By Kyle Golik
Back in 1995, In East Lansing, Michigan the defending national champion Nebraska Cornhuskers demolished Michigan State in Spartan Stadium 50-10, as Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne raced across to meet the Michigan State head coach. Osborne, who had won over 80% of his games, experienced heartbreak in the most epic of fashion, understood what was going through his counterpart’s mind.
As Osborne embraced the opposition’s coach, who was starting his second full season as a college football head coach, said, “You’re not as bad as you think.”
At the time, Michigan State head coach Nick Saban took the words from Osborne, as a kind gesture, but ones he would never forget.
Fast forward to 2024, Saban is retiring as the game’s greatest coach, and I am left wondering what Osborne saw in that game that many did not see to recognize the coaching talent Saban possessed.
The greatest of all time is the perfect career epitaph to describe the career of Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. Saban never wanting to be a distraction to his team or interrupting “The Process” it should come as no surprise this is how it would all go down. There wasn’t a farewell tour like many great coaches have done, notably done by former Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.
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Saban’s arrival in Tuscaloosa in January 2007 will always be Alabama’s version of The Beatles arrival in JFK in February 1964.
The arrival of the program’s savior, many Alabama fans felt he was the worthy successor of “Bear” Bryant.
To understand the shadow Bryant casted at Alabama, it was one of Bryant’s “Junction Boys” in Gene Stallings was the only coach to win a national championship between Bryant and Saban, and every coach – whether it was Stallings, Ray Perkins, Bill Curry, Mike DuBose, Mike Shula, Dennis Franchione, never even remotely compared to Bryant.
Saban, a student of the game in his own right, knew the large shadow that loomed at Alabama.
Bryant impacted the game by helping to segregate the SEC notably through the Sam Cunningham game versus Southern California, he restored the Crimson Tide not once but twice, and his six national championships seemed impossible to ever match.
The Process took hold at Alabama where the Crimson Tide would go on to win 87.4% of his games.
I have written this before and will write it again, Saban had guided the Crimson Tide to 25 championships at Alabama between the six national, nine 9 SEC, and 10 SEC West division championships. Saban lost a total of 29 games at Alabama. So for almost every loss there was a championship won by the Tide in some shape or form, that is incomprehensible.
That Bryant shadow seemed to become loss formidable after every successful season. It seemed every single season Alabama would win 10 or more games, be in the BCS or College Football Playoff picture, and more often came away winning a national championship.
After building Michigan State up from the Big Ten’s doormat to in 1999 defeating Notre Dame, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State guiding the Spartans to a Top 10 ranking, Saban wanted more commitment from Michigan State to be able to annually compete against the Big Ten powers. When he realized there was a glass ceiling of what he was able to achieve, he took the LSU job, a program willing to commit to whatever it cost to be a champion.
Saban’s first national championship came in 2003 while coaching LSU, it is a team he is fond of.
“I love that team,” Saban, said during a SEC Coaches Teleconference in regards to the 20th anniversary of that 2003 championship. “That team is always going to be special because that was our first championship and those guys came to LSU when we weren’t very good.”
“A lot of guys on that team bought into what we were trying to do, and sort of set the precedent for what the program was all about,” Saban added. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate their commitment and the way they competed all year long and just a great bunch of young men.”
Fast forward 20 years, Saban echoed similar sentiments about the 2023 Alabama Crimson Tide following their Rose Bowl loss to Michigan, “Well, I just think that I don’t look at it necessarily from winning and losing, you won the championship, you can’t win the championship. As a coach, you’re always trying to get your team to improve and be the best that they can be, and I think this team probably improved from the South Florida game and the Texas game early in the season as much as any team I’ve ever coached. That takes a lot of hard work. A lot of people being very committed to doing things that they need to do to self-assess and improve their game, and all these players bought in on this team and did it in first-class fashion. That’s why I think for me as a coach, maybe not for everybody else, it’s one of the teams that I’ll always remember the most and always be the most proud of.”
It wasn’t his best team, but this past team Saban relished because he felt like a coach again, where winning was taken for granted.
You can’t blame the Alabama fans, Saban is the all time leader in most AP ranked wins of all time with 104 – Joe Paterno (86), Bobby Bowden (82), and “Bear” Bryant (65) coached longer but never achieved the same big game success Saban enjoyed. Couple that with the fact Saban has the most wins versus No. 1 ranked teams with 9 more than double what Joe Paterno had with four. It’s easy to see how winning was taken for granted.
Saban completed a 2023 season feeling fulfilled as a coach, he got to actually grind and emphasize the hard work and all the details that comprise “The Process.”
As college football changes, whether it is for the better or for worse, Saban left his mark on the sport like no one before him and likely no one in my lifetime will.
What he means will be described by many for weeks to come, but now Alabama is looking to replace the greatest of all time, the Bryant shadow that once seemed impossible to overcome has now a Saban shadow that makes the job even harder.
Bryant will forever have a place at Alabama, but Saban was his worthy successor, now we wait to see who will ever be able to match the greatest of all time. Don’t be surprised if it never happens either.
