Saban says Alabama is 'trying to stay engaged' amid COVID-19 outbreak

Stumbling through some technical difficulties during a teleconference with local reporters Thursday, Nick Saban vented a little bit of the frustration that has been brewing over the past few weeks.

"Everything's different now,” he said. “We're supposed to be having spring practice today."

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At this point, Saban should be preparing Alabama for its eighth practice. Instead, he was the only coach present inside the Mal Moore Athletic Facility as the Crimson Tide is forced to practice social distancing amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

“These are very challenging times, we’ve never had to deal with anything like this or at least in my lifetime, and it’s a global effort to slow the spread of this virus and all of us have to be responsible in the decisions that we make in our responsibility to do just that,” Saban said. “We’re trying to stay engaged in every way that we can with our team. The technology that we have right now with Zooming and things like that, video conferences with the staff and players can help us monitor their wellbeing number one and their health and safety, number two their school work and the academic portion of it which is being done online."

The SEC canceled all spring football games and pro days and has postponed spring practices until April 15. However, that date, as well as any form of spring practice, seems highly unlikely.

Saban said his typical day begins at 7:30 a.m. when he meets with his staff through the digital video conferencing system, Zoom. During that time, the staff discusses what they are going to do with the players on that particular day.

“We usually use the morning to work on next year’s opponents, which is not specifically what we’d be doing at this time of year with spring practice going on. In the afternoons, I try to do as much as we can to keep in contact with recruits… On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday right now we’re doing sessions with our players. I do video conferences and phone calls with recruits during the afternoon. That’s pretty much what a day is like, and we’re doing the best we can."

As of this week, the SEC is allowing programs to hold two hours of video conferencing per week where teams can install plays, go over film from last year and things of that nature. Only countable coaches can be present in such conferencing sessions, and the meetings are not to include live monitoring of players participating in workouts.

“We’re not in any real hurry whatever installations we’re doing with the players,” Saban said. “Basically, there’s three parts to teaching: what to do, how to do it, why it’s important to do it that way. If we just take a single concept — for example if we’re on offense and we’re working inside zone — well we can take 30 minutes on teaching the techniques, the aiming, the footwork and then actually show the players video of doing it correctly or actually let them evaluate if the guy we’re looking at is doing it correctly or incorrectly.

Saban said that conceptually, there is a lot of benefit to the new process because the team no longer has to rush through install due to practices.

“I do think it gives the players the opportunity to be engaged, No. 1,” he said.” And No. 2 it’s a slow process of learning that can be beneficial to them having a better understanding of concepts.”

One thing that helps Alabama is a lack of staff turnover. Unlike recent years, the Crimson Tide only saw a change in one of its on-field coaches as Freddie Roach took over for Brian Baker as the defensive line coach. Alabama also brought in Indiana’s David Ballou and Dr. Matt Rhea to head up its strength and conditioning program in replacement of Scott Cochran.

“We have good continuity with our staff which is a positive, but on the other hand we’ve always been able to improvise and do things we need to do,” Saban said. “I actually think the addition of the strength and conditioning coaches we have now has been a huge positive for us because we’re building a new sports science center.

“These guys, Dr. Rhea has actually got a PhD, so his knowledge and experience in a lot of technical testing and stuff you can do with players and the new training programs we’ve been doing, the players have really liked. Hopefully this will help us with some injury prevention and help us be able to perform better when the time comes.”

Saban said Ballou and Rhea have been very instrumental in setting up programs to aid players whether it be through Apple watches or workout apps on their phones. Due to self-isolation precautions, some players have had trouble finding places to work out. In those situations, Alabama has suggested resistance band workout programs they can do inside their own homes.

In typical Saban fashion, the head coach neglected to go into hypotheticals over how things will play out in the future. However, when talking about how spring practice could be made up, he suggested a learning period over the summer where players could go through non-contact sessions.

“If there was some kind of way where we could have 14 days of teaching with players sometime before fall camp happens, I think that would probably be beneficial,” he said. “Historically we’re not allowed to work with our players at that time, and this would be hypothetical that in some time in the summer we would be able to get our players back here and we would be able to work with them.

“I’m not talking about having pads on or anything but just being able to teach. Teach system, teach scheme. We’ll have to evaluate the players based on fall camp. I think the players who benefit the most from spring practice are really the young players on the team. So hopefully this will work out where we will have some time to be able to teach them. Otherwise, we’ll just have to evaluate them in fall camp.”

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