Nick Saban: Becoming a Hall of Fame Coach, state of college vs NFL, reveals never-told-before stories, his one career regret, building football, family and life with Miss Terry and responds to infamous Channing stories

“What do you want your legacy to be as a coach? Do you want to be Vince Lombardi or Bear Bryant? I said Bear Bryant… So, what are you doing going to Miami than?” The conversation we've all been waiting for where Channing's infamous stories get checked, and we have some laughs while we learn the path of one of the most respected and successful figures in sports. Ahead of College Football's National Championship, we get to sit with the man who has the most wins with 7 titles and decades of storied seasons. Newly selected Hall of Fame Coach and the true GOAT of college football, Nick Saban, is sitting with Ryan, Channing and Fred for a rare and personal look into the journey that shaped his life, the values that drive his success, and the lessons learned from decades of coaching at the highest level. The conversation begins with Saban reflecting on his humble beginnings and how he stumbled into coaching, despite initially wanting nothing to do with it. He recalls working at his father’s service station and the life-changing moment he realized coaching was a way to combine his love for competition with a deeper purpose: shaping young men’s futures. With humor and humility, Coach shares how he never set out to become the “GOAT” but focused on the process—a philosophy that has become synonymous with his name. Saban notes pivotal moments in his career, including his brief and challenging stint with the Miami Dolphins. He opens up about the decision not to sign Drew Brees due to a failed physical, a move that still lingers as one of his biggest “what-ifs.” Despite this, he explains why returning to college football was the right decision, allowing him to develop players both on and off the field in ways the NFL couldn’t. Both having played for Saban, Ryan and Channing speak of Saban’s legendary leadership style, exploring how he motivates players and manages diverse personalities. He shares how he learned to tailor his coaching approach to each individual and how to get the best out of his guys that went way beyond talent and skill. It's a known thing that when you see Coach Saban, his wife isn't too far away. Always by his side, Miss Terry has been Coach's partner in life, football and all his endeavors for more than 50 years as the two met as young kids and created this life they could never imagine which has been sustained through love, success and true dedication. The conversation goes from life lessons to lighter locker room talk as the guys bring up Channing's rookie stunt during Saban's tenure in Miami to get his reaction and how that really all went down, Saban responds in the best "Nick Saban" way possible as Ryan, Fred and Channing break out into laughter. From joking around and reminiscing, the episode reveals never-told-before stories, the real reason why Saban said farewell to coaching as the guys don't shy away from discussing the challenges facing modern college football. Saban gets into the current state of NIL while sharing his concerns for growth, character building and how the futures of young men are being altered. In a reflective moment, Saban looks back on his life and all the things he feels defined him as he recalls certain times he had to push his teams harder, especially when complacency crept in after winning which led to creating his famous, “nothing speech,” where he reminds players that entitlement leads to nothing and what underscores commitment to hard work and accountability. Packed with humor, wisdom, and powerful lessons, this episode offers an unparalleled look into the mind of one of sports' greatest leaders. Whether you’re a fan of the game or simply looking for inspiration, Nick Saban’s journey will leave you motivated to trust the process and redefine success on your own terms. Tap in on YouTube and hit the subscribe button for more conversations like this. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:00Channing Crowder?

  Man that made me a millionaire.

• 1:03Channing Crowder?

  What's up, Coach?

• 1:04Fred Taylor?

  Good to see you, buddy.

• 1:05Channing Crowder?

  Yes, sir. Coach, how you doing?

• 1:07Fred Taylor?

  Good to see you. Always, always. Coach, how's it going? I was well. Good to see you, buddy. Good to see you.

• 1:12Channing Crowder?

  Is he over here?

• 1:12Fred Taylor?

  Pretty good.

• 1:13Channing Crowder?

  The man's a legend.

• 1:14Fred Taylor?

  Sitting next to me, Coach.

• 1:16Speaker 04

  How you all doing? How'd you all get started in this? I know Ryan, but I didn't.

• 1:21Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, Coach, they told me I can get paid to talk. And I said, okay.

• 1:26Speaker 04

  It's the easiest way to do it.

• 1:27Channing Crowder?

  Easiest way to do it. You jumped into it now.

• 1:29Speaker 04

  That's what I found out.

• 1:31Channing Crowder?

  But Chad, you said he was anti-media. He used to tell us in meetings, "The media's not your friend."

• 1:38Speaker 04

  It's not.

• 1:41Channing Crowder?

  And when I saw you jump on them shows, Coach, I would watch TV and laugh. I was like, hey, he told me they're not for us. And then it's like, okay. Yeah, yeah, that checks good.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  You are and you aren't. You are in the sense that it creates interest for fans and everybody? But there's also a side of it where they're gonna judge you for almost everything that you do. And that's the thing that I never wanted to affect the players. You know what I mean? If you're getting criticized because you missed a tackle, or you didn't do, you know, something, or the quarterback played bad, I never wanted the players to get criticized. And that affect who they were and their performance and that type of thing. So that's what I meant by that. Oh, yeah. But it's great when you create interest and you talk about things and like, I didn't

• 2:34Speaker 04

  criticize anybody all year. And they want me to criticize people and I... You won't do it. I won't do it, especially the coaches or the players. Because when you mess up, nobody feels worse about it than the player. Right. So why you gotta beat them up on TV?

• 2:52Ryan Clark?

  Oh, I do that, Coach. I don't know why you're looking at me. Hey, Coach, did I talk bad about him?

• 3:16Ryan Clark?

  The voice that everybody's hearing, the face that you see is Coach Nick Saban, newly minted, Hall of Famer. Congratulations, newly elected coach. I mean...

• 3:24Speaker 04

  Well, you contributed to that. You contributed to that. Fred, you didn't.

• 3:28Fred Taylor?

  So we got a little history, Coach. But RC, do your thing and we'll get back to it.

• 3:34Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, this is Hall of Fame Coach Nick Saban. This is Fred Taylor, Channing Crowder. I'm Ryan Clark. Pivot fam, thank you for pivoting with us. Coach, I would have to bet that it was the easiest vote in the College Football Hall of Fame Committee's tenure to select you to the Hall of Fame. When you took that first grad assistant job at your alma mater, could you have ever imagined that your career would have turned into what it did?

• 4:01Speaker 04

  Well, I didn't even want to be a coach. So I got talked into it by my college coach. I'd worked at my dad's service station, worked on cars.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  And that's what I wanted to do when I graduated from school. Get a dealership and, you know, sell cars and all that. And after our last game, he calls me and says, "I want you to be a graduate assistant." Because I was a little bit like you. You know, I played safety, made all the calls. Was kind of the smart guy out there, which you were all the time. You made more plays than I did, but... And I said, "I don't want to go to graduate school and I don't want to be a coach. So why in the hell would I ever want to be a G A?" But he talked me into it and I loved it. You know, it was like playing. You know, you're involved in the competition, the relationships with the players, being part of a team. You know, all the great things that we all experienced, you know, playing.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  Even though it was hard, it was, there was a lot of great things. So I just kept doing it. And like I was, I always looked at it like, "One of these days, you're going to grow up and do something else." You know, kind of thing. Just like when you play, you know, you always know that there's a time when that's going to end. So, but one thing led to another. Being a coordinator at Michigan State, then being a head coach at Toledo, going in the NFL. So, and I loved it. Fifty years of it. I loved it. And it was really the relationships with the players, being part of a team. That was the thing that I liked the most.

• 5:34Channing Crowder?

  And Coach, the GOAT, greatest of all time. When did you know? Like, there's a point, Coach, like, you know ball. There was a point where you were like, "I, I do this." You know what I'm saying? What point in your career? Like you said, in the D C, head coach. Was it L S U, Miami, back to Alabama? When was the point where you were like, "I'm a bad man at this. I'm one of the best," or not the best ever, if you want to call it that.

