Nick Saban fires back at AJ McCarron calling young Alabama players ‘complacent’
By Jack Crosby
We all assumed the past few years that Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban and quarterback AJ McCarron had one of the best Head Coach-QB relationships in the history of college football. They still might have, but even the best relationships have their disagreements and that might be what we have happening between the two right now.
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As he was preparing for the most recent NFL draft, McCarron was criticized for running his mouth about a lot of subjects. One of them was in regards to the five-star younger talent that the Tide bring in and how they may have felt a sense of entitlement. The ensuing complacency ultimately led to Alabama, McCarron and Saban not capturing a third straight title last season.
Well, in about as subtle terms as he possibly could, Saban more or less recently told McCarron to shut up.
"“I think a senior player — and I love AJ — but I think a senior player has a responsibility as a leader on the team to understand that when younger players come into the program, they are not going to necessarily have all the right stuff or understand the right stuff to be a part of the team. There has to be a tolerance and a commitment on the older players to sort of embrace the younger players to try to get them to where they need to play, even if they don’t play. It should not be something that upsets an older player. It should not be an issue with an older player because I can take some of these same older players and tell you about them when they were freshmen and they needed older players to help them get where they needed to be and they had to learn lessons along the way to help them develop into what they became.”"
Outside of Tuscaloosa, when it comes to McCarron and Saban, it’s usually a contest of who people hate more, but in this case it’s hard to argue against the veteran coach’s logic.