TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Nick Saban, his Alabama football team ranked outside the top 10 of the Associated Press poll for the first time since 2015, is as realistic as he is resolute.
Even after six national championships, Saban understands the restlessness that surrounds his program. It goes with the territory when you build the kind of dynasty he has in the SEC, one that some in the college football world suggest could be crumbling.
“The standard here doesn’t change, but this is also a test of your humility,” Saban told ESPN on Thursday. “You say, ‘Hey, I don’t care what anybody says. I know what the expectations are.’ But, I mean, how many people have been able to go 16 years and not have a bump in the road?”
No. 13 Alabama (2-1) faces No. 15 Ole Miss at home Saturday. That’s after the Crimson Tide slopped its way last week to a 17-3 win over South Florida, which went 1-11 a year ago and gave up 41 points to Western Kentucky in its 2023 season opener.
Two weeks ago, Texas came to Bryant-Denny Stadium and won 34-24 — the first double-digit home loss by a Saban-coached Alabama team.
“We’ll respond. We’ve got a better team than the way we played last week,” Saban said. “I don’t know if we’ve got a good enough team to beat Ole Miss or anybody else we play, but we’ve got a better team than we played last week. Texas has a damn good team, probably one of the best five teams in the country and we were ahead of them in the fourth quarter.
“I like this team. I like this group. They’ve worked hard. They’ve got a good attitude about things. We just got to execute better and pay better attention to detail, and we’ve got some areas on our team that need to play better.”
“Look, my pride in my performance and the standard that I have and what the product we’re putting on the field is not what I want it to be. … I’m not going to get mad about it. I’m not frustrated about it. I just want to do better for our team and our players.”
Nick Saban, Alabama coach
Several former players who won national titles under Saban have taken to social media to criticize the play of this Alabama team, which has played three different quarterbacks, allowed 12 sacks in three games, managed just 107 rushing yards in the loss to Texas and gave up 454 yards on defense to the Longhorns.
“Look, my pride in my performance and the standard that I have and what the product we’re putting on the field is not what I want it to be,” Saban said. “I don’t need anybody else to tell me, and that’s the disappointment to me. But I’m trying to channel those feelings in a direction that’s going to help us get better.
“I’m not going to get mad about it. I’m not frustrated about it. I just want to do better for our team and our players.”
After winning the third of his six national championships at Alabama in 2012, a common theme from Saban and his players was that when you create that beast, you’ve got to keep feeding it.
And yet, Saban has been a master at getting his teams to play without any anxiety creeping in despite overwhelming pressure to win at an elite level every season. A year ago, he sensed that might have been a problem.
“I thought this year’s team was a little better that way, but I don’t know how all this noise will affect them,” Saban said. “I just want to channel any disappointments they have in the right direction.”
He’s used Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame speech as an example to his team when Jordan flew out the high school teammate who beat him out for the last spot on the varsity team as a sophomore and called out the coach who didn’t give Jordan a spot on the varsity team.
“Michael Jordan said, ‘These people directed my feelings my whole career to motivate me to try to be the best player I could be,'” Saban recounted. “So he was really thanking them. That’s what I want these guys to do: Direct their feelings in the right way so they can play better and not get all frustrated and pissed off.
“I told them, ‘Don’t let this impact you in a negative way or put pressure on you like you’ve got to prove something.”
With Alabama having won 10 or more games in each of the past 15 seasons under Saban, certainly nobody in college football is feeling sorry for the Crimson Tide after their shaky start to the 2023 season.
“And they shouldn’t be, because I can assure you we’re not feeling sorry for ourselves,” said Saban, whose Alabama teams have never gone more than two seasons without winning a national championship.
But this was always going to be a different type of challenge for Saban, who will turn 72 in October. The Tide were breaking in a new quarterback after Bryce Young, Mac Jones, Tua Tagovailoa and Jalen Hurts — all current starters in the NFL — took every meaningful snap at quarterback for Alabama going back to the 2016 season.
“It’s not just the quarterback,” Saban said. “We’ve had a lot of different assistant coaches, coordinators and others coming and going, but that’s part of it. The nature of the beast has changed, too, with the transfer portal. Other people get better quicker, and it also cuts into your depth.
“So it’s a little bit different than sort of building and recruiting and developing players. It’s all changed, which is why you have to keep changing and evolving.”
The Ole Miss game on Saturday will be the first of five straight SEC games in five weeks for the Crimson Tide. Jalen Milroe moves back into the starting role at quarterback, and Saban said Ty Simpson would be the backup.
Saban said the reason he played both Simpson and Tyler Buchner against South Florida is that he had promised the three quarterbacks he would give them all chances in games. He said Milroe was initially frustrated when told Buchner and Simpson would play against USF, but that Saban was impressed with the way Milroe supported his teammates while not playing.
“That was it. Nothing else,” Saban said. “I’ve got confidence in Jalen. I believe in him. The one thing that we’ve always talked about is you make enough good plays, but you’ve got to eliminate the devastating plays, the ones that are killers. It happened twice in the Texas game, but I think he’s learned from it.”
Milroe had two interceptions against Texas that led to 10 points. In last season’s start against Texas A&M while filling in for the injured Young, Milroe turned the ball over three times.
“In the end, I think all of it will be helpful to Jalen, and we’ve got to play better around him and put him in positions to do what he does best,” Saban said. “I’ve been pleased with the way he’s responded.”
Saban said getting back sophomore guard Tyler Booker, who missed last week’s game with back spasms, would help the entire offense.
“If anybody’s feeling angry or feeling disrespected, this is the time to do something about it — channel it onto the field and in the right way,” Saban said. “That’s the way I want to see us play.”