• 6:01Speaker 04

  No, I never thought of it that way. You know, almost like, when I was coaching, it was like, almost like when you're a player. You know, the next season comes and you know you got to go perform and be the best that you can be so you can keep your job.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  Well, I never worried about keeping my job, but I did have this sort of pride in performance that every year was like taking a new job because you had a new team, new leaders, new issues, new problems you had to solve on the team, whether you didn't have a running back, or you didn't have a safety, or you didn't have a linebacker, or whatever it was. And you're trying to build to be that championship caliber team again. Sometimes you made it, sometimes you didn't. Sometimes you're unlucky, quarterback gets hurt, something bad happens. But, so I never, ever thought of it like you accomplished something. You know, I was never like thinking about the outcomes. I was always thinking

• 7:01Speaker 04

  about what do I have to do to get the outcome. And that made it fun. You know, just like when you play, if you think about, oh, man, what if we lose this game? It's really no fun. But if you're out there being aggressive and playing to win, it's fun. So, and that's kind of how I always sort of, so I never really ever thought about, it was always like, what's happening next? You know, what's the next challenge? And there's always a bunch of challenges. I mean, as soon as one season's over, I mean, we'd win the national championship and it would be, like even in 2003 at LSU, I mean, I'm meeting with, you know, Marcus in the locker room about going out early, Michael Clayton, whoever it is, like, two hours after the game. Because you're worrying about next year's team.

• 7:46Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  And I never really ever stopped to think about it. You know, it was always the next challenge, the next game, the next competition. And now that it's all over, I don't think of myself that way. There's a lot of good coaches. I had, look, we had never been able to do what we did if we didn't have a whole bunch of good people in the organization. I'm talking about coaches. And I, I never learned how to coach bad players to play good. Never. Alright, so I always recruited my ass off so that we always had good players. And that was the problem in Miami. We never had a quarterback, and we had Drew Brees, they are ready to sign, and the doctors failed him on the physical, and I, I was like...

• 8:30Ryan Clark?

  How did that conversation, Coach, how did that conversation go when you were trying to get Drew Brees and they failed him on the physical?

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Well, he was there. He was all set.

• 8:39Channing Crowder?

  I was in the locker room when him and Pep came through.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  That's exactly right. And... You know, the last thing before we sign a contract, you go get a physical. So I'm like, we're, this is all done. And then they call me on the phone and say, you know, we don't think he can play. But Dr. Andrews in Birmingham did his surgery and also did it on Culpepper. He did both guys. And I flew to see him because I wanted, before we ever got, went down this road, to see what his thoughts were because I had a lot of respect for him. He's a LSU guy, alright? And, and I've known him for years. So I flew up there and talked to him and he said Drew Brees will be fine. He said Dante is going to have a hard time because, you know, he needs his mobility to be an effective quarterback.

• 9:26Speaker 04

  And I don't know if he'll ever fully get it back. You know, because his knee was so messed up. Alright, so here we go. So I'm saying, let's go get Drew Brees. He's a free agent. We got to trade for Dante. Better deal, take the free agent, still keep your second round pick. They failed him on the physical and they called me on the phone. Well, you know, you can't call up the owner and say, hey, we're going to sign this guy and give him all this money. You guys probably know how much it was. And guy might not be able to play. Right. So I didn't want to get in that fire patch with the owner. So I just said, okay. But I actually regretted it because that year Drew Brees plays lights out for New Orleans. Crazy.

• 10:10Speaker 04

  Now, the other part about that is I actually had to call his agent and say, we had a deal, but he didn't pass the physical. And he said, oh, man, Nick. He said, you can't tell people he didn't pass the physical. I'll never get him signed anyplace. And I said, nobody will know. How much time do you need? He said, like 72 hours. So I never told anybody. Nobody knew for 72 hours till he signed in New Orleans. Wow.

• 10:35Fred Taylor?

  We can only imagine seeing Drew Brees in a Dolphins uniform. I can only imagine that would be crazy, much like myself. We were talking earlier about me not contributing to your Hall of Fame. As a coach.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  Because you beat us, that's why.

• 10:49Fred Taylor?

  Well, well, Coach, you know, first, if it were in this day and age where you can go as a recruit, you know, in January, you go in early, I don't know if it would have made a huge difference. But when I visited Michigan State in 94, you know, Coach Williams took me around. I had an amazing visit. I drank maybe one too many eight balls, fell face flat in the snow. It was just too cold. So that was one of the major reasons I did not sign with Michigan State. I ended up staying home in the state of Florida. The weather was much better, the entire thing. But sometimes I often wonder what would it have been like if I played for Michigan State? Talking to Sad Irvin a lot, you know, same thing, Plexico, same thing.

• 11:31Fred Taylor?

  But the question I want to ask you, Coach, because you've coached well over five decades. You've touched upon many of young men. You've changed a ton of lives. And not just from them guys being able to go and create a financial, you know, monetarily. But you've touched them in certain ways where they came in raw, uncut, you know, unexposed to different things, coming from a certain upbringing. And you've touched their lives and made them better men. How does that make you feel as you continue to?

• 12:04Speaker 04

  I don't know if Ryan remembers this, but we had this little pyramid that said, be a champion. And it was all about, you know, team and, you know, respecting the principles advised of the organization, being positive, being responsible for your own self-determination, working to dominate the competition. All those things that made you successful, but those same things would make you successful in your life. And that was always the number one goal of the program. How can we help you be more successful in life because you're involved in the program? Now, not so much in pro ball, because guys were already there, but in college, in terms of developing people? Students and graduating.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  We had 668 degrees at Alabama in 17 years. Do the math on that. But 98% of the guys don't play in the NFL. So, you know, what are you gonna do when you can't play? Even if you do play, what are you gonna do when you can't play? Which all you guys have done well. And then, how many guys can you develop so they have a career as football players? But the thing that makes me most proud is, you know, we have a Knicks Kids Foundation, which we had at LSU when we were there. And it's gotten huge, you know, through the years. We had it in Miami. Nobody knew much about it because it was all just helping these kids organizations. But the number of players that were involved in that.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  Like, we built 22 houses for people who needed a home and all that kind of stuff. And the players would come and do it. And in fact, you know, Ms. Terry had two up on a scaffold, working on the soffit. I said, "You gotta give him a drop on the ground." "All right, we don't need him falling off his ladder." "All right, so..." But I'm just saying now, we have lots of players who have foundations. And having compassion for other people and helping other people, especially kids, have a better opportunity to have a chance to be successful in life. How self-fulfilling that was. And then when they got out there and had some money, they did it. You know, so that's the thing that I probably am most proud of.

• 14:15Speaker 04

  That example, that leadership example, had nothing to do with football. You know, helped them gain compassion for other people and helping other people.

• 14:24Ryan Clark?

  I do find it fascinating that you call her Ms. Terry all the time as well. And it's always been that since I've known you. But in a GQ article, they talked about some of the misunderstandings of you and how people would call you certain names. And it says you went home and you told her, like, "I don't know why these people feel this way." And she asked you to look at yourself and what you may be doing that makes them feel that way. What has... The relationship with your wife, which has been basically lifelong for you. What has that meant for your career and the man you are?

• 14:58Speaker 04

  No, I think it helped tremendously. First of all, really good partnership. So I never had a job where she wasn't really involved. Like in recruiting, in community service, in the university. And that's the one thing she never really enjoyed about pro ball that much. Because there was less opportunity for her to do that.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  Does that make sense? No, 100%. So because, you know, guys are grown men. They got their own families and all that where you're trying to develop guys in college. But to your point, when I was at Michigan State, I mean, the media made me the till of the hun. Like I was this mean, angry coach who was getting on everybody all the time. And it was a tough job at Michigan State. They were 2-9 when you visited there, coming off that last season. And then I took over. So it was a tough job. It was a tough rebuild. And I was, I was nervous. I was anxious. I always thought I was gonna say the wrong thing. I didn't develop any relationships with people in the media. So they made me out to be this sort of till of the hun, bad guy.

• 16:06Ryan Clark?

  Bad guy.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  And I would go home and I'd say, I'm not really like that, man. I hate that these, it just bothers me that everybody's making me out to be this way. And she said, you ever look at yourself? She said, just look at yourself. You're nervous, you're anxious, you're curt with the people. You don't respect them. You, you know, you say they're asking dumb questions. I mean, what do you expect? So, and I, it really pissed me off. I mean, I really got pissed. And, but then when I thought about it, I said, you know, she's right. And I started changing. I started developing relationships, taking time with people,

• 16:47Speaker 04

  having them in my office, talking to them. And it was very, very helpful. And that's one of the reasons I always had a really good relationship with ESPN. Because I was one of the first to let them come to practice and do whatever they call those things where they, you know, what, you know, do the two-a-days and all that kind of stuff. But I think that really helped your image, which helps recruiting, which helps all kinds of things. But she was a great recruiter. And that's one of the things that, in the end, the last year, you know, we always have the parents over on Saturday night for karaoke and all the players on Sunday morning for breakfast when we're recruiting. And one day she came up to me

• 17:32Speaker 04

  and she said, "Why are we doing this?" And I said, "Why do you say that?" And she says, "Well, it's always been about relationships, but now it's just about how much money you're gonna pay them." Alright, so that was one of the things that she hated, that she wasn't developing relationships with the players and, you know, having them over and...

• 17:53Channing Crowder?

  And Coach, we gotta get into NIL stuff because the narrative is that you didn't like to deal with that. But, speaking of Terry, I don't know if you remember this interaction in the bathroom. I was in the bathroom at the Dolphin facility, and I was playing on my phone. That little bathroom right by the front door, by the team meeting room. And you walked in and I saw you through the crack, because I was in the stall and I knew it was you. And I said, "I have to go out here." And I walked out. And I went to the sink and I started washing my hands. I looked over and I knew I had to say something to you. You're the head coach of Dolphins, you're Nick Damn Saban. And my first thought, in all the meetings, you used to talk about Ms. Terry. You talked about your wife. And

• 18:37Channing Crowder?

  she brought us cookies. She brought cookies to the team. And Coach, I looked over, and this is about 10 games into the season, and I think it was, I forget, it was Buffalo running back. But I end up giving up a third-down catch to the running back on the option route. And this is Wednesday at practice. And I'm washing my hands. I look over, I say, "Hey, Coach, how's Ms. Terry?" And you looked at me and said, "She'll be a lot better if you can cover her fucking back on third down."

• 19:08Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 19:13Channing Crowder?

  She wanted to win.

• 19:16Channing Crowder?

  But it always blows my mind. When you saw me, I was, had to be three days later. That's what you thought about me giving up that third and seven? When I asked you, "How's Ms. Terry?"

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, "All right, you gotta get off the field on third down."

• 19:32Channing Crowder?

  Hey, you can't win if you don't, Jay. You can't win if you don't. You cannot win if you don't. Coach, were you, because you even talked about how Ms. Terry tells, said, talked to you about being, you know, more personable and embracing people. Were you always cognizant of how people looked at you? Because it seemed like you didn't care. Like, all those media, it seemed like you didn't care what the media or what anybody thought about you. Like, I'm trying to win games, you can, you know, you can take that and go. Were you, did you ever, did you really think about it? I'm gonna say daily, but was you cognizant of how people always looked at you?

• 20:05Speaker 04

  You know, not really, because I think that was somewhat of a problem for me later on in my career. Like, I would ask the coaches stuff, and they wouldn't tell me what they thought. Because they didn't, they didn't want to disagree. Because they looked at me like, "This guy's a really good coach. He doesn't really want to know what I think." But I really did want to know what they think. And I always thought I was more that kid growing up in West Virginia. And I cared about what people thought when I was a kid, growing up. But I didn't ever change, you know, and think that I was better,

• 20:47Speaker 04

  or people should treat me a certain way, or I should be able to get in the front of the line when, you know, you went someplace. I'd never do that stuff. Because I always thought treating people with respect and having compassion for other people, that's what my dad told me was the number one thing. My last ass-whipping that I got, I was, he used to give the hobo coffee and donuts. I ate at my dad's service station. I was in there breaking down tires, and I don't know if we lost a game the night before, basketball season, football season, I don't know what, but the hobo's getting on my ass about something, and I told him to go. And my dad was in the other room in his office, and I'm jacking this tire up, and wow, man, I mean, I get a belt across my ass, and I said...

• 21:34Speaker 04

  What was that for? And he said, "I don't ever want to hear you disrespect an older person." I mean, and this guy was a drunken ass bum.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Walked the railroad tracks every day to come and get coffee.

• 21:49Ryan Clark?

  Hey Coach, he was like, he don't even respect himself. So how am I gonna disrespect him? But something like that, Coach. I think your father passed while you were a G A.

• 21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, my first year.

• 22:01Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, he, you know, he coached, you worked with him and for him as you were growing up. What were some of the things you learned from him that became foundational principles of the way you were as an adult?

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Well, the first thing was, is what I just said, having compassion for other people. That was the number one thing. But the second thing was, is you've got to be responsible for your own self-determination and doing your job. And there was always a reckoning for whatever he told you to do. I don't care if it was washing the car, cutting the grass, didn't matter. Did you cut the grass? Did you clean the mower? Did you trim? Did you sweep? And if you didn't do any of those things exactly like he wanted, you had to do it again. So you learn cause and effect of doing things the right way. And it turned me into a bit of a perfectionist

• 22:56Speaker 04

  because I knew I had to do it right, or I was gonna have to do it again. And I wanted to go swimming, or go see where the girls were, or go to the dance, or whatever. I didn't want to have to be home doing all this shit again. So that, probably, those two things were probably the biggest lessons that I learned, you know, from my dad. It was just, you have to do your best at whatever you're trying to do. That's the expectation, that's the standard, and if you don't do it, I'm gonna make you do it again. And it was never a bad thing, you just kinda knew it, you just expected it. And that became a part of who I was. And I think that really helped me.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  You know, develop as a person as well as have success as a coach.

• 23:44Fred Taylor?

  Coach, I find it fascinating to hear you, sit here, you talk about your interactions with the media and your approach to the game itself in life. I was in New England for two years and Coach Belichick was the exact same. And his approach, his thought process with the media, his approach to the team. I called Seth Irvin before we started, know one of your players at Michigan State. He also coached in Bama on your staff. Seth told me, you gave the coaches and the players the exact same treatment. You were intense across the board and you were very consistent, but you were also transparent. As a coach who's been extremely successful, what would you consider one of the greatest

• 24:27Fred Taylor?

  attributes that a coach would need in order to potentially be as successful as you?

• 24:34Speaker 04

  Well, I think I was blessed for whatever reasons to never have what I call relief syndrome, which is human nature. You know, when you have a big win, you know, you're kind of relieved and you let your guard down a little bit and you think, I should have the opportunity to celebrate my success. And you let that carry over into the next challenge and it starts affecting habits and performance and all that stuff. I just never had that, you know, it was like, we won a game, we lost a game, 24 hours later I was like trying to do the next thing.

• 25:15Speaker 04

  And, and I think, I, I think that's, that's a part of human nature that if you're going to be a successful coach, you, you can't be that way and you can't let your team be that way. You know, just like Ohio State. I mean, they beat Texas, probably those are the two best teams, that doesn't mean they're going to win this game, but how, how much are you relieved that you won that game and how does that affect your preparation for the next game? Does that make sense?

• 25:44Fred Taylor?

  Makes total sense.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  I, I never had that and when we, when, when we won, I was in the middle of everybody's ass. And when we lost, when we lost, I wasn't so much. I mean, I was correcting people and all that. But I knew the players already were humiliated by the fact that they didn't win, at least from a sports perspective. But yet, when you win sometimes, people have a much harder time dealing with success than they do failure. Most of the time when people fail, they want to change. They want to do whatever they have to do to make it right. But when you win and you have success, you feel like, I should be able to celebrate this.

• 26:29Speaker 04

  And our society actually promotes that. Like, you know, if you sell 20 cars at our car dealership this month, you get to go to the Bahamas for a week. I mean, what are we saying? If you have success, you get to celebrate it. Well, in sports, you can't do that. Until you win the championship at the end of the season, then you go celebrate. Because if you're not ready for the next challenge, you're going to have a problem. And it's like, we won 19 games in a row, twice at Alabama. And both times, we lost to a team that wasn't as good as us. And it was because we could not deal with success. It starts to affect your preparation, your habits in practice, and then those things start showing up in the game. And then somebody, you get exposed, and then you get beat.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  So I sometimes say, you need to lose. You know, like, I think the best thing that ever happened to Ohio State is getting beat by Michigan. Because they got criticized so much for that, and everybody was humiliated, you know? And they stepped up their game since then, and they played really, really good. But if they won that game, would they have that same sort of edge to them that they've had? And playing angry for these last three games that they played? I mean, they've been pretty dominant. So I just think a lot about the psychological part of it. And, you know, it goes to individuals, too. Every individual is different.

