Nick Saban
College football has a Nick Saban problem.
I’ve long held the belief that Nick Saban is a mediocre football coach. He has instead relied on the talent disparity inherent within college football to reach his success. Saban’s teams have been out-coached numerous times in their history only to rely on superior athletes and almost unfair depth advantages to turn the tide in his favor, no pun intended. For example, Saban’s Alabama team in 2013 had the benefit of having Derrick Henry, Alvin Kamara, TJ Yeldon, and Kenyan Drake on the team at the same time. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to form an offensive game plan around a heavy diet of running the ball with four future NFL running backs on the roster, but I digress.
Whenever discussing Saban’s coaching acumen I like to point out his tenure as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Saban coached the Dolphins for two seasons where he went 15–17 and was incredibly average. Saban is infamously known for deciding to sign Daunte Culpepper as his quarterback over Drew Brees. In a career-defining move, Brees would end up leading the New Orleans Saints to a Super Bowl victory instead of joining Saban and the Dolphins. Saban doesn’t excel when forced to choose between talents of a seemingly similar level instead of having the option to stockpile as many recruits as humanly possible on the same team. Before his cat could be let out of the proverbial bag, Saban quit the Dolphins and returned to college football to hide his fatal flaw.
I felt vindicated when news broke yesterday about a whiny Saban complaining in a public speaking engagement in Birmingham about how Alabama’s recruiting class was only the second-best recruiting class in the nation behind Texas A&M, and how he only came in second because the other programs were bending the rules and not playing fair. Saban cited the new NIL rules and specifically A&M “buying” all of their recruits via the new process, which is 100% legal might I add. Saban seemingly has a problem with a school helping its incoming students earn a tiny slice of money back from the billions they generate for colleges, universities, and television broadcasters.
Saban said that paying college football players in this manner could have the ripple effect of negatively impacting all of college athletics. Saban thinks that college athletes should be happy that they get a scholarship and get a 4-year degree and should not be entitled to any of the other money that they generate for universities. Saban is the highest-paid state employee of any state, earning over $9,000,000 every year. Despite earning so much money, Saban also has the school’s trustees paying the mortgage on his home and obtained over $5,000,000 in PPP loans during the pandemic to pay his employee’s salaries at the Mercedes-Benz car dealerships that he owns.
Saban preferred things the old way, where he was able to dominate the recruiting landscape and convince any kid to join his conveyor belt of talent leading directly to the NFL. Anytime a recruiting allegation or infraction would surface, the formal complaints would end up at the desk of his long-time friend and NCAA president Mark Emmert. Emmert hired Saban to be the head coach of LSU while Emmert was the school’s chancellor. If anything had enough publicity where it had to be investigated further, it would then be sent to the desk of Alabama alumnus Derrick Crawford, who is the NCAA managing director of enforcement and VP of hearing operations. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see how Alabama could go all of Saban’s tenure without receiving any recruiting sanctions despite the despicable practice of grayshirting.
Saban has thrived for decades in a world where he can recruit all of the best talents, force them to put up with his megalomania and egotism, have his employer pay all of his living expenses and his mortgage, run car dealerships as a side hustle and use them to give new cars to his recruits and if anything catches the public eye have these issues investigated by two people that have his and Alabama’s best interests in mind at all times. And the very first sign that his complete and utter dominance of college football recruiting was starting to slip away has caused him to go scorched earth. And not only did he target other institutions that are doing everything legally, but he also targeted the student-athletes who are paying for all of his luxuries via their blood, sweat, and tears.
College football has a Nick Saban problem.
Pass this on to a friend (or three) and tell them to sign up here if you enjoy this newsletter.
