Nick Saban runs a tight ship at Alabama where no one is safe from receiving his famous “ass-chewings.”
Not even his coaching staff.
The team’s defensive coordinator Pete Golding has jokingly shared several stories over the years about when Saban wasn’t too pleased with a decision he made. The term was first made famous amongst the fanbase by former offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin who was on the receiving end multiple times.
Another former Crimson Tide offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, who is now the head coach at Texas, provided a glimpse of what caused his own memorable “ass-chewing” from Saban during an interview with former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy on “Always College Football.”
McElroy brought up the number of weapons on the Longhorns’ roster and how the team may need to utilize rock, paper, scissors in order to determine who gets the football. Sarkisian was quick to warn against overusing the game for Saban was not too pleased when he found out his players did it during a game.
“Be careful with the rock, paper, scissors,” Sarkisian joked on Tuesday. “I got what my old boss called an ass chewing. I had a couple of receivers do that in games when I was back in Tuscaloosa.”
Sarkisian was referencing the famous rock, paper, scissors games between Alabama wide receivers DeVonta Smith, Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs who used the game to determine who would be the primary option on every play.
Along with remembering being on the wrong end of a Nick Saban rant, Sarkisian discussed his team’s upcoming game against Alabama this September.
“We have a great deal of respect for that program and for coach Saban and what he’s been able to for almost two decades,” Sarkisian said. “Just the ability to adapt to the style of play in college football where it was defense, defense, defense, and Greg, just don’t screw it up, and we’ll win a national championship to really highlighting the offensive players and letting them cut it loose and let them play. They are a really complete football team. They have a great defense coming back.
“Anytime you have the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback coming back in Bryce Young and all they can do. They are a fantastic team.”
Alabama enters the game as 15-point favorites over Texas and several players returning from its national championship runner-up team from a season ago. Sarkisian is now entering his second year on the job as the Longhorns’ head coach and is well aware of his team’s gap in experience compared to the Crimson Tide.
“They are a veteran football team and we are not,” Sarkisian said. “I think we have 57 freshmen or sophomores out of our 85 scholarship players this fall so we’re a young team, I think we’re talented. The reality of it is for us as we go into this game is about can we prepare, can we be focused, and can we put our best foot forward against a really quality opponent? When you do that you always give yourself an opportunity to play at a high level and put yourself in a position in the fourth quarter to go win a game.”
Being a former coordinator under Saban, Sarkisian had a front-row seat at how his Alabama teams looked to dismantle its opponent and how opposing teams would react to certain points throughout the game. Sarkisian looks to draw upon the lessons he learned from his successful run calling the offense in Tuscaloosa.
“One thing (I noticed) during my time when I was at Alabama, a lot of the times when teams got themselves in trouble against us is they got out of character,” Sarkisian said.” Whether it was the play-caller whether it was players doing things that were not in their norm. So one of the keys is when you get in a game like this is to be really focused, understand the gameplan, go execute the plan knowing they’re going to make their plays too but yourself in position in the fourth quarter to put a couple drives together, get a couple stops on defense with an opportunity to win.”
Alabama travels to Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Sept. 10 to take on Texas.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
