re: Why are Saban coached teams incapable of playing with the lead?

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Saban teams with a lead seem to play scared. They look like they are having fun building the lead up, but then once they get the lead, they begin playing timid and scared just hoping to not be the guy who fricks the lead up and gets yelled at.

For instance, look at Barron's atrocious handling of the 2nd deep TD pass on him. If he is playing loose and naturally, his instincts kick in and he goes for the pick and likely gets it. Instead the "don't frick this up" mentality kicks in and he thinks too much. He ends up halfway going for the pick and halfway for the big hit and gets neither.

Saban constantly over-preaches the whole idea of not losing your composure when up big, when maybe he should be telling the guys to loosen up, have fun, and keep playing like they have been.

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This is it, in a nutshell.

Saban is always focused on not losing the game when he gets the lead. It will never change. He tells his players to play 4 quarters. When the other team grabs the momentum Saban blames his team for not making the plays and not playing 4 quarters. What I love about Miles is he will take chances to take back the momentum. Saban does not does this.

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Monticello

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To me, trying to look at it objectively, here's what I think happens. At least what I think happened yesterday. Sometimes it's good to congratulate and encourage someone for a great effort even if the results aren't quite what they should be. For instance, if a salesman lands a big sale of 100k, congratulate and encourage rather than tearing down the effort because the 100k was the lowest proposal of three. Here's what I mean, it appeared to me that the guys came out defeated, kinda like "Dang we just played the half of the season and he's still not happy." Yeah we should have been up 42-7 or so but had some unlucky bounces, poor decisions, and mental errors that caused it to be 24-7. It seemed to me that they were screamed at and berated for it and caused them to come out defeated and disappointed. Maybe, if this is what happened, Saban should look at praising the guys for working hard every once in a while. Don't know, just me and what I think.