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Nick Saban cited the need to combat negative recruiting when discussing why Alabama did ‘Training Days’ ESPN series
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ESPN’s “Training Days,” which followed the Alabama Crimson Tide, ended on Wednesday after a four-week run.
The show’s producers originally wanted to follow the program all season, but Saban said that he would only allow the cameras around his players for just fall camp.
On Thursday, Saban explained his reasoning for allowing all of the cameras, microphones and attention around his program in the preseason.
“I felt like our program was being misrepresented in a lot of ways by a lot of people,” Saban said on his weekly radio show. “We get a lot of negative recruiting. People beat us up in a lot of ways — in a lot of unfair ways and a lot of things that aren’t really true like we’re a football factory. We don’t care about the players, a lot of things like that, nobody has any fun. I mean, it’s ridiculous.”
Saban’s “football factory” is known for being secretive, but he wanted to change that this year to show that Alabama is just like any other program that puts their players first.
“I wanted to reestablish the kind of image in our program that we have in terms of all that we do for the players,” Saban said. “I was just kind of tired of being misrepresented in so many ways and I wanted people to see for themselves, this is really how it is. It’s not how you’re told.”
Jordan Dajani covers SEC football for Saturday Down South and is a University of Tennessee graduate. He also has experience working in the NBA and with ESPN.
