Dolphins press release
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban sits down for his first Q&A session with MiamiDolphins.com.
Q: How important is fan support to the team?
A: We have a responsibility and an obligation to the organization and to the fans. This is their team, it’s our team. Their support has a tremendous impact on our ability to be an overachieving team and play to our full potential. With their help, we have an opportunity to make Dolphins Stadium the toughest place to play for any team that comes to play here. Every one of our fans can help us compete; they can make a positive contribution to help us win. And when we’re not playing well, their support and enthusiasm can help us overcome those rough times.
Q: People assume that because you’re coaching background has been on the defensive side of the ball that you’re conservative by nature. What is your coaching philosophy?
A: It’s kind of interesting that people make such generalizations about what you are based on your background. I don’t really think that I have been conservative in anything that I have done as a coach, whether it is how we play defense, how we play offense or how even we play on special teams. I think the most important thing is to take the team that you have and try to get that team to play to the best of its ability. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses.
To look at the teams at LSU, we won the Sugar Bowl in 2001 with one of the worst defenses in the SEC, but one of the two best offenses in terms of our ability to throw the ball. Rohan Davey was the leading passer in the league. When we won the national championship, we actually won with balance. We were pretty good on offense, we were pretty good on defense. I think that’s probably how you would see most teams that get to the Super Bowl. They are not deficient in any area and are productive in both. Last year our LSU team probably won a little more with defense. We had an inexperienced quarterback. We weren’t able to do some of the things offensively we would have liked to, to feature some of the players that we had. We probably were a little more conservative and won with defense.
As I mentioned, every team that goes to the Super Bowl plays good defense, but they also have an ability to score points. I think our No. 1 goal as an offense is to score points and as a defense to be hard to score on. What we are interested in is to play winning football. There are some key ingredients to playing winning football, such as not turning the ball over and creating explosive plays. Your ratio between those two things, turnovers and big plays -- how many you give up, how many you get when you play defense, how many turnovers you give up when you have the ball on offense and how many big plays you make -- are really critical factors in winning and losing.
To do this well you have to have an efficient passing team. You have to be effective in protection and how you throw the ball down the field because that’s probably the best way to make big plays. Playing winning football is being a good third-down team, scoring touchdowns in the red zone, and having good balance in running and passing. You also have to play well in special situations like goal line, short yardage, two-minute, four-minute, and taking the air out of the ball, because you have to close the game out. By finishing well, that gives your team the best chance to be successful in those close games that usually are decided in those circumstances and situations at the end. All these things contribute to our ability to be hard to score on and our ability offensively to score points. I think those are the ingredients to play winning football.
Q: What are your goals for the season?
A: Everyone wants to make expectations for the team, but really expectations are very, very dangerous. When you have high expectations, you have high frustration. We’re in the business of trying to be competitors, the best possible competitors that we can be. You want to focus on the next play. You never want to focus on the scoreboard.
As a team, it is just the opposite of being a fan in terms of how you view the game. We have to focus on the next play. We want to be an overachieving team. It’s kind of like climbing a mountain. It’s very treacherous, it’s dangerous. You start a base camp, you go up, and you have to focus all the time on what you are doing and what the next step is. You don’t think about the top and planting the flag until you get there.
When you create expectations or you talk about expectations, I think you just set yourself up, sometimes, for frustration. It’s what the sophomore jinx is all about. You’ve heard of that. Everybody has heard of that. Where does that come from? People that have a sophomore jinx always have a tremendous first year. Then the next year the expectations are high. They gained 1,000 yards, now they want to gain 1,400 yards. That’s all they talk about. They forget all the things that they focused on technically to get to where they want to be. What I would like for our fans to focus on is what do we need to do technically to be the best team that we can be. That’s what we are trying to do here as an organization.
今シーズンはセイバン足固めのシーズンとなるのであろうか？
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban sits down for his first Q&A session with MiamiDolphins.com.
Q: How important is fan support to the team?
A: We have a responsibility and an obligation to the organization and to the fans. This is their team, it’s our team. Their support has a tremendous impact on our ability to be an overachieving team and play to our full potential. With their help, we have an opportunity to make Dolphins Stadium the toughest place to play for any team that comes to play here. Every one of our fans can help us compete; they can make a positive contribution to help us win. And when we’re not playing well, their support and enthusiasm can help us overcome those rough times.
Q: People assume that because you’re coaching background has been on the defensive side of the ball that you’re conservative by nature. What is your coaching philosophy?
A: It’s kind of interesting that people make such generalizations about what you are based on your background. I don’t really think that I have been conservative in anything that I have done as a coach, whether it is how we play defense, how we play offense or how even we play on special teams. I think the most important thing is to take the team that you have and try to get that team to play to the best of its ability. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses.
To look at the teams at LSU, we won the Sugar Bowl in 2001 with one of the worst defenses in the SEC, but one of the two best offenses in terms of our ability to throw the ball. Rohan Davey was the leading passer in the league. When we won the national championship, we actually won with balance. We were pretty good on offense, we were pretty good on defense. I think that’s probably how you would see most teams that get to the Super Bowl. They are not deficient in any area and are productive in both. Last year our LSU team probably won a little more with defense. We had an inexperienced quarterback. We weren’t able to do some of the things offensively we would have liked to, to feature some of the players that we had. We probably were a little more conservative and won with defense.
As I mentioned, every team that goes to the Super Bowl plays good defense, but they also have an ability to score points. I think our No. 1 goal as an offense is to score points and as a defense to be hard to score on. What we are interested in is to play winning football. There are some key ingredients to playing winning football, such as not turning the ball over and creating explosive plays. Your ratio between those two things, turnovers and big plays -- how many you give up, how many you get when you play defense, how many turnovers you give up when you have the ball on offense and how many big plays you make -- are really critical factors in winning and losing.
To do this well you have to have an efficient passing team. You have to be effective in protection and how you throw the ball down the field because that’s probably the best way to make big plays. Playing winning football is being a good third-down team, scoring touchdowns in the red zone, and having good balance in running and passing. You also have to play well in special situations like goal line, short yardage, two-minute, four-minute, and taking the air out of the ball, because you have to close the game out. By finishing well, that gives your team the best chance to be successful in those close games that usually are decided in those circumstances and situations at the end. All these things contribute to our ability to be hard to score on and our ability offensively to score points. I think those are the ingredients to play winning football.
Q: What are your goals for the season?
A: Everyone wants to make expectations for the team, but really expectations are very, very dangerous. When you have high expectations, you have high frustration. We’re in the business of trying to be competitors, the best possible competitors that we can be. You want to focus on the next play. You never want to focus on the scoreboard.
As a team, it is just the opposite of being a fan in terms of how you view the game. We have to focus on the next play. We want to be an overachieving team. It’s kind of like climbing a mountain. It’s very treacherous, it’s dangerous. You start a base camp, you go up, and you have to focus all the time on what you are doing and what the next step is. You don’t think about the top and planting the flag until you get there.
When you create expectations or you talk about expectations, I think you just set yourself up, sometimes, for frustration. It’s what the sophomore jinx is all about. You’ve heard of that. Everybody has heard of that. Where does that come from? People that have a sophomore jinx always have a tremendous first year. Then the next year the expectations are high. They gained 1,000 yards, now they want to gain 1,400 yards. That’s all they talk about. They forget all the things that they focused on technically to get to where they want to be. What I would like for our fans to focus on is what do we need to do technically to be the best team that we can be. That’s what we are trying to do here as an organization.
今シーズンはセイバン足固めのシーズンとなるのであろうか？
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