Yes, Nick Saban has been smiling more during this year’s Alabama football preseason camp. Significantly more actually.

The Crimson Tide’s head coach has spent 3.42% of his total preseason press conference time smiling in 2023. That’s more than double the percentage of any year from 2017 onward.

Saban has been finding all sorts of things to smile at throughout camp, from joking reporters looked soft, to noting how long it had been since he had his first day of college at Kent State, to making fun of Major League Baseball players chasing unhittable sliders.

Fans and other inhabitants of the internet have noticed, debating what that might portend for Alabama’s 2023 prospects. AL.com also noticed this trend.

Armed with a stopwatch, we sifted through each of Saban’s camp press conferences since 2017, counting and timing smiles to see how they correlate with each year’s success. Here are the results, in the form of a lab report, following the scientific method as closely as possible.

Introduction

Purpose

To find out whether Alabama head coach Nick Saban’s smiling frequency and length during preseason camp correlates in any way with the Crimson Tide’s season results.

Background information

During the early press conferences of camp, pictures of Saban smiling began to appear on the internet, particularly on the site formerly known as Twitter. Fans and other posters began to speculate as to what the smiles could mean, especially as Saban continued to grin throughout camp.

Some decided the smiles must be a positive sign, leading to speculation the Crimson Tide are en route to another national championship season. Others thought a relaxed Saban might mean he knew this Alabama squad is not as good as past teams.

Hypothesis

Saban’s smile frequency and length during preseason camp press conferences is correlated to that season’s success or failure for Alabama.

Method

AL.com’s Alabama Crimson Tide YouTube channel includes most Saban camp press conferences dating back to the 2016 season. The 2016 availabilities were omitted from the experiment because starting in 2017 made for a data set with two national titles (2017 and 2020), two College Football Playoff championship game losses (2018 and 2021) and two seasons without a playoff bid (2019 and 2022).

For the rare press conference that was not available for viewing on the AL.com YouTube, other videos were substituted. Videos were matched with media availability schedules from each season to ensure a complete data set.

The videos were observed with the stopwatch on an Apple iPhone 13 Mini in hand. Every time Saban smiled it was counted and the length was noted. Timing was bound to be inexact due to the nature of hand timing.

After all of Saban’s camp smiles were observed, the results, including the total number of smiles, average smiles per press conference, total time spent smiling and percentage of total press conference time spent smiling, were calculated.

The first availability of each opening game week was included. Saban’s annual press gaggles at his charity events were not, nor was a 2018 availability from the launch of the Crimson Standard capital initiative.

2023′s results were noted, but were not part of the final results, due to the season having not yet begun.

Results

In 2017, Saban smiled six total times for 1:18, out of a total press conference time of 1:49:55, meaning he was smiling for 1.18% of the total time. He averaged 0.75 smiles per press conference and the Crimson Tide beat Georgia in the CFP championship game.

Before the 2018 campaign, he smiled five times, for an average of 0.63 smiles per press conference. The total smile time of 1:15 meant a smile rate of 1.44% of the 1:26:51 total time on the podium.

Alabama lost in the national title game against Clemson to end that season.

In 2019, a year in which the Crimson Tide missed the playoff and finished the season with a Citrus Bowl victory, Saban smiled four times. That number was good for an average of 0.57 per press conference. His 53.43 seconds smiling made up 1.14% of the total 1:17:36 total press conference time.

The 2020 season was one of Alabama’s most successful during the studied time period, as the Crimson Tide rolled to an undefeated national championship. 2020 was among the years Saban smiled the least – though it must be noted that the preseason availabilities were taking place in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic via video calls, so circumstances were quite different.

Saban smiled just two times that year, for a total of 28.74 seconds, 0.43% of the total press conference time and 0.25 smiles per availability. Most of those numbers were either the lowest, or tied for the lowest among the years observed.

In 2021, a year in which the Tide lost in the national championship game against Georgia, Saban was once again barely smiling, matching his 2020 numbers at just two smiles and 0.43% of total press conference time spent smiling. His total time smiling was down to 25.44 seconds from 28.74 in 2020.

The numbers rose in 2022 — a year where Saban mentioned multiple times that he had been told to smile and thank reporters more.

Alabama missed the playoff after Saban smiled seven times, 0.88 per press conference, for a total of 52.42 seconds, smiling for 1.04% of his total time at the lectern.

Conclusion

Based on the data set, there’s little discernible correlation between Saban’s preseason camp smiles and the eventual success of his Alabama teams. While his least smiley season (2020) resulted in an undefeated national championship run, the Crimson Tide also won the title during the year (2017) when he smiled the second most, both by sheer number and percentage of total press conference time.

Alabama’s legendary head coach may well be smiling more this fall. It doesn’t guarantee success – or failure.

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