Saban: People have to care about change

TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama football team has lost three straight games, the program is winless in its last eight games in the month of November, and the next opponent, Auburn, has won the last five meetings, which matches the Tigers’ longest winning streak in the series (1954-58).

So now what?

“People have to care,” coach Nick Saban said Monday. “It has to be important to them, and that’s what makes it happen.

“You know, changes in history usually occur after some catastrophic event. Maybe 9/11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to a catastrophic event. Pearl Harbor for World War II, that was a catastrophic event. And I don’t think anyone in this room would have bet that we would lose back-to-back games to Mississippi State and ULM, no disrespect to either one of those teams, and there’s really a reason for that. There’s a reason that these things occur relative to focus, preparation, getting it right, and I’m talking about on and off the field.”

Obviously, the trials of a football team don’t compare to how people were affected by the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington D.C., or war, and the coach also used the comparison of an alcoholic needing to hit rock bottom before dramatically changing his or her life, along with the term “gut check.”

This is it for this team. At 6-5, a loss Saturday could conceivably end the Crimson Tide’s season, just three weeks after being a win away from the inside track to the SEC Championship game.

“If we can get it right, we can be a good football team,” Saban said.

So what happened? Apparently a number of things kept adding up.

Even before the season began, sophomore defensive end Brandon Deaderick, sophomore linebacker Brandon Fanney and sophomore running back Roy Upchurch were all arrested for an incident outside a Tuscaloosa nightclub, and soon after senior cornerback Simeon Castille was arrested about a block away.

During the season, five players — junior offensive linemen Antoine Caldwell and Marlon Davis, sophomore defensive backs Marquis Johnson and Chris Rogers, and sophomore running back Glen Coffee — were suspended four games while the university investigated textbook disbursement.

Additionally, senior wide receiver Keith Brown and sophomore linebacker Prince Hall were suspended for the season openers, and senior DJ Hall was suspended for the first half of Saturday’s game against Louisiana-Monroe — and those were just the suspensions Saban made public.

“You can’t have that,” senior linebacker Darren Mustin said. “Off the field and on the field, those little things affect your game plan, I don’t care what anyone else says.

“If somebody’s a senior and someone’s a leader, and is messing up, the younger guys are going to think, ‘Oh, I can do that.’ That’s why Coach Saban has to punish people like they’re punished. It might hurt in the short term, but in the long term is going to do nothing but help.”

But apparently there have been other problems as well, which have been ongoing since long before Saban arrived.

“Not going to class, off-the-field issues,” junior safety Rashad Johnson. “Just different distractions among the team, that shouldn’t happen. We’re all adults and we should take care of our business.

“It hasn’t been as big as it used to be. Things are starting to get cut down a lot, but things still pop up now and again that I believe cause distractions among the players.”

Johnson also called those incidents “A slap in the face” to teammates

“It does, it hurts tremendously,” senior end Wallace Gilberry said. “But at the same time your have to realize that different people handle different situations in a different way. Me being a senior and a leader, you have to take it in stride. You definitely say something, you pull them to the side and check their heart, so to speak, but you can’t make someone think the way you think. It’s not possible.”

Alabama has also had a number of other distractions, including numerous players who have had family members die during the season, and things like the accident Justin Britt’s mother had, which resulted in life-threatening head injuries. Granted, there’s nothing any player could do about that, and many other teams have had to deal with similar setbacks.

But on a team with little proven depth, everything becomes magnified.

“You don’t see it that much on Saturday, well, you see the final product on Saturday, but there’s more during the week, during preparation,” Mustin said. “We haven’t been preparing during the week like we need to. It order to win the games, you have to prepare, Monday through Friday. If you don’t win the game Monday through Friday, you certainly won’t won it on Saturday. That was clearly shown this past Saturday.”

At this point, players say they have to do three things, and not miss on any of them.

1) Don’t forget, but get over the recent losses, especially ULM.

“It was all on us on why we lost the game,” Mustin said. “It all catches up to you in the end.”

2) Have no more setbacks off the field.

“You have to do the right thing, all the time,” senior receiver Matt Caddell said. “If it becomes a habit, it’ll become a trait that you have. It’s going to class, making the right the choices, little thing like that. Coming to class on time, being on time, doing what you’re supposed to do.”

3) Don’t give up.

Junior quarterback John Parker Wilson put in extra prep time last week, at times not leaving the football building until 10:30 or 11 p.m., and then kept working at home. Although it didn’t help lead to a win, he plans to do so again this week.

“I don’t think I did the things we need to do to win,” he said. “The ball to Keith [Brown] at the end, I should have completed that. It’s just little things here and there that aren’t producing wins, and something has to change.”

What it adds up to a simple word, leadership.

Incidentally, when Saban’s LSU team lost to UAB in 2000, a loss he compared to Saturday’s defeat against ULM, the Tigers came back the next week to beat No. 11 Tennessee, 38-31 in overtime.

That’s a comparison he’d like to make next week.

Reach Christopher Walsh at Christopher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0196.