• 27:58Speaker 04

  You know, we had guys at LSU like Josh Reed never played, wasn't anything. Guy was a second round draft pick, paid for a long time. You know, Kendrick Allen, you know, wouldn't even practice. And end up playing, what, five or six years probably in the league. So, but that individual difference that everybody has that you try to, you can't treat everybody the same. You gotta be fair and honest, but you can't treat everybody the same. And everybody, everybody's imperfect. So how do you get certain guys that have maybe an imperfection that's affecting their ability to perform that's different than this guy over here, but you fix them both so they both can perform?

• 28:43Speaker 04

  That's what I always try to do.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis or E O E can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Or stuck chewing food for a long time.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Dupixent dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least 33 pounds, can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  How about this? Dupixent is not a steroid. It proactively treats E O E so you can get ahead of it.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or wheezing or swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection, or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Feeling stuck with E O E? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT.

• 29:46Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, but that's actually great. I was gonna go a different place, but that brought something. I remember we're having a walk-through and Kendrick is legitimately talking about going home and you're having the conversation with him to keep him at school. We're going to a Friday walk-through before getting to the hotel and Trell Fox's shoe wasn't tied and you just asked him to tie his shoe and he lost it, right? And you dealt with it much more gently than I always felt you dealt with me and you came back to him, you was like, "Trell's contrariant, ain't he?" I was like, "Yeah, Coach, he is." And I remember bowl practice, Peach Bowl, some motion out of the backfield, I made every check and

• 30:29Ryan Clark?

  I go to make the check and I make the wrong check and I was like, "No, no, no, no." And I changed it and you were starting to correct me and I was like, "I got it, Coach." And I kind of like cut you off in the middle and you absolutely lost your mind on me. I took my pads off, I remember, I took my pads off and my helmet and I'm walking off the field, Carlton Buckles was like, "RC, you know, you're a really good player, you got a chance to play the league, don't do that." You brought me in the office the next day and you say, "Look, a lot of times when I'm talking to you, I'm talking to everybody around you." You said, "Because I know that you can deal with what I'm saying and continue to play." Not everyone can do that.

• 31:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 31:06Ryan Clark?

  How were you able to learn to deal with the individual personalities and people yet still treat everyone fairly?

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know if you remember Dr. Rosen? So I've always had this great appreciation, which I don't think a lot of coaches do, for psychological disposition of people and their ability to compete. I mean, I think as coaches, we look at physical ability and talent, but sometimes we don't look at the mental aspects of what it takes to be able to bring the talent to fruition. You know, talent is not talent if you can't use it and some people can't use it because of how they think.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  You know, with their hardwiringers or whatever. So I always had, Dr. Rosen was a psychiatrist. We also had another psychiatrist that worked with us at LSU. We had two at, and he worked with us at Miami too, Dr. Rosen.

• 32:08Channing Crowder?

  With the wooden belt buckle.

• 32:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's it. And we had another guy. We had a couple at Alabama, but he's always been with me. And because he was a psychiatrist, he could always give me some feedback on people that I would never be able to recognize as a coach. Like, how do you manage this guy? Because some guys you need to get on. They're not self-starters. Some guys are, you know, like obsessive compulsive, want to do everything right. Well, you don't want to get on that guy. But you don't want everybody around to know that you're treating people different.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  You know, that you're yelling at this guy, but you never yell at that guy.

• 32:58Channing Crowder?

  Right.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Does that make sense? Or you're getting on this guy or whatever. So he's the guy that always gave me some information and insight into what's the best way to coach this player. And that was very helpful, you know, to me. But now, sometimes the players didn't understand that. Like, just like the example that you used.

• 33:19Channing Crowder?

  Yeah.

• 33:19Speaker 04

  You know, I knew that you knew what you were doing and you can make every check and you were the smartest guy out there and we needed you to do it. But I couldn't treat you like you were my pet. But yet, the safeties on all of my teams, all of them, all of our teams, the safeties were in higher esteem than a quarterback. Because I coached DBs, I coached them all my life, and that's what I loved. And I never quit doing that, even when I was a head coach, because that's what I liked. This paid more. The head coach got paid more. So I did both. And so I always had a great relationship with those guys because that's who I interacted with the most. And not the corners, even though I coached the corners, but the safety told the corner what to do most of the time.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  So, but that's how I figured it out.

• 34:08Speaker 04

  You know Trev Falk, I mean, he came to our camp at Alabama for years. You know, while he was coaching, because we had a great relationship, but not that moment.

• 34:18Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  But everybody kind of learns that you really do have their best interest in mind and you're trying to help them develop. And, and some of it is how do you manage adversity?

• 34:32Speaker 04

  You know, that, because you're always gonna have it in sports. There, there's no game that you play, there's nothing where things always go right. You know, they're gonna go wrong and you gotta play the next play and you gotta be able to respond to it, so.

• 34:44Ryan Clark?

  What do you do if a guy brings a stripper to a rookie show? What's the reaction to that, Coach?

• 34:51Speaker 04

  We did it, it happened.

• 34:54Ryan Clark?

  So, it's a, it is the most, it's the most told story on the pivot about Nick Saban, Coach. And we've only heard it from one side. It's the rookie show, it's Channing Crowder's time, he's gonna bring the house down as the closing act.

• 35:10Speaker 04

  The closing act.

• 35:12Ryan Clark?

  And when strippers come out, Coach?

• 35:14Speaker 04

  Randy McMichael was running the show. You know, Ms. Terry don't know this shit happens, so. You see what we gotta be talking about?

• 35:24Ryan Clark?

  Coach, I, I, I assume Ms. Terry, like, me and Terry, me and Ms. Terry had a good relationship when I was playing. She gave me the cookies, so I, I, I used to take the cookies to the linebacker room. Coach.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  If she knew you did this, you wouldn't get the cookies.

• 35:39Ryan Clark?

  Coach, what were you thinking, like, you're in the league now, it's different than college, and the rookie show happens and Channing brings out strippers? Were you just like, Ms. Terry's gonna kill me, I gotta go?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Well, that does enter your mind, but, um, you know, pro ball's different. You know, guys are older, they're more mature, you're still trying to work on the psychological aspects of, but they can separate.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  You know, like, here, this is a serious competitive part of it. And now we're gonna have some fun. And that's good for team chemistry and camaraderie and players laughing and all that. I think the season's so long in pro ball, the guys are older, they're more mature. So, you know, maturity is about making the right decisions in the right situations when it presents itself. College guys aren't all ready to do that. All right, so it's just a little bit different. So, I, I just kinda took it in stride as a part of, this is part of it.

• 36:46Fred Taylor?

  It's more a part of this guy, because he's a nut.

• 36:50Channing Crowder?

  No, no.

• 36:51Fred Taylor?

  You're a nut.

• 36:51Channing Crowder?

  But that difference though, Coach, too, with the, with the, the different sides of it. Because you did the two years, and we had a hell of a defense. Bonnie, Kevin, Sam, you talk about the safety, Jeremiah, T-Buck, like, Zach Wester, Jason, we had it.

• 37:06Fred Taylor?

  Junior was there?

• 37:06Channing Crowder?

  But Junior was there, well, we had a, we had a top-five defense both, both coaches' years. But then you went to Alabama. Did you enjoy those two years?

• 37:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I enjoyed it, but, um, I actually felt like it's hard to win in the NFL. Like, that last season, we go six and 10. First year, we went nine and seven, improved from four and 12. And Gus Ferratt was the quarterback. And we tried to keep Gus, but he knew we were trying to bring somebody else in. He thought he should be the starter, so he went someplace else. And I didn't think we could win if we didn't have a quarterback. So, we, we were third in defense that last year when we were six and 10.

• 37:49Fred Taylor?

