The close relationship between New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick and Alabama head coach Nick Saban has been well documented over the years.
Saban has referenced the teachings of Belichick on several occasions over his tenure with the Crimson Tide and both team’s dynasties existed essentially side-by-side.
Although the similarities are striking, that doesn’t mean the two operate the same way or have the same strategies every game day. More specifically, Saban has a bit different a look at how his team adjusts at halftime as opposed to Belichick.
Where Belichick doesn’t put a massive emphasis on the game plan adjustments at the half, Saban shared that his staff holds a bit more stock in that area.
“I think it’s a combination of both,” Saban said. “I love Bill, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t always agree with him. I didn’t always agree with him when I worked with him. I’m sure he’ll say he didn’t always agree with me. Anyway, we’re making adjustments between every series. We’re going over the previous series, whether it’s offense, defense, or whatever — they ran this stunt, we didn’t block it right, or they ran this formation and we didn’t adjust to it correctly.”
This season especially, Alabama has thrived out of halftime as it has erased deficits against Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Tennessee and broke open a tied game against LSU.
Saban also shared the work that he and his staff do throughout the game to correct their mistakes and make the proper adjustments.
“We also draw those things up as the game progresses,” Saban said. “So we can actually show the players those plays and some of the things that we did — as, maybe you’ve already covered it, maybe you didn’t have a chance to cover it, but we do both. If there’s something different we want to do, sometimes, you don’t like to do it until you can get everybody in front of you and you can explain it a little better than you can on the sidelines.
“There are occasions where we want to make adjustments to things when everybody can see it because it doesn’t just affect one group. Sometimes, if we change how we play things, it may affect the outside ‘backers and the inside ‘backers as well. I think both things are really, really important, and both things actually occur during a game.”
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