Alabama head coach Nick Saban doesn’t want to focus on the past. That’s why he warned reporters not to bring up his LSU past this week as his No. 1 Crimson Tide prepare to face his old team, the LSU Tigers.
“It’s going to be about our players and about our team,” he said after Saturday’s game. “I don’t care how hard anybody tries to make it about something else, it’s not going to be. I’m kind of giving you a little forewarning.
“If somebody wants to get a you-know-what chewing this week, that’ll be a good way to get it.”
Saban coached the Tigers from 2000-05, going 13-1 in 2003. His homecoming to the school he spurned for a two-year stop with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins just happens to coincide with what certainly appears to be his best team since then. Saban’s return to an SEC West rival makes a warm welcome by LSU fans highly unlikely.
“It’s not going to be about that,” he said of facing his former team. “This team is 9-0 and has played extremely well all year long. LSU has a very, very good football team. They were national champs last year, they’ve lost to two top-10 opponents this year, and we’ve got to play them on the road.
“And it’s going to be about our players and their players and the players on the field. That’s what it should be about. If anybody makes it about something else, then you’re not really being fair to the players.”
Sorry Saban, but it’s reporters jobs to ask questions like, “Hey Nick, remember when you gave the middle finger to LSU so you could stroke your ego in the NFL for two years only to come back to college football, but help build a different SEC program?”
Saban is trying to make the ‘Bama-LSU game about his players, which it should be. But journalists have to seek out the story and the story this week is his return to Baton Rouge. If he doesn’t want to be asked hard questions than maybe he should work on having a less shady past.
