Nick Saban on calendar crunch: ‘Our focus right now is on the game’

The college football calendar has been the subject of much scrutiny as of late, with the chaos of the early signing period clashing with bowl preparation and coaches essentially having to do both at once.

While Alabama held on to everyone they were supposed to hold onto and even flipped a few others in yesterday’s signing day chaos, head coach Nick Saban says his focus is now on the Rose Bowl against Michigan amidst all the clashing dates with the calendar:

Nick Saban talks about the CFB calendar crunch on Early NSD while preparing for the CFP… pic.twitter.com/peiCbEHQ0f

— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) December 20, 2023

“Our focus right now is on the game. We’re trying to get ready for a game. I know we’ve gotta recruit, there’s a lot of guys in the portal, there’s still some players out there who we think are outstanding players. So we’re continuing to try to do the best job we can from every regard from coaching our players to trying to get quality players to come here,” Saban said.

“But the whole recruiting process, when we made the early signing date years ago, we said this would become the signing date. Well it also just moves the recruiting calendar up six months…the whole thing is kind of just pushed forward there’s a lot of things happening right now that take our attention. Recruiting is important, the game is important, our team is important. So we are trying to manage our time the best we can.”