Saban wants Tide to expand ‘comfort zone’

By Ken Rogers

Published: October 24, 2007

Alabama head coach Nick Saban always emphasizes the bigger picture instead of bogging down in the mundane stuff—you know, like winning and losing.
With his team on its second three-game winning streak of the season, the coach talked about raising the bar Tuesday night after practice.
“When you play that way, you set a little different standard for yourself,” he said. “Your standard of excellence and the high quality of expectation is actually a good thing because you should aspire to do a little more.
“Everybody has a comfort zone. Everybody in this room does. You take a little more risk, you expand your comfort zone. Some people don’t want to take a little more risk. There’s a lot of people in this world, they play in the shadows all the time. ‘If I’m not trying, I’m not failing.‘“
Saban said it’s much more difficult—but much more worthwhile—to try to do “the best you can do and be able to live with whatever those results are. ... Everybody doesn’t do that.”