Nick Saban warns QBs -- Don't bring attention to yourself
One of the best ways to head off bad behavior from people one is tasked to manage is to be one step ahead of it, identify it, and then specifically warn the people who may engage in it, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mate.”
For Exhibit A of this principle in action, look no further than the University of Alabama football team and coach Nick Saban.
Saban had one simple piece of advice for heading off public bickering in advance of what is quickly looking like a quarterback controversy in Tuscaloosa, and Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa had best heed the words.
“I’ve told both players, ‘You’ve gotta win the team, and everything you do to bring attention to yourself, or anybody even in your family that brings attention to yourself, you’re not doing yourself a service in trying to win the team,'” Saban told ESPN on Tuesday.
Hurts is 26-2 as Alabama’s starting quarterback, but he found himself benched during the national championship game against Georgia in January after the Bulldogs took a 13-0 lead into halftime.
Tagovailoa stepped in and, with a 42-yard touchdown pass to DeVonta Smith in overtime, delivered a walkoff for the ages as the Tide claimed the title.
And since, just like in a Wild West movie, the practice field just became the main street at high noon, with whoever wins the starting job staying at Alabama and whoever loses likely to leave town as a transfer, riding off into the sunset.
Averion Hurts, Jalen’s father and a notable high school football coach in high school football-crazed Texas, told his son that he “left the door open” when he played poorly with the biggest prize on the line and got benched.
The elder Hurts even channeled his inner LaVar Ball when he told Bleacher Report that his son would be “the biggest free agent in college football history” if he transferred.
On the other hand, Saban had a different version of events that he shared with ESPN’s Sage Steele.
“Jalen actually came to me and said … ‘I am going to be here. I am going to be here. I came here to get an education. I graduate in December, and I’m going to be here,'” Saban said.
Hurts is among the first names mentioned in discussions of 2019 NFL draft prospects, so focusing on his education seems the wiser path for Hurts than trying to be a football mercenary in college.
Tagovailoa, meanwhile, raised the prospect of transferring himself when he spoke to kids at his old middle school in Hawaii back in May.
Tagovailoa, however, insists that his words were taken out of context and he was actually trying to impart a lesson to kids about perseverance and staying the course.
Saban, meanwhile, does not want to hear another word about any of this situation.
“I told them both, ‘The more that you can do in your performance, your leadership, how you affect other people, the relationships you have on the team and the confidence that you develop in other players in your ability to distribute the ball, because that’s what the quarterback is — the distribution center of the ball — then that’s the guy who’s going to have the best opportunity to win the team,'” Saban said. “That has been my message to the players, and they’re both going to get a fair opportunity.”
Whether this silences the voices in a content-starved 24-hour news cycle is anyone’s guess. Likewise, who’s under center when games begin, and whether the other guy is the backup or looking for a new team, also remain open questions.
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