Nick Saban: Alabama Used to Have 'Hateful Competitors'

Coming off another close road game, Saban talked about the mentality some of his former teams and players had when playing on the road.

Alabama escaped Austin with a 20-19 win over Texas on the last-second field goal from Will Reichard for the first road game of the 2022 season. The first road game last season also was a one-score affair against Florida in a narrow 31-29. And the 2021 Iron Bowl infamously went into four overtimes with the Crimson Tide coming away with the 24-22 victory. 

During his weekly radio appearance on the Nick Saban Show Thursday night, Alabama head coach Nick Saban said he's seen a mentality shift in road games compared to past teams, and Saban normally doesn't like making comparisons. 

"I told the players this week, we used to play better on the road around here than what we played at home," he said. "Because we had some hateful competitors on our team. And when they played on the road, they were mad at 100,000 people, not just the 11 guys they were playing against. And they wanted to prove something to everybody."

Saban also said he reminded the players of how they didn't play well against Florida, Auburn of Texas on the road. He doesn't want his team to be motivated by external factors like crowd noise, the scoreboard, the spread or what the media says. 

"You can't be a team that lets the other team think they have a chance to beat you just because of the circumstances that you're in," Saban said. "And your inconsistencies in your performance so far is starting to let people know that, which is not a good thing. So a lot of these things are just decisions you have to make."

Alabama has two home games against Louisiana-Monroe and Vanderbilt the next two Saturdays before facing the next road test against a top-10 Arkansas team.