I don't know how many times I've been 114 yards from the hole and made double bogey. Well, I hit a great drive, but it doesn't matter. It's only the next shot that matters.
— Nick Saban
When you have the ability to affect other people and be somebody that somebody wants to emulate, care enough to help somebody else for their benefit, that's what makes you a good teammate, and that's what everybody's looking for.
First of all, you've got to have a vision of 'What kind of program do I want to have?' Then you've got to have a plan to implement it. Then you've got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.
It's a free country. I know we have a lot of regulations in the world right now in what we can and can't do. I would rather our people be responsible and not have to be regulated.
If I were a high school coach, I would put my best players on offense. The best athletes on my team, I would give them the ball and score points. I wouldn't play them on defense. I would play them where they can get the ball and score points.
I don't control what people say. I don't control what people put on dot-com or anything else.
Talent is talent, and everybody knows somebody who has talent or ability, but they never really converted it into a productive performance for whatever reasons.
I don't try to sensationalize anybody. I'm not trying to entertain. I'm trying to give information and give access to me and tell about our program.
Everybody thinks when I say a guy is a good game manager, that's a negative, but I think it's a real positive. You have the ball in your hand every time when you're a quarterback. Whether you're handing it off or throwing to somebody, I think that's extremely important.
I think center is a critical position.
George Perles at Michigan State was the first coach that gave me responsibility as far as being a coordinator. I learned a lot from that experience.
Bill Belichick was probably the most organized coach that I've ever been involved with.
As a coach, when it comes to football players, we're trying to change their behavior and make them better. As people, we're trying to change their behavior and make them better.
Our players get scrutinized pretty hard at Alabama.
The thing I like about college football so much is you can affect these guys a lot more when they are 18-22, 23 years old in terms of people and having a chance to be more successful. They are still a value type development, where you have a chance to help them mature a bit and help them be a little more successful in life.
You wear your team out, and it's hard to get them back.
I never want to discontinue giving kids opportunities.
Golf is a great example to me. Golf is a metaphor of life. I mean, every shot. You have this beautiful hole, this beautiful opportunity to get a good score.
When people have success, one of two things happen. They either get really satisfied and want to keep thinking about it and talking about what they did, or the success becomes a little addictive, and it makes them want to keep having more.
People talk about you won four national championships. Well, I feel like we've had good enough teams to win eight. So I feel like we failed four times. I feel like I failed four times.
I don't Twitter. I don't text for those very reasons. I don't want anything to be misinterpreted. I would encourage our guys not to do that.
Probably the number one position that has the greatest number of players to choose from is receiver. When we're out there recruiting, there are a lot of receivers out there to recruit. It's harder to find defensive players.
I think people who grow up in one particular environment, like the Alabama-Auburn game, they don't ever get the same appreciation for the Ohio State-Michigan game or the Michigan State-Notre Dame game or the Michigan-Michigan State game, the Browns and the Steelers.
I think people always assume that every team has great intangibles, and that's not necessarily right.
I try to stay out of the spotlight.
When you play quarterback, you have to process information quickly, get the ball out of your hand to the right guy.
If we'd had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.
I feel like I've been very blessed to have some great mentors through the years, starting with Don James, who was my college coach, who really inspired me to want to be a coach, which is not something that I really had in mind.
You get excited about getting married, aight, but after you're married for awhile, you gotta have a process to make it work, aight.
My wife gets so mad at me because I don't like to cook on the grill.
I think the worst thing a player can do is just not be yourself.
I think you have to be more flexible to be a pro coach because once you pay the guy the money, whether he can backpedal the way you want him to or whatever, his style of play may not suit you, but you still are going to play him, and he is going to be a part of your team.
Teachers are always trying to inspire people to do better, to learn, to grow. That's what we do, and we're proud of the success we've had here doing that, and it's something we'll certainly continue to do.
I don't want people to think I'm not happy when we win - I am. But there's a difference between being happy for the feeling of accomplishing something and being overjoyed and feeling, 'This is it - we conquered the world.' We didn't. We just won a game.
One of the easiest shots in golf is chipping. It should be the easiest. It's like throwing a ball or pitching pennies. It's easy. And I struggle with that, and the struggle is all mental.
When you have a system, you kind of get in a routine of what's important. And then you spend a lot more time on thinking of things that would make it better.
I played so long ago, I don't think anybody even knew you could transfer. I don't think they knew anything about it.
We don't have rules that people can't use Twitter. We just want people to be responsible. We certainly don't want them to do anything that's going to affect themselves in an adverse way or affect our program, our university, or our team in an adverse way.
I said as soon as we had a playoff, we were going to minimize the importance of all the other bowl games. I'm not saying it's good or bad; it kind of is what it is.
I don't know if I'm different from everybody else, but there's really only two things to me that are really, really important - recruiting good players in the program and developing those players once they get here.
The way I look at it is, if you don't want somebody to know something, don't say it. If you don't want them to see you do something, don't do it.
Once you get good, you need a total disposition about staying good.
I think anytime you play somebody on a yearly basis, you develop a history for what they like to do.
Honesty and integrity is an important part of our character, my character.
We played in a number of these neutral site games, I would call them, whether it's a playoff game, a bowl game, or one of these kickoff classic type things, which I think is helpful to, you know, our players in terms of playing some place that's not really a home game for them.
I've had a lot more success helping guys then just being punitive.
Rex Ryan does a lot of the same kind of stuff that we do in terms of how they play in the secondary and what they do.
It's great to see our players get some of their dreams come true.
You can control your own destiny a little bit better in college. It's hard to control all the variables, especially with the salary cap and things like that, in pro football. You can't keep your team together, and you are going to have more changes all the time. Personnel decisions aren't always made by you, especially who you bring to your team.
If you're a coach, you're a teacher.
