Current:Home > NewsNick Saban refusing to release Alabama depth chart speaks to generational gap -EliteFunds
Nick Saban refusing to release Alabama depth chart speaks to generational gap
View
Date:2025-04-17 05:35:33
For the first time in 17 years on Monday, Nick Saban didn't provide media with an official depth chart ahead of an Alabama football season because the public dissemination of it puts backup players too much in their feelings. That might be a flippant way of saying it, but it pretty much captures the coach's explanation. And as explanations go, there's only one that makes sense for why Saban finds it necessary to withhold this somehow controversial document: a widening generational gap that's saddening to witness.
Let's be clear on three things:
1) Inside the Crimson Tide locker room, players know where they stand for playing time. Nothing written on this top-secret piece of paper will come as a complete surprise to any of them.
2) On Saturday, the depth chart will reveal itself in real time when the Crimson Tide opens the season against Middle Tennessee. By the end of the first quarter it will be a finished build, likely complete with specialists and top substitutes, and put on public blast just the same as it would have on Monday.
3) Saban keeps a finger on the pulse of his players more intuitively than just about any coach out there. And for the previous 16 years, he didn't think withholding a depth chart was necessary. Now he does. Something's changed, and it's not the coach.
All that begets a natural line of questioning: why bother sitting on the depth chart until it can't be sat on any longer, and why now? Why would some players react poorly to the public release of something they're already familiar with, and that will be on full display in the stadium in five days anyway?
BOWL PROJECTIONS: Forecasting the playoff field and entire postseason
TOP TRADITIONS: The best college football game day experiences
Saban cited "distractions," a pretty generic term, leaving us all to guess what those distractions might be. Social media, and the youngest generation's very obvious addiction to it, is mine. And if you think football locker rooms are insulated from its effects, think again. Even pro locker rooms aren't immune. Earlier this week, Kelly Stafford, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, said on her podcast that her husband, who is only 35 himself, can barely connect with young teammates anymore.
"They get out of practice and meetings during training camp, and they go straight to their phones," she said. "No one looks up from their phones. Matthew's like, 'I don't know ... am I the dad? Do I take their phones? What do I do here?'"
To be sure, social media's insidious grip on too many kids who engage with it doesn't suddenly let go because one goes off to college, or plays college football. It trains people to care too much about what others think. And it's a fine platform for hate and insults, anonymous or otherwise, that have a way of entering headspace and messing with the wiring. A classic example of what Saban would call a distraction.
HIGHS AND LOWS: Winners and losers from college football's Week 0
CONFERENCE PREVIEWS: Big Ten | SEC | Big 12 | ACC | Pac-12
It would be easy enough to point out that mentally tough players don't have this issue, and the rest might be in need of a real-world kick in the butt. While that might be true, it's just as true that those of us who didn't grow up with a phone glued to our hand can't possibly comprehend what it's like to be 18 in 2023. And if it's hard for a 52-year-old like myself to comprehend, you can bet Saban, at 71, has wrestled with understanding it, too.
But in the end, he's concluded this about releasing a depth chart:
"It creates a lot of guys thinking that, well, this guy won the job now and I'm not going to play or whatever," Saban said. "And quite frankly, we don't need that."
Alabama's initial depth chart had always been softened by the word "or", listed between two players' names, to indicate co-starters at multiple positions, and even co-backups. Perhaps that was done as much to assuage angst as it was to define platoons.
On Saturday, however, only 11 can take the field on each side.
No ors.
And for at least a few hours, no phones.
veryGood! (29951)
Related
- Why Sean "Diddy" Combs Is Being Given a Laptop in Jail Amid Witness Intimidation Fears
- Wendy Williams' guardian files lawsuit against Lifetime's parent company ahead of documentary
- US promises new sanctions on Iran for its support of Russia’s war in Ukraine, potential missile sale
- Hydeia Broadbent, HIV/AIDS activist who raised awareness on tv at young age, dies at 39
- Report: Lauri Markkanen signs 5-year, $238 million extension with Utah Jazz
- A man accused of stabbing another passenger on a Seattle to Las Vegas flight charged with assault
- GOP-led Kentucky House votes to relax child labor rules and toughen food stamp eligibility standards
- Hilary was not a tropical storm when it entered California, yet it had the same impact, study shows
- Chuck Scarborough signs off: Hoda Kotb, Al Roker tribute legendary New York anchor
- Data from phone, Apple Watch help lead police to suspects in Iowa woman’s death
Ranking
- Working Well: When holidays present rude customers, taking breaks and the high road preserve peace
- 2 killed in chain-reaction crash at a Georgia welcome center that engulfed semitrucks in flame
- Alabama lawmakers move to protect IVF treatment
- 60 million Americans experience heartburn monthly. Here's what causes it.
- Billy Bean was an LGBTQ advocate and one of baseball's great heroes
- Tom Hanks' Son Chet Hanks Heats Up His TV Career With New Mindy Kaling Role
- 4 charged in the deaths of two Navy SEALs boarding ship carrying Iranian-made weapons to Yemen
- Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s Love Is Burning Red at Sydney Eras Tour in Australia
Recommendation
Video shows dog chewing cellphone battery pack, igniting fire in Oklahoma home
Biden ally meets Arab American leaders in Michigan and tries to lower tensions over Israel-Hamas war
Wendy Williams diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia and frontotemporal dementia
Untangling the 50-Part Who TF Did I Marry TikTok
What were Tom Selleck's juicy final 'Blue Bloods' words in Reagan family
Afrofuturist opera `Lalovavi’ to premiere in Cincinnati on Juneteenth 2025
This week on Sunday Morning (February 25)
To become the 'Maestro,' Bradley Cooper learned to live the music