Nick Saban didn’t talk with Kalen DeBoer after Alabama football’s loss to Vanderbilt.
“I just didn’t want to get in the way this time," Saban said Friday.
Saban joined “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday for an appearance from Eugene, Oregon and spoke about the Vanderbilt game. Although he didn’t talk to DeBoer after the game, Saban offered some praise for his successor while talking with McAfee.
“I always really put a lot of pressure on the assistant coaches because they’re kind of your lieutenants to get the message to the team," Saban said. “I think Kalen has been doing a good job of getting the right message to the team. Everybody in the organization has to reinforce that because they’re the people that sit in the meetings with the players. They’ve got to impact that."
DeBoer took over for Saban in January after Saban retired following 17 seasons coaching the Crimson Tide. DeBoer already has a big win over Georgia to go with the program’s first loss to Vanderbilt since 1984. It was one of multiple colossal upsets across college football a week ago.
“Instead of particularly talking about the Alabama-Vanderbilt game, I think what you see is a lot of peaks and valleys in college football right now,” Saban said. “A lot of teams that have big wins have significant let downs the next week. I always talk about complacency, but if you put a little complacency with a little arrogance because you have a big win, wherever it was, and you don’t focus on the right things the next week, you really don’t get the kind of results you’d like to have. When you’re not focused on the right stuff, your execution goes to pot in a hurry."
No. 7 Alabama is set to face South Carolina on Saturday (11 a.m., ABC) at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
