Nick Saban predicted Longhorns and Bulldogs would reach SEC championship and now this could motivate Texas
Nick Saban made one thing crystal clear on ESPN’s “College GameDay” this season. He hates picking games. Saban doesn’t like picking some of his favorite coaches over one another. Maybe that’s why he chose two of his coaching offspring in July when asked who would play in the 2024 SEC championship game. “Well, I think […]
Nick Saban made one thing crystal clear on ESPN’s “College GameDay” this season. He hates picking games.
Saban doesn’t like picking some of his favorite coaches over one another. Maybe that’s why he chose two of his coaching offspring in July when asked who would play in the 2024 SEC championship game.
“Well, I think Georgia and Texas,” Saban said on July 15 at SEC Media Days. “I really like Texas. I think Georgia has got a really good team. But I think Texas, if their defense comes through, and they can replace some of the interior people that they lost that were high draft picks and all that, they’re really good offensively.”
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Texas coach Steve Sarkisian was Saban’s offensive coordinator before coming to UT. Georgia coach Kirby Smart has a long relationship with Saban going back to their days together at LSU.
Fast forward to Saturday. Saban didn’t make an early pick, saving that until the end of the show. But he shrugged his shoulders about the July prognostication and, looking at the matchup, revenge will be a natural motivation for the Longhorns.
“I just kind of watched the spring games last spring, and Texas had the most depth, the best roster, and so did Georgia,” Saban said Saturday on GameDay. “They had the best quarterbacks. I think they have two of the best coaches in the country.
“But I do think that it’s hard to beat the same team twice. So this matchup is going to be interesting. Now, I would always rather be the team that lost the first time, because revenge should not be a factor in motivation, but we all know that it is.
“But you also have the opportunity to create solutions for all the problems that you had in the first game,” the coach added. “Like when we played LSU in 2011, we missed five field goals. So I just said when we play them in championship game, we’re not kicking field goal unless we get inside the 20-yard line. You do have a chance to make adjustments, and I think both these coaches will do a good job of that today.”
