Nick Saban Player Quotations

I don't know that there's any particular scientific evidence that you could say, more guys get hurt in this offense versus that one, or hurry-up, or whatever, but everything that we've ever done in the NCAA is about exposure. How many exposures does a player get?

We want to support every player, and I think every player knows he has a responsibility for what to do and what not to do. As a coach, I also feel a responsibility to put a player in the best situation possible so he can have success.

I don't feel like we have enough depth. Lance has certainly made a lot of improvement. He is a veteran player that's starting to feel more comfortable in the system. He did make a couple of good plays in this game.

If a player isn't performing relative to the so-called investment that you have in him, sometimes you have to make tough decisions. We were committed to the guy. He was committed. If anything, I feel personally responsible that we didn't make it work with the guy.

He is respected throughout the league and has a strong background in player personnel,

(That) can only be brought about by a lot of conversation and getting to know someone. I don't know this particular player well enough to make that determination right now, but it's something we might be interested in in the future.

My biggest concern was how the members of our team would respond and react to Ricky coming back. And I think everybody had the idea that if he was committed to coming back and wanted to be a player that would contribute to the success of the team, that they would be all for it.

You'd like to put yourself in a position, if you have a flexibility to do it, to take a particular player that you'd like to get. Obviously if you have multiple draft picks, that gives you a little bit more flexibility. That's not a luxury that we have right now.

We were recruiting a player who had a coach from another school using the NFL as a negative about our program, ... The player said to him -- and I'm not making this up -- 'If the coach of your school is so good, why aren't they trying to hire him in the NFL?'

When you have reached the pinnacle as a player of what you have always aspired for, what's your motivation? ... Some guys just work their tail off because they want to be good. It's important to them and their pride. Those guys have a better chance to succeed than the guy who did all of that to get here, and now all of a sudden the things that got him here don't seem to be important anymore.

Every guy that we got rid of all of a sudden is the best player there ever was, and never ever made a mistake or had a problem. We're not going to second-guess. Don't ask me to do it.

Ed Perry has done a good job for this organization for a long, long time. I have a lot of respect for him as a player and as a person. But from a business standpoint, it always makes sense to go with the younger guy.

You need to wait five years and then we will know whether this guy is a good player or not,

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.

He's an outstanding player who could line up and complement the things we do with our outside linebacker rush.

I've always been able to stay focused on trying to recruit good players and trying to develop those players.

It's about how the players play and compete. I know everybody is going to equate that on winning or losing, like they always do, but if we play hard and compete well in the game .. then I think we are building on something.

In the NFL you get one first-round draft pick if you're lucky. You couldn't really outwork anybody else. In college I could recruit ten players with first-round talent every year.

To be a great player, you have to affect the entire unit.

The number one thing on any team that will keep your players from being selfish is respect for the other players.