Nick Saban People Quotations

What people do on the field is kind of your calling card in terms of the quality of work. When he was a defensive coordinator at Jacksonville and Pittsburgh, they did some pretty quality work. They had top-line defensive teams. He did it in different situations featuring different types of players. That will be helpful to us.

I don't think I'm complicated at all. I'm not political, and I'm not trying to be diplomatic. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, and I don't say bad things about people. There is no agenda. There's no trying to fool somebody.

I don't control what people put on dot-com or anything else. So I'm just telling you there's no significance, in my opinion, about this, about me, about any interest that I have in anything other than being the coach here.

High achievers don't like mediocre people, mediocre people don't like high achievers.

When you play against good people, that's when you focus your concentration. Your sense of urgency to be disciplined in your execution all become more critical. Sometimes you get away with doing things not quite right against lesser competition, but when you play against real good people that's when it shows up.

Mediocre people hate high achievers, and high achievers hate mediocre people.

We create a standard for how we want to do things and everybody's got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry. Mediocre people don't like high-achievers and high-achievers don't like mediocre people.

I think we're interested in anybody who would make our team better. Guys who have been proven playmakers in this league are all people we would be interested in.

He put half of our defensive team in the training room for a week every time we played him. The thing that separates (Brown) from the other running backs available in this draft was his versatility and the number of things that he could do as a football player. I'm surprised that other people ... have not made a more significant emphasis about the versatility this guy has.

The Pac-10 obviously did pretty well against the SEC this past week, ... Our players need to be aware of that and know that our league is nationally-known and when we go play places people are anxious to play us.

Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people.

He's still hard to block. He does a great job of using his hands. He still plays with a lot of power. He still can rush and block people back to the quarterback. He's very instinctive on the field -- batting balls down and making a lot of plays. I think the guy is an astounding player and I think he's had a really good year doing what they expect him to do.

It really goes back to the way I've always tried to teach, ... A lot of people teach players what to do. Some people teach players how to do it. But not everyone always teaches someone why it's important to do it that way.

The best way to disrespect somebody is to just walk away from them. But that is the show business part of what we have to deal with, and to me it's wrong. It's a bad example for young people to see and it's not the kind of character and attitude that we want our players to represent this organization in, our owner, the Miami Dolphins ... or the people on the team who all have to suffer because of that.

My only feeling is that the situation and the circumstance that created this whole thing is unfortunate for a lot of people. I think that it is unfortunate for the Saints that they have to go through a lot of changes to do what they have to do, but probably, more importantly, the fans and all of the people affected by this tragedy.

We're still in the information-gathering stage. People like to ask strategic questions about what we're going to do.

Philosophically, I don't there's a lot of difference in terms of what we like to do. His knowledge of the league and being able to define things internally in the organization, so you have everybody on the same page, are probably his greatest assets. That and recognition of what people can do - the strength of players, coaches and people in the organization - and putting them in position where they can have success doing it.

We want to see guys compete so we can know whether they need to be here, we want them to be here and if they are the kind of people we want. The record doesn't really matter, the result doesn't matter and the score in the game doesn't really matter.

I felt very much appreciated on the field today, ... There were a lot of people with Saints jerseys that were very nice to me in welcoming me back. I don't want to minimize the fact there was some personal adulation based on the reception I received.

It's going to be a very difficult circumstance for people to operate systematically and have the kind of money to be actively involved in free agency. It changes some of the rules relative to the system in how you can calculate a guy's salary.

It's not human nature to be great. It's human nature to survive, to be average and do what you have to do to get by. That is normal. When you have something good happen, it's the special people that can stay focused and keep paying attention to detail, working to get better and not being satisfied with what they have accomplished.

A lot of people wearing Saints shirts were very nice to me.

A lot of people want to know why I want to come back to college football.

We have people in personnel, coaching, the front office. Everybody should be working toward the same goal.

Typically, people who can score touchdowns or create big plays, whether they affect the quarterback on defense or make the plays down the field, are guys that have a little bit more impact.

He did some straight-line running (Monday). He threw the ball some. He took some easy drops. So it's not like this guy is not at a point where he can't start doing some things. Now, I didn't see all that. I'm just going on what the trainer and the people doing the rehab with him did. But he was there early and stayed late and worked hard. We were pleased with what he did.

We all have a professional responsibility as clubs to live by the confidentiality rules, which are designed to protect players. However the information got out, I hope those people will take that responsibility and let us make any necessary changes. ... I'm going to be proactive in that effort.