Nick Saban Highlights Importance of Creating Mental Toughness During Fall Camp

The head coach of Alabama football detailed why overcoming challenges and facing adversity is beneficial to players heading into the season.

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — In his last press conference before the first game week of the season starts next Monday, Alabama football coach Nick Saban discussed the importance of overcoming adversity despite circumstances.

Saban's entire opening statement on Wednesday evening consisted of a monologue detailing the importance of facing challenges during fall camp to better prepare for the upcoming season.

“Look, I guess the state of the situation that we’re in here in the middle of practice, still not in game week, even in the scrimmage on Saturday — you evaluate the effort, the resiliency — people can’t be overwhelmed by their circumstance," Saban said. "You get overwhelmed by constantly talking about negative things: how I feel, how tired I am — you know, whatever it is.

"Fall camp, practice at this time of year without playing a game every week is very challenging. And when you talk about that stuff all the time it just creates an epidemic of the ‘Poor Mes’."

Wednesday marks 10 days until the Crimson Tide opens the 2021 season against the No. 14 Miami Hurricanes at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta. Alabama hosted its 19th preseason practice on Wednesday, but according to Saban, it seems that the team has a long way to go in terms of mental preparation.

"The season is going to create tremendous challenges," Saban said. "Challenges in every game. We’ve got lots of losable games that we play, lots of challenges out there whether we’re playing home or on the road and you’ve got to have resiliency to be able to overcome difficult circumstances.

"That’s one of the things that fall camp is designed to do for players. The mental toughness, the self-discipline that you need to be able to make good choices and decisions about what you do and what you don’t do and a sense of purpose — driven quality — something that’s really, really important to me."

Alabama's Week 1 matchup against Miami certainly won't be an easy one. Led by standout quarterback D'Eriq King, the Hurricanes offense is one to be reckoned with. In 2020, King completed 211 of 329 passes (64.1 percent) for 2,686 yards and 23 touchdowns. On the ground, he rushed 130 times for 538 yards and four more touchdowns.

On Sept. 4 in Atlanta, King will present the exact sort of challenge that Saban wants his team to prepare for in fall camp.

"He’s a very good player," Saban said of King. "He’s a very athletic guy. Great feet, good quickness. Very good runner. Can extend plays. Is a good passer. He can create a lot of problems. They go fast. He does a really good job of operating their up tempo type offense.

"This guy is a really good player. It’s going to be very challenging for us, not only because he’s a really good quarterback but he’s a great athlete playing the position."

Only a handful of practices now separate the Crimson Tide from the start of the 2021 season. In addition to difficult opponents like Miami, the COVID-19 pandemic rears its ugly head and is casting a foreboding shadow over the sport of college football. Combine that with extra protocols in place, Alabama and every other program has an increased level of adversity to face heading into this season.

Saban ended his opening statement on a more positive note, noting that some of his players are setting a good example of how to handle challenges.

"I’m going to make the choices and decisions now to create the right habits so that I have a chance to be successful and do the right things and I think we’re still working on that with a lot of our players," Saban said. "We’ve got some guys that do a great job of that — set a good example for that — but we’ve got a lot of players who still get overwhelmed by their feelings and we’re going to do everything we can to get more and more players on our team to have the kind of mindset that you need to be able to sustain difficult circumstances and overcome adversity in games and challenges in games that are sure to come.

"So that’s one of the things that we’re really working on right now.”