Nick Saban said he was “shocked” to see his former Alabama quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, publicly call out his Miami Dolphins teammates for not showing up to team meetings last week.
However, Saban added, he was “proud” of how Tagovailoa owned up to his mistake.
“One of the things I always try to tell our players is you never criticize another player, and in my entire coaching career, you never saw me criticize one of our players,” Saban said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday. “I think everybody’s got to take responsibility for what they can control, and if you start worrying about things that you can’t control, that’s going to start affecting things that you can control.”
Tagovailoa played under Saban for the Crimson Tide from 2017 to 2019. He served primarily as the backup to Jalen Hurts as a freshman in 2017, but replaced Hurts in the second half of the national championship game. In overtime against Georgia, Tagovailoa threw the game-winning 41-yard touchdown pass, helping Saban claim his sixth of seven total national championships.
“When he threw some guys under the bus, and maybe they’re not playing the way they should play … but you don’t say that about your teammate,” Saban said. “But I really was proud of the way he came back and sort of took accountability for making a mistake.”
After Miami fell to 1-5 on Sunday with a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, Tagovailoa was visibly frustrated as he spoke to reporters about some of the issues plaguing the Dolphins. When asked how he could keep the team from having a “woe is me” mentality, Tagovailoa said it starts with leadership, and then unveiled some deeper issues within the team culture.
“We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings,” Tagovailoa said. “There’s a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory? It’s a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up, and it started with the little things like that.”
Tagovailoa’s comments were met with disappointment from former NFL players, executives, ex-teammates and Miami coach Mike McDaniel. On Monday, McDaniel said he believed Tagovailoa had no ill intention but acknowledged the postgame news conference was “not the forum” to air out such frustrations.
On Wednesday, Tagovailoa apologized for his mistake and said he wanted to own up to it.
“I’ve talked to the guys on the team about it, talked to the leaders about it. They know my heart. They know that the intent was right,” he said. “But no matter the intent — the intent can be right — but when things get misconstrued, or however the media wants to portray it, that leaves a void of silence and a lot of questions for the guys on our team.”
Tagovailoa continued, saying he felt he didn’t protect the team and let the emotions get the best of him in that moment.
“That’s something I can learn from, as a leader on this team,” he said. “What happens in-house should be protected, and none of that should have gotten out. So, I want to publicly apologize about that, want to move forward and now want to focus on the Cleveland Browns.”
Tagovailoa has a 69.8 percent completion rate through six games, and has thrown for 1,213 yards, 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions.