Nick Saban’s wife, the ever-legendary Miss Terry, told her husband earlier in the season that he was getting soft, which led the head football coach at Alabama to change his approach toward a mostly-irrelevant penalty late in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s game against Arkansas. Basically.
She told him to get on his players’ butts when they are playing poorly.
Nick Saban took that advice to heart!
The Crimson Tide began the 2023 season with a loss to Texas in Week 2, and then barely scraped by USF in Week 3. Saban started the year with Jalen Milroe as his quarterback, benched him after a rough game in the loss to Texas, and then went back to him for conference play after a strong display of leadership.
Alabama has been on a roll ever since. It knocked of Ole Miss, Mississippi State and Texas A&M in back-to-back-to-back weeks.
The Hogs rolled into Tuscaloosa this weekend and it was more of the same early. Saban’s team took a 21-6 lead into the locker room at halftime.
However, things quickly fell flat during the second half and the Crimson Tide scored just three points. Meanwhile, Arkansas put a pair of touchdowns on the board to cut it to three.
Saban was NOT HAPPY with the performance of his players as the game came down to the wire.
A false start on 1st-and-10 pushed Alabama back five yards with about three minutes left in the game. At that moment, the camera cut to the sideline and showed Saban lose his mind into his headset over the penalty.
Fortunately, the penalty was inconsequential after a first down to move the chains.
About two minutes later, the game was won for the Tide. They had the ball with just over one minute left. The Razorbacks did not have any timeouts.
Running back Jase McClellan was called for a false start. It didn’t matter. The game was over.
Saban didn’t care. He listened to Miss Terry’s advice and went ballistic anyway!
Vintage Nick Saban was back on the sideline as Alabama moved to 6-1. Nothing short of perfection will do!