  We both.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  Lose 13 to 10, I mean. But, but, but you cannot win in the NFL if you don't have a quarterback. Um, it's hard to win in the NFL running the ball and playing defense. Because you gotta make explosive plays. And I thought we had a much better team the second year than we did the first. But we couldn't win because, you know, Dante went on IR after three games because of his knee. Then Joey Harrington played and we were like 6 and 6 and then he got hurt. And then we played Cleo Lemon.

• 38:23Channing Crowder?

  Yes.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  And Cleo was a good guy and all that, but hard to win.

• 38:29Channing Crowder?

  It's still, it's a, because me and Cleo still talk to this day, our wives talk. And he's a punchline with me. I'm like, I played with Cleo Lemon and John Beck. And I bring up the guy, you don't have to, if I bring up all those guys. Coach, I gotta ask you, in the bubble, do you know they call it the Nick Saban bubble? The outdoor facility in Davie?

• 38:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:50Channing Crowder?

  That was, is that the, is that the story true that you made them build that bubble?

• 38:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:55Channing Crowder?

  You told them, I have to have a bubble?

• 38:59Speaker 04

  I told Wayne, we should have a bubble.

• 39:01Channing Crowder?

  And they still call it to this day, the Nick Saban bubble. So we're in the bubble.

• 39:05Speaker 04

  I heard they tore it down.

• 39:06Channing Crowder?

  They, they took it down now because Steven Ross moved the facility right there by the stadium.

• 39:11Speaker 04

  They got great facilities. I was just there when we did the Orange Bowl. That place is phenomenal.

• 39:16Channing Crowder?

  Coach.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Phenomenal. And that hospital right next door is a great thing for the players. You get hurt, you're right in there, get MRI, C scan, whatever you need. So.

• 39:25Channing Crowder?

  You should have been there with Steven Ross. You could have asked for anything. He'd have, he'd have tightened it up for you.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  But you know, Wayne was a really good owner and he wanted to do whatever he needed to do to support the coach. And what I thought because of, you know, some of the weather situations that we had, not just bad weather, but too much heat. You know, having coached at LSU, I mean, we had to change the way we practiced. We, we had to practice inside sometimes where it was cooler, you know, where it could have air conditioning. It was a little cooler. You kill your team being outside all the time. And I thought, when I coached at the Houston Oilers, we killed our team sometimes coming out of camp and got off to really bad starts. And we had really good teams with Warren Moon and all those guys when I was there, but.

• 40:14Speaker 04

  So he built it.

• 40:17Channing Crowder?

  The Nick Saban bubble.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:19Channing Crowder?

  And in that bubble, I have to, because I've heard so many different, just like the Dante Culpepper Drew Brees thing, when you replaced Pep with Joey, and they both went in the huddle that day during walkthrough, and Pep didn't know he wasn't starting anymore, and Joey sat there, how did that go down? Because I've argued with Zach, Jason, I've argued with guys for years about this, Coach. When you had to replace Pep with Joey, how would that whole situation go down? Because nobody knows.

• 40:51Speaker 04

  Pep did know.

• 40:53Channing Crowder?

  Pep acted like he didn't know, and that's when y'all started arguing.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  He acted like he didn't know, but he did know.

• 40:57Channing Crowder?

  Oh, OK.

• 40:58Speaker 04

  I mean, I had talked to him before, and, you know, I said, "Look, this has nothing to do with your ability to play quarterback, except you're physically unable to perform like you want to perform and like we need for you to perform. So don't take this, like, personally. We're going to try to play somebody else until you either can get better, or so you can perform the way you want to." But he would not accept that. I mean, that was just, he couldn't. And I understand why. I mean, you're talking about somebody's career. Yeah, that's how it happened.

• 41:41Ryan Clark?

  Coach, Bill Belichick, I told him that we were sitting with you today, and Coach is not a man of many words. He sent me this. He said, "I learned a lot from Nick. He's a damn good coach, knows every area of the game in great depth, including schemes, coaches, and players. He treats people right, honest, and fair." And he says, "Honestly, Coach Saban is in a class by himself. He has no peers."

• 42:04Fred Taylor?

  Wow.

• 42:06Ryan Clark?

  You guys coached in Cleveland together, obviously had a relationship that has evolved. We feel, many, that he's the greatest NFL coach of all time. For him to feel like you have no peers, how does that, or how do you digest that sort of statement from Coach Belichick?

• 42:24Speaker 04

  Well, first of all, some of the best things that I know in my development as a coach came from him. And it's defining every part of the team, every part of the organization. Just like through all these years, how he defined what you were looking for for players. You know, it was size and speed at every position, critical factors at every position, character and intelligence at every position, and you had to get all the information, right, to do that. But he did that in every part of the organization. You know, how he played offense, how he played defense, you know, the people in administration,

• 43:04Speaker 04

  salary cap, it didn't matter what it was, there was always a vertical integration organizationally of how you did things, and everybody was always on the same page. So, you know, I always tell the story, if you went to our lake house, we would have seven bottles of ketchup and no mustard. Because Ms. Terry goes to the store with no list, so she just buys shit. Alright, so, that could never happen with Bill Belichick because he defined when we went and worked out players. I mean, if you weren't six foot and weighed 180 pounds and run less than four or five to play corner. Now, there was an exception to that, you know, Aaron Glenn was one of them, you know, that I went and worked out, we liked him, but that's what he wanted at that position.

• 43:48Speaker 04

  He wanted bigger guys that he thought were more durable, they were longer, they could play more physical, but every position, that was defined. You know, DB, three things DB had to be able to do. Tackle, play man to man, play the ball in deep part of field. Alright, so you could evaluate 25 things, but those three things were like critical factors that were fatal flaws. And if you couldn't do those things, that was always going to hurt the team. So, when you looked at the film to bring a guy in, I don't care if it was at Alabama or wherever I coached, since I coached with him, we didn't recruit that guy. He might have been a five star, Josh Jacobs had no stars.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  And, but he, he fit what we wanted as a running back. And, um, so Damian Harris was a five star.

• 44:41Speaker 04

  Josh Jacobs was first team, Damian Harris was second team.

• 44:44Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  Josh Jacobs got drafted in the first round, Damian Harris got drafted in the third round. Played on the same team at the same time. So, but all those things that I learned from Bill, that's just an example. Made me so much better coach. Whatever he's saying, he developed.

• 45:02Ryan Clark?

  Wow.

• 45:03Speaker 04

  That's the way I look at it. Um, and you know, that was, that was a hard job we did in Philly, in Cleveland. Now, they were really bad, you know, we had to change the whole team over a four-year period and got in the playoffs and we had the number one defense, gave up the fifth fewest points in the league, and the last touchdown was a punt return.

• 45:28Speaker 04

  So, we didn't even get to play defense. We were heading the game like thirty-four to three and they, it was the last game of the year and they had other guys out there playing, the guy runs back for a touchdown. Or we'd have given up less than two hundred points. Which was only about three teams that's ever done that.

• 45:42Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  That was a fourteen-game season then, so it was a little different than now, but.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  Having uncontrolled eosinophilic esophagitis, or E O E, can mean you're stuck in many ways, like cutting your food into tiny pieces.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Or stuck, chewing food for a long time.

• 46:02Speaker 00

  Dupixent Dupilumab, a prescription medicine for patients one year and older weighing at least thirty-three pounds, can help with that. It's a breakthrough treatment that can reduce inflammation in the esophagus and improve swallowing.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  How about this? Dupixent is not a steroid. It proactively treats E O E, so you can get ahead of it.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Severe allergic reactions, including skin reactions, can occur. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing, or wheezing, or swelling of your face, mouth, tongue, or throat. Tell your doctor of new or worsening joint aches and pain, or a parasitic infection, or asthma. Don't change or stop other treatments without talking to your doctor.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Feeling stuck with E O E? Start treating with Dupixent. Talk to your gastroenterologist or allergist today about Dupixent. Learn more at dupixent.com or call 1-844-DUPIXENT.

• 46:46Ryan Clark?

  Coach, when you get to look back at it now and you're out of the game, when people see the statue, right? I think it was your assistant at Alabama that said, "There's two types of coaches at Alabama. Those who have statues and those who don't." He said, "All the ones that don't have statues are different." He said, I think it was the time of the three, he's like, "The ones that do have statues are all the same." So it would seem that you made all the right decisions. Are there any things that you look back on, Coach, that said you wish you had done differently throughout your career?

