College Football Playoff -- How Alabama's Nick Saban mentors and motivates QBs - ESPN

Greg McElroy recalled waiting until after his freshman year in 2007 to ask Alabama coach Nick Saban for a favor. McElroy figured Saban didn't need the whole backstory about his dad's lifelong dream to see him wear Joe Namath's number, so he pulled Saban aside one day and asked him straight up for the change to No. 12.

«You know,» Saban said, «that's the number I wore.»

McElroy said he shot back, «Yeah, that's of course why I want to switch to it. Namath, [Kenny] Stabler, those guys have nothing to do with it. It's really about you.»

Saban obliged, but the accommodation came with expectations. Because Saban not only wore No. 12, he wore it while quarterbacking his high school to a state championship in 1968. It's a fact that every Alabama quarterback who spoke to ESPN said they were aware of — even Bryce Young, who wasn't born until three decades later. Young grinned and said Saban will «tell you about the West Virginia days, for sure.»

A former Monongah High teammate, Walter Baranski, said Saban was «the top dog out there.» Jim Pulice, another teammate, added, «He could walk out on the field and see a defense and catch it all.»

Tua Tagovailoa said Saban would boast that «he's the best athlete.» Saban was well rounded, all-state in basketball and baseball as well. If he wasn't a few hairs shy of 6-feet, he might have lasted longer as a quarterback at Kent State before making the switch to defensive back. «I couldn't see as well, especially in the pocket,» Saban recalled of the transition to college. «But if it just came to throwing the ball and doing that stuff, I was OK.»

While he never switched back to offense, instead developing into one of the preeminent defensive minds in football, his background playing quarterback