Dark Lord Saban's Powers of Manipulation

My daughter who is 11 years old recently was watching TV with me as I was watching one of the Star Wars movies. At the sight of Darth Vader, she simply snickered and said his outfit looked stupid. Somehow, between my generation and the next, Darth Vader went from the galaxy’s greatest villain to someone in a bad Halloween costume.

My first impression of the dark lord of the Sith was of him lifting a grown man a foot off the ground while simultaneously chocking the life out him and asking him questions.  My guess is Vader knew he wasn’t going to get any answers from the guy; he just wanted to make an impression with the ones he didn’t choke. Such are the head games we play in war, politics, and football.

I’ve noticed fans of other schools often refer to Saban as “The Dark Lord.”  I tend to agree with that nickname as I have been both friend and foe to Nick Saban in my Crimson past. To say it’s better to be a friend would be an understatement.

One thing I still hate about Saban is that virtually no information of use comes out during spring practice.  When the A day game gets here I’ll see with my own eyes and figure out a lot of what hasn’t been said. But until then I must wait.

We all play this game where we are told there is no depth chart when we all know there is ALWAYS a depth chart.  My guess is that the real chart is in Saban's head; I doubt he trusts anyone enough to actually write it down. But the press needs something so he lines them up for drills for every practice so we can speculate.  While there is probably a lot of validity to those lineups I’m willing to bet that the lineups would be different if there were a real game to play.

All great coaches know how to press buttons, and putting a player who is actually doing well down around fourth-string can really get some of them to dig deep, or make them quit.  It’s hard to speculate on that because the truth is some of them NEED to quit. Alabama can only carry 85 into the fall and last time I checked there are too many players and signees at present.

Saban will play these games with people as much as he has to.  Building a cohesive unit from a bunch of parts that will stand and fight against all odds isn’t something you can do without ruffling feathers.

First he’s angry the team isn’t practicing well, then he’s happy with the scrimmage. Some players have good days and he downplays it, while others have bad days and he always says they are doing well but truthfully we really don’t know.

Case in point this time last year most of us had written Roy Upchurch off as one of those “future open scholarships.” Saban later admitted once calling him “Mr. Irrelevant.”  When game time arrived, however, Upchurch was a regular part of the running back rotation.  His roll continued to grow and his eventual injury was a big factor in our losing down the stretch in 2008.

Clearly something lit a fire under Upchurch and he responded in dramatic fashion. So we all have to wait and see what rises to the surface by this fall.

Until then, Dark Lord Saban will continue to use his dark magic to spin the lives of men into a Crimson Tide.