After giving up Ohtani’s 431-foot blast, Misiorowski responded with another dominant outing. He struck out a career-high 12 batters — including two-way superstar Ohtani in the third inning — to lead the Brewers to a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night.
“It’s Shohei Ohtani,” Misiorowski said. “You kind of expect [that]. It’s cool to see him do it in action, but it fires me up even more coming back the next at-bat and striking him out. I’m right there. I think it was a moment of like, ‘OK, now we go.'”
Misiorowski, whose fastball routinely tops 100 mph, threw an 88.2 mph curveball on an 0-2 count to Ohtani, who crushed it for his 31st homer. That’s the most by a Dodgers player before the All-Star break.
It was the 21st career leadoff homer for the three-time MVP, who struck out swinging on a curveball in the third and walked to start the sixth. That was the only walk given up by Misiorowski, who scattered four hits.
“Really good stuff, aggressive in the zone,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But what really stood out to me was his command and control.”
Misiorowski outdueled three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, who surpassed 3,000 career strikeouts in his previous outing. Asked Monday about his matchup with Misiorowski, Kershaw said he only knew that the 6-foot-7 right-hander threw hard.
“I know him now, huh?” Kershaw said Tuesday. “That was super impressive. That was unbelievable. It was really special. Everything. Obviously the velo, but he’s got four pitches, commands the ball. I don’t know how you hit that, honestly. That’s just really tough.”
Misiorowski was glad to get Kershaw’s attention.
“I saw something online that he didn’t now who I was, so I hope he knows me now,” Misiorowski said. “It’s kind of cool.”
In five starts since the Brewers called him up from the minors, Misiorowski has already beaten Kershaw and 2024 NL Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes. In another outing, Misiorowski carried a perfect game into the seventh inning.
“He’s just broken the shell,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He’s just out of the egg, all arms and legs. He’s still got gooey stuff coming off, you can see it, all arms and legs, but there’s something special about him.”
The numbers would indicate as much. Misiorowski is 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA and has given up only 12 hits in 25⅔ innings.
He topped out at 101.6 mph and threw 20 pitches of at least 100 on Tuesday. He also threw 19 curveballs after using curves only 10% of the time before Tuesday.
He was coming off his only shaky performance, giving up five runs — including a grand slam by Brandon Nimmo — and three walks over 3⅔ innings Wednesday in a 7-3 loss to the New York Mets.
It looked as if it might be more of the same after Ohtani went deep. Misiorowski responded by striking out 12 of the next 16 batters.
“I think that’s my job, is to figure it out on the fly,” he said. “I feel like I did it tonight.”
He got out of a jam in the sixth. The Dodgers trailed 2-1 and had runners on second and third with one out, but third baseman Andruw Monasterio fielded a grounder and threw out Ohtani at the plate, and Misiorowski retired Michael Conforto on a grounder.
Misiorowski pumped his fist as he headed toward the dugout, then watched the Brewers’ bullpen nail down the win.
“It’s so satisfying,” Misiorowski said. “It’s just a dream come true, to do what I did.”
Bailey became just the third catcher in MLB history to hit a walk-off, inside-the-park home run, joining the Chicago Cubs’ Pat Moran in 1907 and the Washington Nationals’ Bennie Tate in 1926.
Bailey’s homer would have been an outside-the-park home run in 29 of 30 ballparks, with Oracle Park being the exception.
Mike Yastrzemski reached base twice and scored to help the Giants to their sixth win in seven games.
Bailey, who grounded into a double play and struck out in two of his previous at-bats, then smashed a 1-0 fastball from Jordan Romano (1-4) into right-center field that ricocheted off the brick part of the wall.
Ryan Walker (2-3) retired one batter, with two on in the top of the ninth, to earn the win.
Phillies All-Star Kyle Schwarber had two hits, including his team-leading 28th home run.
Schwarber flew out, struck out and was hit by a pitch before homering off Giants reliever Spencer Bivens into McCovey Cove. Brandon Marsh, who singled as a pinch hitter leading off the inning, scored on the play.
Two days after being named an All-Star for the second time in his career, Robbie Ray gave up four hits and one run in 5⅔ innings.
BALTIMORE — The New York Mets consider Juan Soto to be a bona fide All-Star, despite the snub he received from those who selected the National League squad for the Midsummer Classic on July 15.
Soto, in his first year with the Mets, has performed well enough to earn the respect of his manager and teammates. In their opinion, he’s deserving of a place in the All-Star Game next week in Atlanta.
“He’s an All-Star for us,” manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday night after the Mets beat Baltimore 7-6. “It’s frustrating, but I’m hoping in the next couple of days we hear something and he makes it.”
Soto drove in the winning run with a sharp single on the first pitch of the 10th inning. That capped a night in which he went 3 for 5 to raise his batting average to .269 with 21 homers and 52 RBIs.
Soto has walked 72 times, by far the most in the majors, but he can also lash out at a pitcher when necessary.
“He’s got a pretty good understanding of what the pitchers are trying to do to him,” Mendoza said. “There is his awareness of the game, he’s going to see pitchers. There are times when he’s going to be aggressive. Tonight was one of those nights. First pitch in the 10th, he’s attacking.”
Soto made the All-Star team as a member of the Nationals, Padres and Yankees each year since 2021. The streak appears to be over. But his teammates believe he deserves to go.
“What he done all year is just incredible, and the results are good enough,” Mets starting pitcher Clay Holmes said. “The consistency he’s showed up with, at the at-bats he’s taken, is more than an All-Star. He’s one of the best in the game and a big part of our lineup.”
Soto seems rather philosophical about the snub.
“Sometimes, you’re going to make it and sometimes you don’t,” he told reporters after Sunday’s loss to the Yankees. “It’s just part of baseball.”