Nick Saban blew up on the media during his press conference on Wednesday in what appeared to be an attempt to control the media’s coverage of his team.
The Alabama coach is upset that his team is getting pumped up by the media and fans after one big win over Michigan, and he’s fearful that his players may get too cocky and be thrown off in their quest to win another national championship if they begin reading their clippings and listening to what everyone says about them. He wants the media to take things one game at a time and only focus on Western Kentucky — the Tide’s next opponent.
“I hate to be negative with anybody, but when you people start writing stuff about people that we’re playing that doesn’t give them the proper respect, that’s not fair,” Saban said. “It’s not fair to them, to their players who work hard to earn it. It’s not fair to our players who need to respect them.
“And to make presumptions like you all make really upsets me,” Saban vented. “It’s so unfair. You don’t need to write about that. There are so many more good things that you can write about happening around here that people would be interested in. I’d hate to see some of you do a little bit of research and figure it out. It’d really do my heart good.
“It’s work everyday around here to try and keep our guys on track to have a little bit of humility and confidence. We win one game, and I can’t believe what gets written.”
Saban finally acknowledged he was trying to bully the writers into saying what he wants them to say.
“I respect what you all do. I understand you’re not here to promote our program or anything like that, but I would appreciate it if you just get everyone involved in the game. We play the games for a reason. We make all these predictions about what’s going to happen? It takes away from the games. It’s like everyone talks about ‘who’s going to win the national championship?’ why do we play the games?”
Saban provided some excellent commentary on the media’s tendency to get way ahead of themselves. I saw media members say we should just skip the season and have USC and Alabama play in the title game, so I understand where he’s coming from. While I agree with many of his points, he needs to realize that he can’t control what people say about his team. He also should realize it’s completely inappropriate for him to try and bully writers into saying only what he wants to be said.
“I didn’t mean to intimidate you all, but I had to take it out on somebody,” Saban concluded, before leaving.
Between this rant after only one game and his rude behavior in the halftime interview of the Michigan game, it’s obvious that Saban is already fed up with the media. In the past, it used to take him until October before he would start getting ticked with the writers. Now we’re seeing it after one game. It’s going to be a long season in Tuscaloosa.