• 47:30Speaker 04

  You're gonna like it when I say this, but I think sometimes you have to learn about yourself. And you might think things... When I left LSU, that was probably professionally the biggest mistake that I ever made. Not because we didn't have success in Miami, because I enjoyed coaching in Miami. But I found out in that experience that I liked coaching in college better because you could develop players personally, academically, athletically and all that a little more than in pro ball. Even though I loved the status of coaching in pro football and the kind of guys you coached and you're coaching in the best league against the best players, I loved all that.

• 48:14Speaker 04

  So then I can't go back to LSU, go to Alabama, and no disrespect to Alabama, it's not Alabama versus LSU. It's just Jimmy Sexton stood on the balcony when I was getting ready to leave LSU, make a decision about whether to went to Miami or stayed at LSU. And he said, "What do you want your legacy to be as a coach? Do you want to be Vince Lombardi or do you want to be Bear Bryant?" And without hesitation, I said, "Bear Bryant." And he said, "What are you doing going to Miami then?" That's the truth. I don't know if I ever told that story, but that's the truth. Outside of Skip Burtman's office, on the balcony...

• 49:00Speaker 04

  And I went anyway.

• 49:05Channing Crowder?

  But Coach, even playing for you at Miami, we've talked about it, the X and O's were there. I tell the story all the time, when you used to, you walk up to me and you say things in a certain way. But you say, "Hey, they're gonna go in two by two. They're gonna motion to trips, you're backside, I was the wheel, playing behind JT. They're gonna throw a screen back there, cuz they don't think you can tackle him, and I don't think you can tackle him. You'll make the goddamn tackle." And I'd be like, "Okay, Coach." And on the next third down, they'd motion two by two to trips. I'd see the back staring at me, and I'm like, "Nick just called this play." And I wouldn't have made the tackle, I think we were playing the Vikings or something. And I was like, "This guy knows ball."

• 49:47Channing Crowder?

  Zach thought the same way, Jason thought the same way, George Edwards, who you brought in, Kirby Smart, Richard Smith, I remember the whole coaching staff, cuz everybody knew that you knew ball, like the X and O of it. Was it the personalities in the league? Them older guys, cuz you're saying like developing of guys, but I remember you and Keith Taylor arguing, you and Zach got into it cuz Zach kept changing your defense. Was it that that made the league not good? Because you could do X and O football with anybody in the world. Was it that veteran guy, cuz you were only 40 something? There were guys on the team that were 38 years old.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it wasn't that. I, it wasn't coaching the players. It had nothing to do with that. Cuz you've got problems with the guys in college too, for different reasons. Most of the time, they're so immature, you know, they can't make the right choices and decisions about what's best for them. And you're trying to argue with them about that. I mean, it wasn't that at all. It was, it was the being in a position to have a bigger impact when a guy was 18 to 22. As opposed, not just in football. The development of football came more rapidly because guys coming out of high school, they didn't know what it took.

• 51:07Speaker 04

  And we always developed, that's why we got so many guys in the league. We always coached college like pros. We practiced that way, we got guys ready to play that way. We actually, because of Belichick, we recruited that way. So we had more guys that fit the profile of what the NFL was looking for. We didn't recruit them other guys. I mean, they had to fit the profile. Mode, yeah. That's the part that I liked best about college. It was nothing negative about the league. It was, guys were already kind of what they were. You know, now, we tried to help Ricky, you know, and, you know, he came to the house and, you know,

• 51:49Speaker 04

  I fought the league on, you know, I mean, I fought the league on the drug program way back then. You know, they said, "We got a drug program." I said, "No, you don't have a drug program. You got a drug testing program. You ain't doing shit for any of these guys." All right, so. It's real, though. Yeah, and it was back then. That was like 20 years ago. So, and I don't even know, it's probably a lot better now, but, anyway. So, that was the thing. It was, I love coaching pro ball. I mean, and if I was going to coach today, based on the circumstances in college and in the NFL, I would coach in the NFL. Because all those things in college have changed. The whole idea of what college used to be is not there anymore.

• 52:34Speaker 04

  I mean, it used to be you went to college to develop value for your future. Now people are going to college to see how much money they can make. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but you changed the whole dynamic of the importance of getting an education, making good decisions and choices about what you do and what you don't do to create value for your future. You changed that whole dynamic. And the idea that these guys are free agents twice a year and they can just go wherever they want. I mean, I got NFL coaches calling me complaining about, "These guys have no ability to sustain and persevere and overcome adversity, because they never had to do it.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  They just pack up and leave as soon as something doesn't go their way." That's what I always enjoyed about college, developing those things that help guys be successful.

• 53:29Speaker 04

  And now the system. Has changed. Has changed where that's not even possible anymore. And I think the players should get paid in college. I really do. I just think the system that we're doing it in is not really beneficial to them and their development in the future. You know, you could take the whole college experience, which we probably all value. Mm-hmm. I did. It doesn't exist. No. It's gone.

• 53:59Speaker 04

  For athletes, I'm talking about. Alright, so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't think it's a good thing, but...

• 54:07Fred Taylor?

  Coach, we're all like you. We're certainly all old school and kind of see how, we can see how that sort of dilutes the product. And especially for young people, right? They sort of get this money in their brain and it's, "How much more can I get?" Versus, "How great can I become as a player?" But you spoke about impacting players' lives from 18 to 22. And you've coached many amazing players.

• 54:32Fred Taylor?

  Is there one player that stands out the most in terms of impacting or teaching you something?

• 54:40Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  Might be me.

• 54:46Speaker 04

  No, I actually... I'm messing with you. I actually, you know, I always had a leadership group on every team. We even had one in Miami. And I always thought Jason Taylor probably taught me more. Now, I've coached in the league for, what, four years?

• 55:11Speaker 04

  No, six years before being the coach at Miami. But had gone back to college for a while and came back. And in that leadership group, you know, Jason always gave me some very impactful ways to adapt to being a pro coach relative to a college coach. If that makes sense. Yes. From that standpoint, probably, it was more technical than personal, but it was very helpful, very helpful. In fact, when we had some issues and problems in Miami, Jason was always helpful in how do we overcome this? And, you know, there's so many college kids, guys, that, you know, I thought,

• 55:55Speaker 04

  "This guy's never going to make it." You know, like when they're freshmen. And then they would learn and grow and turn out to be really good players. Like Derrick Henry, alright, so he's a freshman. And we're, we're doing like a team pass drill. And he'll know his ass from a handful of sand about pass protection, pass blocking, none of this.

• 56:24Fred Taylor?

  They gave him the ball 60 times.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  The coach is getting all, the offensive coordinator, he, he doesn't pick up the right guy or something. And the offensive coordinator is getting on him so bad, I'm like, I feel sorry for this guy, I'm gonna go, you know, rub his neck a little bit. And he looks at me and he says, Coach, he says, I don't know anything about any of this shit. He said, all they did in high school was turn around and toss me the ball and tell me to run with it. That's all I know about football. So can you all have a little patience?

• 56:59Speaker 04

  To the melon. So from that standpoint, I mean, that guy's went, you know, a long way. But, but I'm saying there's so many guys like that, that are just amazing. But one thing I wanted to bring up about what we were talking about before is

• 57:17Speaker 04

  the NFL versus college. One thing the NFL does is they protect the brand. I mean, they have rules, they have regulations, I don't care if your socks have to touch your pants. I don't care what it is, alright, this is business. Alright, and they understand business. Alright, if you watch a college game now as opposed to a pro game, it used to be just the opposite. You used to see great discipline in college and college guys showing sportsmanship and all that. And pro guys, maybe not so much. Now it's this way. Because they have no guidelines, they don't understand how to protect the brand in college football. And, and it's, yeah, it's disguised a little bit about the playoffs, you know?

• 58:00Speaker 04

  Cause everybody's so excited about having a 12-team playoff, which is great. But what's happening to the rest of it? I mean, how many people were at the Gator Bowl? I mean, how many people were at some of these bowl games that they didn't get into playoffs? And bowl games has always been a great part of college football and reinforced, like you mentioned, being in the Peach Bowl. I mean, you, you wouldn't have that opportunity now. I mean, cause nobody would be at the game.

