Saban: Injury-free camp a combination of preparation, luck
August 14, 2008
TUSCALOOSA—Alabama coach Nick Saban talked about the conditioning drills, the limited contact in practice and his team’s improved strength.
All of those are factors in a comparably injury-free training camp.
But the coach said luck plays a role, too.
“I think sometimes in sports, you just get lucky,” the coach said Thursday after practice. “We try to practice safe. The fact that our players did a nice job in the offseason program, all the way back to offseason conditioning drills before the spring. We’re a lot stronger, we’re more physical. We had a great summer this summer. All the players were here and worked out every day.
“I think the level of conditioning can help that to some degree. I think strength — one of the the things you try to do in the weight room is put yourself in a position to where you can eliminate some injuries.
“But there’s also a certain amount of luck that goes along with guys not getting injured in practice. We try to practice safe, we try to stay off the ground. We try to play fast, get off blocks, thud people, but we try to stay off the ground. We don’t do some things in practice like cut (block), hopefully to keep guys off the ground. Most of the injuries we’ve had here in practice have come because of things that were done outside of the rules relative to how we want to practice. I think two guys last year were injured in practice and both of them were because a guy got cut and a guy got dragged down from behind, and that’s not how we want to do it. I don’t know if you can attribute it to it, but those are some of the things that we try to do eliminate (injuries).”
