$4M a Year Worth of Focus

For anyone who watched No. 8 Alabama beat the living mess out of No. 3 Georgia on Saturday night, few would have thought that ‘Bama coach Nick Saban would be furious with his team afterward.

Saban looked as if he had been the one getting beaten, not the coach that had humiliated No. 3 in their house. His fans might have been dancing to the band, but he could barely remember the 31-0 first half thanks to his team’s mental lapse that let Georgia make the score respectable.

Twice in his postgame media conference Saban banged his fist on the table, aftershocks of frustrations. He went on long tangents about lack of mental strength. Every word of praise was followed by twice the criticism.

He frowned even more than usual. He already had chewed out the team for five minutes in the locker room. He already had gone on and on about the dangers of embracing success.

The guy is all about staying focused on winning, a true sight to behold. It isn’t his fun demeanor that earns him $4 million per year.

His human side can remain hidden. He doesn’t care. He knows he’s loved for his ability to deliver glorious football nights like this one. In getting a team so focused it can walk into a Georgia snake pit and score on its first five possessions.

It’s his ability to get Alabama back to powerhouse status, a force to be feared across the league.

One of Coach Saban's players seems to understand his coach's demands:

"He's looking for something to make you better," safety Rashad Johnson said. "He wants us to play perfect from start to finish, that's the kind of coach you want that's not going to accept this because we didn't finish off the way we want to and the way he wants us to."

Coach Saban's concern about his team losing focus after beating UGA reminds me of the old saying: "The arrogance of success is thinking that what you did yesterday will be good enough for tomorrow."