Nick Saban: 'I'm not sorry' for giving Jonathan Taylor a chance

Published Mar. 30, 2015 8:05 p.m. ET

Teddy Mitrosilis

Alabama coach Nick Saban met with reporters after the Crimson Tide's spring practice on Monday, the first time Saban has spoken to the media after Jonathan Taylor was dismissed from the team over the weekend after being arrested a second time on charges of domestic violence.

"I think it's very unfortunate, but the guy came here with some very specific guidelines and zero tolerance and obviously didn't live up to that," Saban said. "We've created many opportunities for players through the years and sometimes those things have worked out extremely well. We're sad to say in this case it didn't, and we all take responsibility for that."

Here are a few notes from Saban's news conference:

* Saban made it very clear he was not sorry for giving Taylor a chance at Alabama when many fans and media have asked how he could give a guy with a history of domestic violence charges a chance to join the program. "I'm not sorry for giving him an opportunity," Saban said. "I'm sorry for the way things worked out, but I'm not apologizing for the opportunity we gave him. I wanted to try to help the guy make it work. We're sorry it didn't work, and we're sorry there was an incident, and we're sorry for the people involved in the incident."

* Saban said that he and Alabama would learn from this specific incident but that he wouldn't shy away from taking on at-risk players in the future necessarily. "We'd certainly be cautious about any player with any character problem but especially one like this ... I certainly don't condone that kind of behavior, especially when it comes to how females are treated," Saban said. "I will say this: We'll continue to try to create opportunities for players and help them be successful."

* Saban kept reiterating the point that he and Alabama will continue to help players because of the success they've had in the past in these situations. He has long been on record about believing in helping players recuperate and not simply tossing them aside. He cited the track record of players that have come through Alabama's program and turned their lives around because they got a chance, and Saban made no indication that he was going to change his belief in that principle because of this incident. "We're going to stay focused on all the good things we've done in the past and how that's helped our players have a better chance to be successful in life," he said.

* Saban didn't go into detail about all the things Taylor had to do while at Alabama to uphold his end of the opportunity, but Saban did say Taylor "did everything we asked him to do here. He had a lot of psychological profiling and psychological counseling, and he never missed a session."

* One interesting detail: Saban said he "spoke to everybody who could give us some idea of what kind of man Jonathan Taylor was and is" while Alabama was vetting him. According to the Macon Telegraph, though, Georgia coach Mark Richt, who previously dismissed Taylor from his program, said he was never contacted by anyone at Alabama to discuss Taylor, nor was Ken Mauldin, a district attorney in Georgia working on a previous Taylor case. Those two sources would seem like obvious contacts to reach out to when trying to vet Taylor as thoroughly as we presume Saban would.

* After a handful of questions, Saban grew irritated and tired of talking about Taylor and said, "There's nothing else to talk about. We have 125 other players who are doing really well. Jonathan Taylor came here, we gave him an opportunity, it didn't work out, he failed, we're sorry, it's time to move on."

Teddy Mitrosilis works in content production at FOX Sports Digital. Follow him on Twitter @TMitrosilis and email him at tmitrosilis@gmail.com.