Nick Saban's Unique Coaching Style: Greg McElroy's Tale
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00:00What is your favorite Nick Saban story that you tell people at parties, just to kind of
00:07sum up what it was like to be around him and play for him?
00:10Um, well, I've told this one a couple of times.
00:13Like what people don't realize is like how good coach Saban's sense of humor is and but
00:18it's so dry and like he's going and the level of like chops busting.
00:25It's like a love language.
00:27It's like the more he busts your chops, the more he likes you.
00:30And it took me a while to realize that.
00:31But it eventually that's kind of, that's kind of the conclusion I came to when I hear his
00:35interaction with guys he likes and guys maybe he doesn't like as much.
00:39So we're playing Ole Miss 2009 very, very tough game, took a big hit early, kind of
00:44got a little bit like, all right, not not concussed or anything, but, but definitely
00:48like, all right, I need to accelerate my process a little bit.
00:52So we get into the red zone going left to right.
00:55I'll never forget it.
00:57We throw a play called boom, which is basically, you know, uh, out breaking routes by the outside
01:03and then corner routes on the inside.
01:04It's a mirrored concept, super simple concept.
01:06They want to install stuff like easy, easy concept.
01:09Well you read away for rotation.
01:11The safeties rotate this way.
01:13So I'm reading the left side of the field and Julio Jones is my primary wide receiver
01:21and come hell or high water.
01:22Like if in doubt, I'm throwing it to Julio, it's just the way I roll.
01:27So I drop back.
01:28I love it.
01:29Julio's there.
01:30I'm throwing it.
01:31We're going to throw a touchdown at Ole Miss.
01:32It'd be awesome.
01:33I'm going to quiet this play, spot Hemingway.
01:34It's triple covered.
01:35In the flat is a guy named Preston Dial, who's our H back, I mean, wide open.
01:39The guy could have done the moonwalk into the end zone.
01:41Instead, I throw a triple coverage back at the end zone, bad decision, whatever, incomplete
01:46pass.
01:47We kick a field goal, live to play another down.
01:48It is what it is.
01:49Later in the game, same situation, except this time I'm on the right side.
01:52I'm working the right side.
01:53Marquise Mays, who's in the flat, Julio's in the corner again.
01:56This time, there's no way they triple cover Julio, right?
01:59I drop back, throw a triple cover to Julio again.
02:02Marquise Mays is wide open in the flat.
02:04I go back to the sideline.
02:05I'm going to hear about it.
02:06I'm on the phone with Coach McElwain, hey, what are you seeing?
02:09Come on, man.
02:10Tighten up.
02:11All this other stuff.
02:12Well, we win the game.
02:14Everyone's happy.
02:15It's all good.
02:16It wasn't a great offensive performance, but our defense played awesome and we started
02:19to get it going a little bit towards the end to kind of put it on ice with the run game.
02:22So fast forward to Sunday, you get a call from Coach Saban's office.
02:26It wasn't uncommon, but it's not one that you wanted, you know, calls you in.
02:32You know what he wants to talk to you about.
02:34We go and we take a look at a couple of clips and I know what clips are going to be.
02:38It's going to be the boom throw to the left, the boom throw to the right.
02:41First one he looks at, hey, what'd you see here?
02:42Coach, I should have thrown it to Preston.
02:43He's wide open in the flat.
02:44I don't know why I didn't.
02:45You know, I just kind of got locked in on Julio and I should have come off it and that
02:48was on me.
02:49All right, sounds good.
02:50What about this one?
02:52Same situation, coach.
02:53I, you know, I felt like getting to the maze in the flat should have gone there for sure.
02:56I threw it to Julio.
02:57I got locked in on him and frankly, I was kind of feeling the rush all day.
03:00Like I needed to, I need to go through my reads and trust my reads, trust my eyes and
03:05not have it accelerated too much and trust my offensive line.
03:08The protection is going to hold up.
03:09You have time to get to your number two, dump it in the flat and live to play another play.
03:12He goes, all right, sounds good.
03:14Hangs up, grabs the phone, says, yeah, come up.
03:18Yep.
03:19Yeah, you can get them.
03:20Yep.
03:21Hangs up the phone upstairs, walks the athletic trainer, Jeff Allen.
03:25Jeff Allen takes me.
03:26He goes, all right, come on, Greg, let's go.
03:27I'm like, all right, coach.
03:28Sounds good to you.
03:29Go see him.
03:30Uh, walk downstairs with Jeff Allen.
03:32Jeff Allen is sitting there, he goes, all right, we're going to, we're going to test
03:35you.
03:36I'm like, for what?
03:37He goes, we're going to test you for a concussion.
03:38Coach thinks you have a concussion because there is no way on earth anyone with sane
03:42mind could make that decision twice in the ballgame.
03:47You know, like, Hey, I did the concussion test.
03:49I'm like, Jeff, can I just, can we, can I like be a little concussed, you know, may
03:54just have a slight veil of an excuse.