• 58:27Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 58:27Speaker 04

  Unless it was a playoff game. So, and, and you probably wouldn't want to play.

• 58:31Ryan Clark?

  Players wouldn't want to play.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, they don't want to play in them. So, but we don't know how to protect the brand. And just like even the SEC. How many guys grew up saying, oh, you guys play in the SEC, right? I want to play in the SEC.

• 58:47Ryan Clark?

  Yeah, definitely.

• 58:48Speaker 04

  I, I, I heard that 20 years in recruiting. You know, I want to play in the SEC. Ain't nobody saying I want to play in the SEC now. They're saying how much you paying me?

• 58:58Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 04

  So you lose all that. You know, there's some kids that grew up wanting to play at LSU. There's some kids that grew up wanting to play at Florida or Alabama or whatever. It's not how much you going to pay me? Alright, so you lose all that sort of legacy and tradition that has made college football what it is. I mean, but, but we have to learn in college football how to protect the brand. They have done a great job of that in the NFL.

• 59:28Ryan Clark?

  I'm gonna get off the, the subject for a little bit. There's an old clip of you saying that when people, when young guys would come to your house to date your daughter, you would ask them what they played because you wanted to see what sort of competitor they were. As you've gotten older and, you know, now you don't have to do that anymore. Have you softened? Are you a soft grandparent? You know, are you like one of those guys that's just like, hey, you can have whatever you want?

• 59:58Speaker 04

  I mean, how many kids you got?

• 59:59Ryan Clark?

  I got three, two girls.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  Two girls?

• 1:00:01Ryan Clark?

  Right.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  Okay, how old?

• 1:00:02Ryan Clark?

  My girls are 25 and 20 now.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  Okay, so you went through this?

• 1:00:06Ryan Clark?

  Yes.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  Alright, when them boys are coming knocking at the door. So, when they come and their doorbell rang and Kristen had a date, everybody ran to open the door because they didn't want me to open it. Because if I opened it, first thing I'd look at the guy and I'd say, what do you play? Just intimidate the shit out of them. Alright. Everybody in the house is like, oh, oh dad, don't do that.

• 1:00:34Ryan Clark?

  So what if they didn't play nothing, Coach?

• 1:00:36Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 1:00:36Ryan Clark?

  What if he didn't play anything? What if he was like, "I was in the band"?

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  Well, I would, I'd still invite the guy in, but he knew I was disappointed that he wasn't a competitor.

• 1:00:50Channing Crowder?

  She has children now, married. How did the husband break through?

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Oh, he was a good, he's a good guy. I mean, you know, they're all great.

• 1:00:59Channing Crowder?

  Is he a competitor?

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  But the grand, yeah, but the grandkids, they're competitors. I don't know if I can hold them to the same standard, because I just melt around the grandkids.

• 1:01:13Ryan Clark?

  Exactly.

• 1:01:14Channing Crowder?

  And their grandpa's a multimillionaire.

• 1:01:18Speaker 04

  I just melt around the grandkids.

• 1:01:21Ryan Clark?

  For you now, though, in that, in this space of retirement, you know, they mentioned the media part of it. And I wasn't around for whenever the "Nothing" speech started. Can you tell me kind of the origin of that? And how that became a thing? Because you know it by heart. It wasn't something that you had to try to recall. And then the entire crowd of college football, of college game day, starts to get into it. Pat McAfee's into it. What was sort of the origin of those principles that went into that speech?

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  I don't know exactly which streak we're on, but it was me chewing the players out for feeling entitled, you know, because they won so many games, or maybe we won back-to-back championships. And it was the next year and everybody was complacent. And, you know, complacency builds this latent disregard for doing what's right. So you got all these issues and problems popping up all the time. So I just, that's where it came from, you know? If you wake up in the morning and you feel entitled, what are you going to get? Nothing. I mean, that just went on and on and on.

• 1:02:34Channing Crowder?

  It's so funny listening to this. It's crazy because I'm getting flashbacks of playing for you. The low achievers and high achievers, they don't blend well together.

• 1:02:46Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:02:46Channing Crowder?

  Coach, you're still one of the best in the world at this. You can't just hang it up, man.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  I did.

• 1:02:53Channing Crowder?

  You're done? There's a job open in Dallas. There's on all levels. There's college jobs, there's NFL jobs. Hell, I get you a job down here.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  I want him to get that job.

• 1:03:04Channing Crowder?

  I'll get you a job down here, Coach High School, if you want to, Coach. You're done. Flat out done. You'll never coach again.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  I don't think so. I mean, you know,

• 1:03:17Speaker 04

  the last year, you know, when we lost to Michigan in the playoffs,

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  that was one of the hardest years I ever went through, you know, as a coach because we started out really bad and got better as we went because we had kind of a younger team and the quarterback got a lot better. And it was just a really, really hard year. Probably didn't have maybe as good a staff as some of the ones before, so I felt like I had to do more. And I honestly felt at the end of the year, like, you're gonna kill yourself doing this. I mean, I really did feel that way. So, and it wasn't name, image, and likeness. It wasn't the changes of college football. It wasn't the players. I just,

• 1:04:04Speaker 04

  no issues with any of that. I just really felt like if you keep working like this, you're gonna kill yourself. And I can only do it one way. All right, it's like, some people don't work as hard, some people don't stay until late at night. But that's how I learned how to do it. That's the only way I know how to do it. But once you get a little older, it gets harder to do it that way. I'll bet you, if you asked me that question and I wasn't involved in sports, ESPN, game day, during the draft.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  I'd probably say, maybe. But doing this, I'm still involved in ball. And I like it, and it gives me something to do. I don't think I'd be happy if I didn't have something to do. So, and the difference is, and it's almost enjoyable, when you coach your team, you're kind of looking at everything through a straw. You know, your team, who you're playing that week, and that's it. You're not thinking about what's happening at Colorado, or Oregon, or whatever. But during TV, you'd look at the whole thing from a thousand feet. Where you seeing everybody, and you know all the players. You know, I would have known Scataboo from a load of coal if I was coaching Alabama. But I have an appreciation for that guy

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  and the kind of competitor he is because I watched him play all year.

• 1:05:28Fred Taylor?

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Alright, so, there's, that's kind of fun to have a little different, you know, approach to it. And then when we do the draft, when I do the draft on ESPN, I did it exactly like we did it in Miami. And we picked your ass.

• 1:05:45Channing Crowder?

  I got the call, Coach, I appreciate you.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  Right, that's all we look for is a call, right? Coach, I have the honor of asking you what I ask all of our guests. For me, just an extreme admiration for you and all that you've done. But, the question is this. In life, what's been your biggest pivot in life? That's that one moment that, if that didn't happen, you wouldn't be who you are.

• 1:06:10Fred Taylor?

  Wow, Fred, you ask some hard questions.

• 1:06:13Speaker 04

  You know, your partner in life for 53 years, I mean, and how that's worked for you, with your children, your family, and all that. That's got to be the most important thing. From a coaching standpoint, probably for me, was leaving LSU, going to Miami, finding out that, about myself. Because I always thought that being a head coach in the NFL was the ultimate goal that I had. That was it. That's what I wanted to do. And when I did it, and... Because we couldn't control the variables. Because you got a salary cap, we're seventeen million dollars over. We got the oldest team in the league.

• 1:06:55Speaker 04

  You got no draft picks because they gave them all away for Ricky Williams. So it's like, how are you going to build this team? You got no quarterback. But it was a challenge and we made it better. But yet I felt like you couldn't control the variables. So I went back to college. That was, from a professional standpoint, that was probably the biggest, like, turning point for me. And then I was satisfied to be at a place for seventeen years. Which I was never satisfied before because it was always climb the ladder.

• 1:07:23Fred Taylor?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 04

  And I was satisfied to be, you know, that place. And, and, and that was, that was really good and different in a way. And then financially, getting in business is, you know, having these Mercedes dealerships and all that.

• 1:07:42Fred Taylor?

  So that S sixty-three twenty twenty-five I just bought for all that money, you could have, I could have got a discount.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  Where to put you on the family plan?

• 1:07:54Fred Taylor?

  I saved a thousand dollars. He gonna hit you in the head, dude.

• 1:07:56Ryan Clark?

