Sometimes adapting means using a strategy you don't like
Nick Saban despises no-huddle offenses and all that come with them. Doesn't think they're fair for the defense, and if he had it his way they wouldn't be a part of football.
Hurry-up offenses, run-pass options, offensive lineman blocking beyond the line of scrimmage? That's not, as he famously once said, what he wants football to be.
But, no matter how it may seem at times, Saban doesn't always get what he wants. College football isn't a kingdom, and its iron throne doesn't rest in Tuscaloosa. As such, Saban has to adapt.
Adapating is just a word that describes the process of becoming like everyone else, and in this case that means using a strategy he doesn't personally like. "You know, just like I don't necessarily agree with the illegal man down field rule and a guy should be able to go seven yards down field on a pass play. I don't agree with that. But it is a part of our game. It is the rule. So, for us to not use those plays is a disadvantage for us," Saban said Wednesday at SEC Media Days.
"So even though we may not philosophically agree that this is the way football was meant to be played or should be played, if it creates issues for the other team and for the defense, and pace of play has been something that I think has done that, so have all of these run pass option plays that people run, then we need to use those things, too, or we're creating a disadvantage for ourselves. It's been a work in progress for us to learn how to do that because we do not have an offensive coach on our staff that came from that background, came from that hurry-up, no-huddle offense. I think our coaching staff, including Lane, has done a fantastic job sort of developing a system that has been very effective for us."
Tweets from Saban's time at the podium in Hoover:
