Nick Saban Details the Difficulties of Back-to-Back National Titles

The Crimson Tide head coach discussed what former MLB infielder Alex Rodriguez relayed during his talk with the team last Friday.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It’s a well-known fact that winning consecutive national titles in any college sport is a difficult undertaking. The same can be said of any sport at any level.

Over Alabama football’s 18 national championships, the program has only been able to repeat on four separate occasions. Under head coach Nick Saban, the team has only repeated once back in 2011-2012.

On Friday, the Crimson Tide featured a guest speaker in former MLB infielder Alex Rodriguez. In 2009 with the New York Yankees, the team won its 27th World Series title. While the franchise retained most of its star power heading into the 2010 season and remained one of the MLB’s favorites to win a second-consecutive title, the team ultimately lost in the American League Championship Series to the Texas Rangers.

During Sunday’s media availability, Saban detailed Rodriguez’s discussion with the team and noted its overarching theme: avoiding instances that can distract you from your work and dedication to the program.

“I think he did a great job of talking about being successful as a Yankee when they won the championship in 2009 and how everything was so different in 2010 when they weren’t able to repeat even though, in his mind, they had a better team,” Saban said. “He talked about it wasn’t the distractions, it was the attractions. That everybody got more attention. Everybody had more people pulling at them whether it was to speak at banquets or whatever so it made it much more difficult to focus on the things that you needed to focus on to be the best player that you can be and to be the best teammate that you can be.”

Since Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa back in 2007, distractions are something that he has always harped on as being a key element in teams’ downfall. Even so much as players becoming overconfident in their abilities due to praise by fans and media is labeled as a ‘distraction’ by Saban.

That specific example has come to be known as ‘rat poison’, a term frequently used by Saban himself.

“The ‘disease of me’ is always something — it’s a Pat Riley quote — that, you know, how much credit do I want relative to how much I’m willing to invest in the team being successful,” Saban said. “So it was kind of interesting. It certainly fit our profile and our situation of where we are as a successful organization coming off a successful year and everybody understanding that what we did last year will have absolutely nothing to do with how we perform and how we prepare this year.”

Players focusing on oneself rather than the benefit of the program is something that Rodriguez addressed to the team as a potential distraction. While a team should enjoy the success it attained the year prior, the next season is the beginning of something new and what your team did last year is no longer relevant.

This year, the process of winning back-to-back titles begins once again for Saban and his Crimson Tide. Every team that Alabama faces this year will likely have the Crimson Tide labeled as its top opponent and a chance to topple the best team in college football over the last decade.

“Everyone that we play, we’ll be their target because we were successful a year ago so everybody has to understand the level of commitment that it takes to be able to accept those challenges in a positive way,” Saban said.