  Coach, I have, we can't let you get out without talking about the championship game. But the biggest pivot question brought something up to me that I want to say thank you for. Uh, my senior year, I was preseason, first team All-SEC, preseason All-American. And I started the season out horribly. We played Tennessee and Florida back to back. And I couldn't, you know, I didn't know my head from my butthole. And we were going to play Kentucky. And you pulled me aside when we got to Kentucky and you had a conversation with me about being who I am was enough. Because I was pressing so hard to do all of these things. And in that conversation, you told me, you said, I coach you like you're a pro already.

• 1:08:39Ryan Clark?

  And if you just do what you had been doing before this, you could play ten years in the league. And that was the first time I'd ever had a conversation with somebody that made me feel like it was actually possible.

• 1:08:54Ryan Clark?

  So I want to say thank you for just taking the time to do that. That changed my life. And then you saw me after the game and you were like, see, you got your hands on the ball. But that brings me to a different question. How proud are you of the legacy you've built in having your players not only go on to be great players with good careers and great careers in the NFL, but also positive and successful humans?

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  Well, I think that's more concerning to me that they are. I love seeing you be successful. Everybody that's ever played for me, not just in football, but in everything that they do. And it's very disappointing to me when I see a player who struggles. When I say disappointing, disappointing that I didn't do enough to help them be able to make the choices and decisions to be successful. But I think one of the things that I always see affecting players, it's expectations, which is exactly what you just hit on. Because you made preseason All-SEC and All-American and all that, you think you got to live up

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  to some, something more than what you, what made you what you were. And you really don't. And that creates a lot of anxiety. And that anxiety affects you emotionally. And emotionally, you don't make as good of decisions when you just play free. And we've had a few guys, you know, in that boat. You know, you talk about a lot of guys, quarterbacks that have great rookie years and then they struggle the next year. Well, it's because the expectation went up. So the anxiety, they let it affect them. The anxiety went up. They feel like they got to make more plays, do more things. And it affects their judgment and decision making and all of a sudden, they're not playing as well.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  But I always thought the most important thing was to try to build up the individual to make sure, because everybody's insecure. So try to make them feel like they could have the confidence they needed in themselves. And when I saw guys pivoting from that, I always wanted to talk to them individually. Now, I spent more time talking to individuals than talking to the team. Because I always use the statement, there's no I in team, but there is an I in win. Because the I stands for the individuals who make the team what it is.

• 1:11:33Speaker 04

  And that's how you win, getting all the individual people on your team. I mean, it's just like, nobody that's really not smart. Everybody has to be really smart to get into medical school. Really smart, but everybody doesn't make it. Why not? And even some of them that make it, don't turn out to be very good doctors. How come?

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  Something.

• 1:11:59Speaker 04

  Something, you know, lack of confidence, don't believe in themselves. You know, afraid they're gonna make a mistake. Instead of being aggressive, fear of failure is the biggest challenge for all of us. And being aggressive to face adversity is probably the greatest that we have. So, you know, but it's not, we think it's normal. It's not normal. Normal is being average. Normal is doing what you have to do to survive. I mean, all of us made an A at some point in our growing up.

• 1:12:43Speaker 04

  Took two weeks off and made a C on the next test and was satisfied to have a B. That's normal. Making an A and then saying, I'm gonna go be the highest guy ever in the class? That's special. And same thing with winning championships. I mean, normal is do what you have to do to get by. Special is doing everything you have to do to be the best you can be. And you got a whole team of people do that, then you win a championship. That's special, it's not normal. But a lot of times, people think, because you have talent, you're special.

• 1:13:16Speaker 04

  Not necessarily.

• 1:13:17Ryan Clark?

  We talked about championships, Coach. I obviously have a vested interest in the national championship this year. My son, Jordan, plays for Notre Dame. You mentioned how well Ohio State has been playing in these playoff games after losing to Michigan. How do you view the national championship game this year?

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  I think Ohio State has a very talented team, and I think they have played, you know, very well in these playoffs. How will they respond after the last win? But the other thing I think about Notre Dame is I think they play with the best team chemistry, the best togetherness. You know, I think Marcus has done a fantastic job and gotten more out of that team based on the injuries that they have and the adversity they've had to overcome, how they've had to adapt to the quarterback. You know, I think the way they've had to adapt to all the things they had to adapt to this year, they've done it better than

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  anybody else. And I think because of that, they've just shown a resiliency like all the turnovers they got. You know, 31 turnovers, I did a thing on 31 turnovers for five, over five points a turnover, and 10 points a game if you break it down by game. I mean, they're just, do all the things you need to do to be able to put yourself in the best chance to win, and they haven't beat themselves very much. So, who has the best talent? Probably right now, Ohio State. But I think team chemistry can go a long way to helping you have a chance

• 1:15:02Speaker 04

  to be successful in very challenging situations. So, I've played all these championship games, man. Sometimes you play great, and sometimes you play really bad.

• 1:15:15Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:16Speaker 04

  You know, and it's like...

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  How come? You know, I mean, and I could usually tell when guys weren't focused on the right things. You know, they were more interested in bringing attention to themselves. You know, we got a rule, you're not allowed to have your shirt tail out. They're gonna have their shirt tail out. I'm like, what?

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  You don't know that's a rule, first of all.

• 1:15:42Fred Taylor?

  Those lies.

• 1:15:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know it's a rule. So you're saying it's a rule, but then I'm gonna say to hell with the rule. I'm gonna do what I want to do. So when you go play your position and the guard pulls and you're supposed to jump over, you gonna say, I'm gonna jump over, am I gonna go do what I want to do? I mean, what's the difference? You know, everybody thinks, everybody thinks that you learn discipline on the field. You don't learn discipline on the field. You learn discipline every day of your life and you take it to the field. Just like, do you develop strength on the field?

• 1:16:15Ryan Clark?

  No.

• 1:16:15Speaker 04

  No, you develop in the weight room and all that and take it to the field. What's the difference?

• 1:16:19Channing Crowder?

  I don't know if you seen me smiling, but these are the same speeches I got 18 years ago. But you are consistent.

• 1:16:28Ryan Clark?

  It ain't changed.

• 1:16:29Channing Crowder?

  And you needed every one of them.

• 1:16:32Ryan Clark?

  Thank you so much, Coach, man. We appreciate you. This was amazing.

• 1:16:36Fred Taylor?

  Remember early, he said, don't change. Because they're consistent, they had to stay that way.

• 1:16:41Ryan Clark?

  There was a kid on the team this year, though, that said, because of that sort of discipline, no shirt tails and all of those things, they felt like they didn't need as many individual player leaders in Alabama. But they said now that that was gone, that they needed more players to step up and uphold that standard, be the persons or the people that talked about discipline because it was just kind of set in the rules and the culture that you would be a certain way.

• 1:17:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Ryan Clark?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  But there's two things about leadership. You know, you can have good leadership on the team, but then the players on the team don't respond to the leaders. And they're good leaders, but the other guys don't respond to them. And then you can have to where you don't have great leaders, but these guys are trying to do everything they can to make and do what the leaders want them to do. And you know, sometimes that chemistry, I think Notre Dame's got really good chemistry that way.

• 1:17:40Channing Crowder?

  Yeah, no, Marcus Freeman's amazing.

• 1:17:42Ryan Clark?

  Coach, I'm putting you on the spot, coach. If you had to pick one player, your favorite player to ever coach at Alabama, who would it be?

• 1:17:50Speaker 04

  Favorite player to ever coach?

• 1:17:52Channing Crowder?

  There was some dogs in Alabama now.

• 1:17:56Speaker 04

  I don't know. Julio was great. Derrick Henry. Tua, I always liked Tua. Rolando McLean.

• 1:18:06Ryan Clark?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Channing Crowder?

  He could go.

• 1:18:08Speaker 04

  And the other one I always liked was Reuben Foster.

• 1:18:12Ryan Clark?

  Monster.

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  But I like the guys that were always in my office because they were screwing up. So I got closer to them, you know?

• 1:18:24Ryan Clark?

  Right. We had more conversation.

• 1:18:27Speaker 04

  We had more conversation.

• 1:18:29Channing Crowder?

  I hit your office once or twice, coach.

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