Nick Saban explains his role in helping mold Alabama’s identity every season

On Thursday morning, Alabama head coach Nick Saban explained the challenges of maintaining a hungry culture after so much success.

He joined McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning bright and early to discuss various ‘Bama football topics, including the concept of culture within the program. Cole Cubelic asked Saban how he approaches trying to instill a culture with each and every new team.

“Well, I think you try to lead them and sort of give them clues as to what it takes, how you got to practice, what you got to do every day,” answered Saban. He then listed some of the qualities that really come to define great Alabama teams under him.

“But what kind of identity do you want to create as an individual player in terms of mental toughness, discipline, how physical you play, how you sustain? All these things are sort of cultural things that really was an edge for us in the past.”

After several national championships and immense year-over-year success over the last 15 years as Alabama’s head coach, Nick Saban admits that the obsession with winning can eclipse the determination it takes to get there.

“And I think, maybe sometimes when you have success over a long period of time, you know, those things become less important. There’s more focus on outcome and winning and less focus on culture and what you need to do to win.”

So, with last season being underwhelming compared to most Saban seasons, the Crimson Tide coach is hoping that lights a fire under this group.

“But I also think when you have a little disappointment, and maybe last year provided us some, people are willing to respond to change and do things they need to do to create a little different identity for us.”

All Nick Saban can do is show them the way. Whether his players walk the walk is up to them.

“We try to lead them down that road, but then, sometimes they buy in, sometimes they don’t. But it’s getting the critical mass to do it that’s most important.”

We’ll all get to see just how committed this Alabama team is to Nick Saban’s culture when they take the field this weekend against Middle Tennessee. It may not be a great test for some of what he discussed, but if not, a much-hyped Texas team awaits in Week 2 and will certainly present a challenge.

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