- The process of repeating as national champion requires more attention, said Saban, who led Alabama to a 14-0 record and the title last season. "It can't be about trying to prove something, because you've kind of already done that," he said. "It needs to be about: Do you want to be the best you can be? Are you driven to be the best player you can be? Are you driven to have the intensity, the sense of urgency, the intelligence. Are you going to work to do the things you need to do to be your absolute best? And that's not normal. Everybody thinks it's normal, but it's not normal.
- 'I don't think it's about who you play, I think it's about who you are.'
- 'There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment,'
- 'You play for your team and what your team can do. You want your team to dominate so that they can be successful. You really want to win on your ability to execute, not on someone else's inability… You don't really want anything bad to happen to the other team, you just want your team to play well.'
- “It doesn’t matter what you are ranked until the end,”
- "What happened yesterday is history. What happens tomorrow is a mystery. What we do today makes a difference - the precious present moment."
- “The ‘good enough is enough’ attitude is not what we’re looking for, we have got to use every opportunity to improve individually so we can improve collectively."
- "We love college coaching because of the ability it gives you to (see players) overcoming adversity."
- "My next stop will not be another school but retirement to Lake Burton in north Georgia". The Saban's have a home there.
- “I think people confuse punishment with discipline," he said, echoing statements he had made in the past. “Discipline is about changing behavior.
“The only way we are going to change behavior is to affect things that are important to people. If I take [daughter] Kristen’s computer away, we get results. If I spank her, we get no results."
- "How can you run the play if you didn't get the call?" Saban said. "Somebody is making the call, so that means you're not listening to it or didn't hear it. You can always ask, `What did you say?' Don't tell me you didn't get it - it's your responsibility to get it."
- "We're working to be a champion."
- “The formula for success is every guy can make a difference for the entire team in whatever his role is. And to do it right, to get it right, is a critical factor in being successful.
- "I think class is a real critical part of any organization. It’s a word that I see, that comes up on our board when we do some of our traditional stuff here as a part of our university, as a part of our football tradition. I think class is an important part of what we try to do in terms of how we represent our state, our institution, and I want this program to always reflect class in how we go about doing things. We expect it from the players, and if we don’t get it, we certainly do everything we can to correct it and change their behavior so that we do get it. And I think that that should extend to every part of the organization. Every part of the organization. I don’t care if you are a supporter, or you’re a fan, or whatever you do, the way you support the team should be done with class as well.
- "How do we want our players?" Saban asked. "We want our players to say, 'This is who I am, this is how I'm going to play, I've got the discipline to do it."
- They can "stand up and say I did everything I could do to make it right. I did right, I worked hard, I was responsible to my teammates."
Or, they can "have a lot of regret about how (they) played because (they) didn't prepare right, didn't do it right, and didn't have the discipline to stick with it for 60 minutes."
- "Each play has a history and a life of its own. How is that play going to be remembered? If you're focusing on that play and what you have to do that single play, usually you'll do pretty good on it."
- "We have an opponent in this state that we work every day, 365 days a year, to dominate."
