Current:Home > reviewsCharles Langston:Nick Saban refusing to release Alabama depth chart speaks to generational gap -WealthGrow Network
Charles Langston:Nick Saban refusing to release Alabama depth chart speaks to generational gap
Rekubit View
Date:2025-04-08 07:28:02
For the first time in 17 years on Charles LangstonMonday, Nick Saban didn't provide media with an official depth chart ahead of an Alabama football season because the public dissemination of it puts backup players too much in their feelings. That might be a flippant way of saying it, but it pretty much captures the coach's explanation. And as explanations go, there's only one that makes sense for why Saban finds it necessary to withhold this somehow controversial document: a widening generational gap that's saddening to witness.
Let's be clear on three things:
1) Inside the Crimson Tide locker room, players know where they stand for playing time. Nothing written on this top-secret piece of paper will come as a complete surprise to any of them.
2) On Saturday, the depth chart will reveal itself in real time when the Crimson Tide opens the season against Middle Tennessee. By the end of the first quarter it will be a finished build, likely complete with specialists and top substitutes, and put on public blast just the same as it would have on Monday.
3) Saban keeps a finger on the pulse of his players more intuitively than just about any coach out there. And for the previous 16 years, he didn't think withholding a depth chart was necessary. Now he does. Something's changed, and it's not the coach.
All that begets a natural line of questioning: why bother sitting on the depth chart until it can't be sat on any longer, and why now? Why would some players react poorly to the public release of something they're already familiar with, and that will be on full display in the stadium in five days anyway?
BOWL PROJECTIONS: Forecasting the playoff field and entire postseason
TOP TRADITIONS: The best college football game day experiences
Saban cited "distractions," a pretty generic term, leaving us all to guess what those distractions might be. Social media, and the youngest generation's very obvious addiction to it, is mine. And if you think football locker rooms are insulated from its effects, think again. Even pro locker rooms aren't immune. Earlier this week, Kelly Stafford, the wife of Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, said on her podcast that her husband, who is only 35 himself, can barely connect with young teammates anymore.
"They get out of practice and meetings during training camp, and they go straight to their phones," she said. "No one looks up from their phones. Matthew's like, 'I don't know ... am I the dad? Do I take their phones? What do I do here?'"
To be sure, social media's insidious grip on too many kids who engage with it doesn't suddenly let go because one goes off to college, or plays college football. It trains people to care too much about what others think. And it's a fine platform for hate and insults, anonymous or otherwise, that have a way of entering headspace and messing with the wiring. A classic example of what Saban would call a distraction.
HIGHS AND LOWS: Winners and losers from college football's Week 0
CONFERENCE PREVIEWS: Big Ten | SEC | Big 12 | ACC | Pac-12
It would be easy enough to point out that mentally tough players don't have this issue, and the rest might be in need of a real-world kick in the butt. While that might be true, it's just as true that those of us who didn't grow up with a phone glued to our hand can't possibly comprehend what it's like to be 18 in 2023. And if it's hard for a 52-year-old like myself to comprehend, you can bet Saban, at 71, has wrestled with understanding it, too.
But in the end, he's concluded this about releasing a depth chart:
"It creates a lot of guys thinking that, well, this guy won the job now and I'm not going to play or whatever," Saban said. "And quite frankly, we don't need that."
Alabama's initial depth chart had always been softened by the word "or", listed between two players' names, to indicate co-starters at multiple positions, and even co-backups. Perhaps that was done as much to assuage angst as it was to define platoons.
On Saturday, however, only 11 can take the field on each side.
No ors.
And for at least a few hours, no phones.
veryGood! (4)
Related
- The Best Stocking Stuffers Under $25
- Zoom's terms of service changes spark worries over AI uses. Here's what to know.
- Twitter-turned-X CEO Linda Yaccarino working to win back brands on Elon Musk’s platform
- Bachelor in Paradise's Abigail Heringer and Noah Erb Are Engaged
- The Louvre will be renovated and the 'Mona Lisa' will have her own room
- People rush for safety as Hawaii wildfires burn, rising COVID-19 rates: 5 Things podcast
- Man crushed to death by falling wheels of cheese in Italy
- 'Rapper's Delight': How hip-hop got its first record deal
- Paula Abdul settles lawsuit with former 'So You Think You Can Dance' co
- Utah’s multibillion dollar oil train proposal chugs along amid environment and derailment concerns
Ranking
- Charges tied to China weigh on GM in Q4, but profit and revenue top expectations
- 3 hikers found dead after not returning from one of the narrowest ridge crests in Britain
- Atlanta begins to brace for the potential of a new Trump indictment as soon as next week
- New southern Wisconsin 353 area code goes into effect in September
- The Super Bowl could end in a 'three
- Hollywood strikes' economic impacts are hitting far beyond LA
- Hollywood strike matches the 100-day mark of the last writers’ strike in 2007-2008
- Michael Lorenzen throws 14th no-hitter in Phillies history in 7-0 victory over Nationals
Recommendation
Nevada attorney general revives 2020 fake electors case
NHL preseason schedule released: Kings, Coyotes to play two games in Melbourne, Australia
Hank Williams Jr. reflects on near-fatal fall: 'I am a very blessed and thankful man'
Disney to boost prices for ad-free Disney+ and Hulu services and vows crackdown on password sharing
Intel's stock did something it hasn't done since 2022
Otoniel, Colombian kingpin called the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, gets 45 years in U.S. prison
Major gun safety groups come together to endorse Joe Biden for president in 2024
Newly-hired instructor crashes car into Colorado driving school; 1 person injured