bowl
By Keith Farner
Published:
Alabama has not been in this situation too often. The Crimson Tide landed in New Orleans on Monday morning, and will ramp up their focus on Kansas State and the Sugar Bowl as coach Nick Saban shares how he will preach the creating value portion of his motivational tactics.
Playing in a bowl game without a path to the national championship is unusual in recent years for the Tide.
“It sort of becomes the standard that is the goal of everybody in the organization,” Saban told reporters on Monday, per 247Sports. “Everybody in the program to actually have an opportunity to play in the Playoff and how do you sort of change that mindset to create value for yourself and your team and your teammates by getting motivated to play against what’s always been a really good team when you play in the Sugar Bowl and go out and play winning football.
“I like the attitude that this team has had up to this point. Hopefully, we can continue to build on that and have positive momentum going into the game and go out and play a good game and execute well. But I think everybody has to respect who you’re playing and what it’s going to take to be able to do that.”
About Bryce Young and Will Anderson Jr. in particular, Saban said have shown leadership in bucking the trend of being a projected high draft pick and playing in a non-College Football Playoff bowl game.
“There’s a lot of guys out there that would say, ‘I’m not playing because I’m going to get ready for the draft.’ Well, how do you get better ready for the draft by playing in a game against good competition?,” Saban said. “And I think both those guys certainly realized that. And we’ve done everything that we could do as an institution to minimize the risk for them to play. And I think it’s a great example for college football that guys that are special players who have had great seasons and have won numerous awards choose to continue to play and support their team.”
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
