Greg Byrne reveals how he handled Alabama fan's reaction to Florida State loss

Alabama got a lot of criticism from the top down in Tuscaloosa coming out of its opener when it lost to Florida State. A month and a half later, though, AD Greg Byrne is glad that he didn’t listen to a word of what was being said about the Crimson Tide.

Sitting to open ‘The Paul Finebaum Show’ on Friday, going into No. 11 Tennessee vs. No. 6 Alabama on Saturday, Byrne spoke on what it was like for their program coming out of the loss to the Seminoles. However, he learned a long time ago not to listen to anything like that, which he essentially didn’t do after what happened in Tallahassee.

“You keep your head down. I didn’t read one tweet. I literally read one article that somebody on our staff sent to me and said I should know about this. Didn’t read one other thing,” Byrne said. “You know, you control the controllable. I couldn’t control that, right, and I do believe that creating noise in my head is going to be the very best thing I can to support our coaches when there’s challenging times, and that’s what we’re here to do. Hey, you can all be in the locker room patting their back when you win the ball game. It’s important that you’re with them when something challenging happens, and you’re there to support your kids, you’re there to support your coaches.”

Byrne also recalled a piece of advice he got from his father long ago. Byrne used that advice to get him through that night.

“Water off a duck’s back,” Byrne said. “You can’t pay attention to it. And, we’re human, right, and some stuff does get to you. It’s not that you just block it all out, and I think it is important to have at least a pulse of what’s going on. And so, you just do the very best you can to support everyone around you…I haven’t been perfect at it. I fall short at it at times, but, at the same time, too, it’s helped m,e and I think, hopefully, it’s made me a better athletic director in those times.”

That looks especially good for Byrne in hindsight, based on the last five games for ‘Bama. Since losing 31-17 at FSU, Alabama has won five straight by an average margin of 23.8 points, including three-straight ranked wins at No. 5 Georgia, against No. 16 Vanderbilt, and at No. 14 Missouri. That has Kalen DeBoer on a seat that’s anything but hot again, while the Tide are in position to contend for a spot in the SEC Championship, while being in contention either way for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

A lot of schools have quit on coaches already just this season, and we just hit the halfway point. Not Byrne, though, as that’s not how he goes about his athletic department.

“When you sign up for this job, you realize you’re going to get rocks thrown at you at times, and the worst thing you can do is have that be something that, boy, just consumes you and your thought process,” Byrne said. “The best thing you can do is block that noise out and stay focused on supporting the people that you’re hired to support.”