Alabama's System Approach to Playing the Game: Harnessing Emotion

If there ever was a system for coaching at Alabama that time is now. Saban has established a system like no other head coach before him, and it gives him more control over what happens at practice and during the game.

Bear Bryant had a system for success, as well. There are many similarities between Bryant and Saban, but Nick has done it his way and the program has his personality.

Mike Shula didn't even know a head coach could have so much control over an athlete or over a program. Mike Price completely lacked control over emotion and discipline and look where that got him! Franchoine had a system and it worked pretty well until he got greedy and started coaching for money rather than his place in history. His coordinators lost their loyalty to the head coach; they were unsure if he would abandon them the following year without notice.

Bear Bryant had an excellent system that developed coordinators who worked through a system that allowed the head coach to stay on so long that the system ran the program rather than the head coach. Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, Lloyd Carr, Mack Brown and Jim Tressel modeled their programs much like the way Bear Bryant coached, so that the programs have the potential for continuity long after the head coach leaves, provided that the coach that follows sticks with the same program.

At Florida State, Jimbo Fischer has stuck with the program and is having some of the same kind of success as his predecessor. Once he tweaks the program to fit his style, he too will have the kind of success Bowden did in his heyday. Rich Rodriquez flipped the Michigan program on its head which is why the head coaching change didn't work so well for the Wolverine program. We will have to wait and see what happens at OSU, Texas and Penn State.

Having such a system also allows for a program to have a ''coach-in-waiting'' which seems to be in vogue at the present time for established programs. Success breeds success. A established system of success for a college program is what is desired by all athletic directors. It is the ideal.

The system approach is intended to take emotion out of the training, for a while, in order to develop sound fundamentals for the game of football. That is supposed to happen early on in the training process.

Once that is accomplished, the player with higher grades in achieving the best in fundamental skills can add emotion back into the game and compete at his highest potential when place in a game situation. When you have freshmen on the field in starting roles, the challenge is greater for the coaching staff.

For the athlete, "the system approach" works based on a strong foundation of learning the fundamentals and establishing near perfect technique on every play. Such a system allows an athlete with sound fundamentals, and a little less natural ability, working with his entire team, to overcome the challenges of competing against teams who have better athletes in a few positions, or the rare gifted athlete, with more natural ability but unsound fundamentals.

It is a systematic approach of teaching very good athletes sound fundamentals while removing the component of emotion from the classroom. Responses to actions in front of the trained player become Pavlovian. One action by the opposition player elicits an appropriate, trained, methodical reaction to the play in front of him.

And all of this is happening while the body's adrenaline level is increasing as a response to the stressors on the field. The athlete learns to respond appropriately with a fight response rather than flight. It is the flight response that causes a person to react startled, erratic or paralyzed.

In the aftermath of the flight response, a competitor is ashamed or afraid. At a critical point in an athletes training, fear (flight) is replaced by confidence in success (fight) and emotion during a competition is no longer counterproductive.

For instance, Saban says that if a DB gets burned, he has to have a short memory and get ready for the next play. Consider what you did incorrectly and fix it on the next play. Analyze the situation logically and move on. This method applies to every position on the field. there is no time to pout or stew over the embarrassment of a missed assignment. The game goes on and the player has to keep his head in the moment.

Saban prefers that his players play with a higher level of knowledge and mastery of technique, therefore emotion needs to be removed from the equation early on. Playing with emotion and not having sound fundamentals as a young player causes one to be more spontaneous and reactive rather than adhering to good sound principles.

Being reactive with emotion, in his opinion, and many psychologists agree, tends to cause more mistakes unless your muscle memory is programed to do things as close to correct as possible, no matter what the serum level of noradrenaline in your bloodstream from one minute to the next.

Cam Newton is extremely physical and plays with emotion. Tim Tebow does the same. Much of what both quarterbacks do is spontaneous, it comes from their knowledge of the game and their natural ability. All the other players on the field have a job to do that allows their quarterback to maintain spontaneity. As in any system, if the other 10 players don't do their jobs well, the so called "freestyle" offense breaks down.

Because of their physical nature and their added gifts as natural born athletes, individuals such as Tim Tebow and Cameron Newton can impose their will in the college game unlike those athletes of lesser caliber. They generally play at a higher talent level, not a higher skill level. In the case of Cameron Newton, it is likely that he is playing with higher skill and talent!

That is what makes transition to the professional level much harder for the spontaneous, gifted athlete, not adept in sound fundamentals. Tim Tebow had to show a willingness to change his slow, awkward throwing motion if a professional team was going to give him a chance to succeed on the next level as a quarterback. The speed and skill of the athletes at the next level catches up to the man-child eventually. It caught up to Arkansas' Matt Jones; though superior on the college level, he is an average NFL athlete.

Unfortunately, you can't teach or bottle up what Cam Newton and Tim Tebow bring to the college game. That is why UF looks so much different with Brantley at the helm, and Auburn will be a completely different team without Newton.

Same thing happened in the National Championship game last year with Colt McCoy being removed from the equation. Texas was an entirely different team. Another gifted athlete, Jordan Shipley was their ace in the hole. He gave some stability to the Texas offense with the change in quarterbacks and kept it an interesting game, but it wasn't enough to win.

The key is to have the right mixture of emotion and physical ability in order to do what is necessary on the field to win. The key to success for the 2009 Crimson Tide Football program was their training up by Saban in disciplined, fundamental techniques, mixed with their hunger for a championship that became a driving force. In 2009, Saban had a great mix of senior leadership and high end talent on the defensive side of the ball. That is why they became national champions.

Actually, this 2010 Alabama team is a very good squad. They are young and just have not learned to play at the level that it takes to be a champion. Because they are young on defense, they have made fundamental mistakes when the pressure was on at critical moments in a game. It is the offense for this team that is the enigma. That is the subject of another article at another time.

The two teams that have capitalized on the mistakes of this Alabama team, walked away with victory. They are teams with above average skill and with strong senior leadership. That combination, mixed with a hunger for revenge against the Crimson Tide led to their gridiron success. Kudos to them for imposing their will and taking a game from the Tide in 2010.

This season will teach these gifted Alabama players valuable lessons that will fire them into better competitors in the future. These men work hard, that is not an issue. Getting punched in the mouth a few times compels an intelligent, hard working athlete to fundamentally learn what it takes to not get belted in the mouth again.

Next year, the younger players on this team will blend back in some of the passion and emotion they have for the game in a way that will be productive. Playing with sound fundamentals, along with their great natural ability, while channeling back in some of that passion and emotion will allow them to take the game to a higher level of play. All who compete against them beware.