Saban Shares Thoughts on State of ACC

Legendary former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, now working as an analyst for ESPN, weighed in on the ACC entering Week 5 of the season.

During a College GameDay segment Saturday morning, Saban shared some thoughts on the current state of the league as it relates to top conference title contenders like 17 ^th -ranked Clemson (2-1, 1-0 ACC), No. 15 Louisville (3-0, 1-0) and No. 7 Miami (5-0, 1-0).

The Tigers are set to host Stanford at 7 p.m. tonight at Death Valley (ESPN), while the Cardinals (3-0, 1-0) are playing at No. 16 Notre Dame in a top-20 showdown today. The Hurricanes (5-0, 1-0) survived at home against Virginia Tech, 38-34, on Friday night to stay unbeaten.

“I think the key to the drill is, how do you respond, at this point in the season, to the success that you have,” Saban said. “It’s like Miami, are they going to be able to take this game and improve the parts of their team – whether it’s the receivers, whether it’s the secondary, whatever it is – so that they can get better as a team? Is that going to happen at Clemson, is it going to happen at Louisville? Or, do you go in the tank because things aren’t going the way you want them to go?

“So, your mindset moving forward at this point in the season, to me, is critical. Rat poison – you think about the headlines and you’re 4-0 or 5-0 or whatever — that can kill your team’s ability to stay focused on doing the little things right, pay attention to detail, and then it starts to show up in poor performance, which I saw that a little bit last night at Miami, to be honest with you.”

According to ESPN analytics, heading into Saturday’s action, Miami had the best chance to make the ACC title game at 63 percent, followed by Clemson at 44 percent and Louisville at 35 percent.

Lead ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit added to Saban’s comments about Miami, saying, “You start believing some of that hype, and gotta keep them focused, keep that chip on their shoulder.”

“Miam entered this year trying to prove everybody wrong,” Herbstreit said. “They don’t wanna, like Coach is saying, too many pats on the back.”

Clemson doesn’t face Miami during the regular season but will play Louisville at Death Valley on Nov. 2.

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