Rat poison? Nick Saban asks favor from media following press conference
By Keith Farner
Published:
Always looking for an edge, even when his team wins by more than three touchdowns, Alabama coach Nick Saban asked the media for a favor on Saturday night.
Saban is very aware of how the media covers the Crimson Tide, especially given its success in recent years and superlatives after most games. So even coming off of a 45-23 victory over Texas A&M, ranked No. 22, the coach of No. 1 Alabama wasn’t satisfied, and asked reporters to highlight, “things we didn’t (do) so well,” according to Alex Scarborough of ESPN.
Saban stops before leaving, tells reporters, "I would appreciate it if you looked at the things we didn’t so well.” He wants to show it to players this week. So basically he’s asking for bad press.
— Alex Scarborough (@ByScarborough) September 22, 2018
This is a recurring theme for Saban, who had a viral rant about “rat poison” last year.
“I’m trying to get our players to listen to me instead of listening to you guys,” Saban said. “All that stuff you write about how good we are, and all that stuff they hear on ESPN, it’s like poison. It’s like taking poison … like rat poison! So, I’m asking them, ‘are you going to listen to me, or are you going to listen to these guys about how good you are?’”
“Just like your question right now. We get stopped three out of four times like that’s a bad thing? We’re not going to beat everyone 66-3.”
The Crimson Tide return to action next week against Louisiana-Lafayette.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
