re: Saban wants lower expectations. Pissed at Bama fans

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I will agree with Saban on one thing though. The players showed as much emotion after the Collins pick as I have seen this year. The team might not be playing great football right now but at least they are playing hard.

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Loved that reaction from the Bama players last Saturday. I haven't seen that in quite a while, even sometimes after championship games.

I do think the expectations have taken a little bit of the pure joy out of the game for the players, coaches, and fans. It was good to see that spontaneous reaction from the Bama players when Collins intercepted the ball.

The MO of Saban's Alabama's teams seem to have been intense focus on the specific tasks at hand, make no mistakes, and "reinforcement" trending towards the negative rather than the positive. It has worked beyond what anybody could have reasonably expected 7 years ago.

Each year of success continues to raise the expectations to the point where I'm sure at some point it becomes too burdensome for some players and affects their performance in a negative way. Every team is different and maybe he is starting to realize a different approach might be needed with this group. Seemed like he was trying to change the narrative in the media (and with fans) because he thinks that it's what this particular team might respond better to.

I have no problem with any of his comments. LOL at fans and media getting their feelings hurt. Saban is all about maximizing the performance of his players and if he thinks scolding the media and fans and changing the narrative about this team is the way to do it, fine by me.