Alabama comes into spring camp focused on improvement
Alabama head coach Nick Saban wanted to make one thing clear Tuesday during his first news conference of spring camp: One game does not define a team, but one mindset will.
Returning together on the field for the first time since a heartbreaking 35-31 defeat to Clemson in the national championship game, Alabama opened its spring practice this week looking to put last season in the past. That doesn’t mean the Crimson Tide will forget what it needs to improve upon heading into the new year.
During his opening statement Tuesday, Saban called for a period of self-awareness, stating everyone in the program needs to focus on where they are and how they can improve.
“I think the challenge was to everybody in this building that works in football that this is not a time to think talk about ‘we,’ this is a time to talk about ‘I’ – what I can do better to helps us be a better team,” Saban said. “I don’t care whether it’s me, I don’t care what your role is here, I don’t care if you’re in recruiting, I don’t care if you’re in operations, I don’t care if you’re a coach on the field or a GA or an intern. What can I do better to make our team better? That’s the message to everybody here. That’s we tried to do in the offseason and that’s we’re going to try to continue to do in the spring.”
Saban said the team had a successful offseason program and that he is pleased with the energy and intensity players had during their first day of practice. He believes building and maintaining that inner drive this spring will be just as important as anything the Tide does on the field.
“I think everybody’s got to decide the player that they want to be and go out there and work hard to do it,” Saban said. “Most of the time it’s not the other team that’s a problem, you defeat yourself from within. Something within makes you not finish the play, makes you quit on the play before you should’ve, makes you back down from the challenge sometimes, makes you get frustrated when you make a mistake. These are all things that, psychologically, to be a great competitor you have to overcome so you can persevere, improve and play the next play and learn from your mistakes.”
For most of the 16 early enrollees on Alabama’s roster, Tuesday’s practice was the first of their college careers. Alabama loses several of its vocal leaders from last year’s team and will need new players to step into those roles in order to continue to set good examples for younger players.
How quickly the Tide can accomplish that should go a long way in determining its success this season.
“Every great team that we’ve had around here has had a lot of chemistry, a lot of guys that buy into principles and values the organization and the standard and the way we do things,” Saban said. “We also had really good leadership to set a good example for what those things were all about and didn’t tolerate it when people didn’t do it that way. So I think that is something that’s a work in progress with every team.”
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