Nick Saban forcefully tells an Alabama DB to ‘kiss my ass’ at spring practice

Alabama coach Nick Saban has a defensive back’s background. He played in the secondary at Kent State in the early 1970s, and several of his early coaching jobs were with DBs. He coached them at West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy, Michigan State, and the Houston Oilers before he ever got a head coaching job. Every head coach came up with one positional group, and most of them feel at least a little extra passion about those roots.

Here’s one example:

Saban’s passionate about every part of coaching, but he’s particularly hands-on about defensive back play. When Saban gets into the nuts and bolts of secondary play, it’s appointment listening for players, fans, and media at all levels of the sport. Here’s a good breakdown of some cornerback drills from the Senior Bowl earlier in 2018:

If you want to get really into the weeds, here’s nearly an hour of Saban talking defensive back play at a coaches clinic sometime around 20 years ago:

I don’t know who No. 28 is for Alabama. There’s nobody with that number on the Tide’s official roster. Whoever he is, he’ll probably internalize whatever Saban wanted.