“Don't waste the failure”: When Nick Saban shared his advice to Alabama players following the loss to Clemson in the national championship

Nick Saban saw his Alabama team fall to Clemson in the 2017 national championship game. The Crimson Tide had gone undefeated in the regular season, claiming the SEC championship. They also saw off Washington in the Peach Bowl to claim a spot in the title game.

While Alabama dominated the first three quarters of the game, Clemson's strong showing in the fourth quarter, where it scored 21 points, was enough to claim the national championship title. A final-minute touchdown earned Dabo Swinney's team a 35-31 comeback victory.

The game came as a painful one for Nick Saban and his team, who had had all good until the final 15 minutes of their season. However, the coach wanted his players to learn something rather than continue to regret what happened at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

During the SEC media days in July 2017, Saban noted that he hoped his team wouldn't waste the failure witnessed against Clemson. The following week, he was on “First Take,” where he was asked what he learned from the game following his statement at the media days.

“I think it starts out psychologically with the fact that I don't think that we sort of had the ownership and accountability down the stretch last year in the playoffs that we needed to have, playing the quality of teams that we played, knowing that we'd beaten Clemson the year before,” Saban said (Timstamp: 0:25). “That's always a tough psychological thing for the players.

"But now, to take from that game, and from that loss, and everybody self-assess, everybody take a little criticism about what they need to do to get better, and how they respond to that I think is the key when I say, 'What can we learn from this, let's don't waste the failure.'"

What Nick Saban said at the SEC media days

Nick Saban didn't mince words about Alabama's loss to Clemson at the SEC media days in Hyatt Regency Birmingham - Wynfrey Hotel in Hoover, Alabama, in July 2017. The coach described the feeling within the team following the loss and what he hopes the players learn.

"Everybody is hurt by the fact that they lost, especially the way we lost that particular game on the last play,” Saban said. “But (the loss isn’t just about) the last play. It’s what led up to the last play, and I think our players realize that.”

“It takes a tremendous amount of accountability to be able to execute and sustain the execution for 60 minutes in the game. (But) we weren’t able to finish the game like we needed to. And I think there’s a lot of lessons to learn, and hopefully we won’t waste a failure.”

For Nick Saban, it was a way to get his team ready for what was going to be another intense season. The Tide would go on to win the national championship the following season with a comeback against Georgia. The game ended 26-23 in overtime at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium.