Someday, Nick Saban will write a book that details the ins and outs of The Process. It will be an immediate New York Times Bestseller and coaches and business leaders everywhere will attempt to recreate Saban's success in their own life with the blueprint he has created and tweaked over the years.
At least, that's what many of us are hoping for.
Earlier this week, Saban was asked about the amount of prep he and his staff put in each week and how much time they have to put in to really feel comfortable heading into their next opponent.
His answer did not disappoint and was full of great details.
"We start at 12 o'clock, noon, on Sunday as a coaching staff. We already have the film graded of the previous game, we do that before 12 o'clock. We go over it on offense, we go over it on defense, we go over it on special teams."
"So probably about 3 o'clock in the afternoon I'll start watching the other team and I will watch the other team for six hours, until about 8:30 or 9 o'clock at night. Then the first thing I do is I meet with the defense and decide what we're going to do in Monday's practice, which is an abbreviated practice, but we still try to put in the basic plan and adjustments to our basic coverages.
"The next day, I start with the defense, look at the special teams, meet with special teams, start watching the offense, and I actually meet with the offense on Tuesday morning after watching 2-3 hours of their defense."
"Then we will watch everything situationally. Each day...so Monday is basically special teams and game plan. Tuesday we do 1st and 10, 2nd and long, goal line and short yardage. So I'm going to look at all the 2nd and long plays. I'm going to look at goal line and short yardage and what they do in those, and we are going to install a plan on both sides of the ball on what we are going to do on those days. Tuesday night we will look at 3rd down, all the passes, and the red area."
"On Wednesday we do two-minute and two-point plays. Then, we are watching all the practice film in between doing all these things as well. The first thing we do when we come off the practice field is watch the practice film of that day and that probably takes two-and-a-half of three hours."
He goes on to note the big difference between college and the NFL is the 20-hour limit with the players. He shares that the meetings with players consists of 15 minutes of special teams and an hour and five minutes on defense and offense, and all of that is very organized in their prep and presentation of the pertinent information.
Saban shares that he also has a book he looks at during film. That book coordinates with the film being watched. Included on each page is the formation, the play that was run, the defense that they ran and how they adjusted the coverage. As he's looking at the film, he's got a picture that correlates to each clip where he's able to make notes as he goes through.
After introducing the game plan, he shares that they go out and walk through everything that was introduced, they teach them how to do what is being asked in individual, then a group period where they do it, before finally going to team where they put it all together.
Hear his full answer below.