Alabama Football: What Part of Winning Worries Nick Saban?

Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) What could possibly worry Nick Saban these days?

He's returning this season as the current national champion with a team, that in his own words, may be the most talented he's ever coached.

Sure he's replacing several on defense, but he has so much talent it should be called reloading instead of replacing—although several SEC teams have stepped up their games this season.

But what worries Nick Saban is an aspect of winning.

No, he's not worried his team will lose. He's worried his team will forget what made them winners in the first place and he doesn't want a team that just expects to win instead of doing what it takes to win.

"You win games in the weight room, you win games in practices, you win games with studying your opponent, you win games with hard work and mental preparation. You don't win games by simply expecting to win them," Saban has said many times.

With two back-to-back regular season undefeated seasons, the Tide certainly knows how to win. What worries Saban is that they may fall into the trap of simply expecting to win instead doing the daily grunt work it takes to win them.

Listening to Saban over the years, I've heard him talk about schools he's gone to where he had to get them over the hump of losing games and to expect them to be winners.

I've also heard him talk about the dangers that can occur once they've done that.

At LSU for example, Saban was supposed to have a great team coming back after the national championship season there, but it fell to a disappointing 9-3 season the next year and finished 16th in both major polls.

Saban has called that a "tough year" and it is certainly he doesn't want repeated in Tuscaloosa this season.

Everybody fights hard to get to the top, but not everybody will fight that hard to stay there. That is something that coaches have dealt with for decades.

"It's twice as easy to win one national championship than win the second in a row. The second year you have to fight your own success as well as the other teams," Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant said on the subject almost 40 years ago. And it's still just as true today.

With Saban facing that same success, it's the only thing that worries him.

"If we forget as a team what it took to get us to where we are right now, we won't have the same success. If we don't pay the same price for each game this year that we did last year, then we won't have the same success. We can't just show up and expect to win," said Saban.

So according to Saban, it's alright for the fans to have high expectations, he just doesn't want the team to have the expectations alone.

There are prices paid for every victory, and very few of them are paid on Saturdays. They are paid on a rainy Wednesday practice, a 99 degree Tuesday practice, a cold January afternoon in the weight room or somewhere else.

Just expecting to win has never paid a ticket for a victory, no matter how good a team you have, and Nick Saban knows it.