Guerry Clegg: Nick Saban rights the Alabama ship

There's little debate that Nick Saban and Urban Meyer are the two best head coaches in college football. Think about this. Only seven current college head coaches have a national championship on their resume.

Saban and Meyer have combined to win seven titles at four schools. Jimbo Fisher, Les Miles, Bob Stoops, Steve Spurrier and Larry Coker (now at Texas-San Antonio) are the other five.

No, this isn't going to be another attempt to defend Mark Richt. Rather, it's just a reminder to keep things in perspective.

Ohio State is the defending national champion with such an embarrassment of riches at quarterback that the Buckeyes moved Braxton Miller, a two-time Big 10 Player of the Year and once a Heisman finalist, to wide receiver to make room for the other two experienced starters.

Yet as each week passes, the Buckeyes look less and less impressive.

Has Meyer suddenly forgotten how to coach and how to motivate?

Two and a half weeks ago, Saban and Alabama committed five turnovers and lost at home to Ole Miss 43-37. Afterward, Saban complained about his players getting caught up in the distractions that come with being college football's most successful program since 2008.

Even Saban, as great a coach as he is, cannot control his players minds and hearts. If he could, then the Crimson Tide wouldn't have committed five turnovers. They wouldn't have committed a penalty in the red zone as they were going in for the potential winning score the year before at Ole Miss. And they certainly wouldn't have allowed Auburn's Chris Davis to return a missed field goal 109 yards as time expired in the 2013 Iron Bowl.

So this is why Saban, in his Monday press conference, tried to keep the focus on the upcoming game against Arkansas rather than last week's 38-10 win over Georgia.

"The effort and the toughness were what we need to have success in our league," Saban said. "But we are what we are as an identity only if it happens on a continual basis. So you always have the next challenge. You always have the next game. You look at teams all over the country that have 'big wins.' Then two weeks later they're not so happy again."

Since 2008, Alabama has been the most consis

tently dominant program in college football. Saban and the Crimson Tide have made winning look easy, when it's anything but easy.

"Consistency is a human behavior that we all struggle with every day. Things don't go right. Everybody gets all fired up about trying to get it right. Things go really well. Everybody wants to relax and 'I deserve a day off. I did a good job. What's my relief syndrome here?' I think consistency is an element of human nature that the individual has to challenge himself, as well as we have to coach and make our players aware of the things they do well, they need to build on. That is what creates a continuum and continuum creates consistency so that's what our focus is going to be."

That's why Saban was upset with his players Saturday when they allowed themselves to get caught up in the trash talking from Georgia players before the game.

"People have to be focused on doing their job. Doing other things, whether it's dancing on the field or talking to the opposition, we don't do that because if you're doing that you're really not focused on doing your job," Saban said. "I can't talk trash and focus on what I'm supposed to do. Maybe I'm just not a trash talker. I don't know. But that's just the way I think and that's the way we do."

Saban admonished his players. Whether it was just his natural reaction or calculated psychology, Saban used the moment to his benefit.

"I just thought that was a good opportunity for me to give them the message that, hey, we need to be focused on what we need to do in the game and execute in the game. That misplaced emotion is something that we had earlier in the year (against Ole Miss), and we didn't execute very well in the game and we didn't play well because of it. So let's be sure that we channel our energy in the right direction so we can focus on the things we need to do to play well."

-- Guerry Clegg is an independent correspondent. You can write to him at sports@ledger-enquirer.com

This story was originally published October 6, 2015 at 10:16 PM with the headline "Guerry Clegg: Nick Saban rights the Alabama ship ."