Nick Saban’s reaction to Tua Tagovailoa calling out Dolphins

Nick Saban was “shocked” after Tua Tagovailoa called out his teammates earlier this week. 

Tagovailoa, who played under Saban at Alabama for three seasons, revealed that some Dolphins players had been showing up late to team meetings and challenged team” leadership” to turn things around after Sunday’s loss to the Chargers.

“We’re expecting ‘this.’ Are we getting that? Are we not getting that?” Tagovailoa said. We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late, guys not showing up to player-only meetings. 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’ve gotta get cleaned up, and it starts with the little things like that.”

In an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, Saban said the Miami quarterback shouldn’t have gone there. 

“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. “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.”

On Wednesday, Tagovailoa apologized for his comments, saying he let his “emotions” get the best of him and admitting that he needs to do a better job “protecting the team.”

“As a leader of this team, the Miami Dolphins, the comments that had been said, I would say I’ve made a mistake, and I’m owning up to that right now,” Tagovailoa said. “I’ve talked to guys on the team about it, talked to the leaders about it. They know my heart. They know that the intent was right. 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.

“Now, being 1-5, we talk a lot about, ‘Alright, we got to get this going, we got to get this going.’ Come in, excited to go to work, forget about the noise, and I feel like I just added on to that for our guys.”

While the former Crimson Tide head coach didn’t like the initial comments, he was pleased to hear his former quarterback say sorry. 

“I was really shocked that Tua did what he did, 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.”

The Dolphins are 1-5 heading into their Week 7 matchup against the Browns in Cleveland. 

Tagovailoa has thrown for 1,213 yards with 11 touchdowns and seven interceptions across Miami’s six games.