Nick Saban Book Preview

A CAREER THAT CHANGED ALABAMA FOOTBALL FOREVER

Nick Saban

The roster

EDITOR

u Tommy Deas

DESIGNER

u Ryan Ford

COVER DESIGN

u Ryan Ford

PHOTO EDITING

u Ryan Ford

SPECIAL THANKS

u Michael Anastasi

u Peter Bhatia

u Beverly Burnett

u Gary Cosby Jr.

u Kirkland Crawford

u Michael DiLullo

u Maxwell Donaldson

u Vince Ellis

u Chris Fenison

u Chase Goodbread

u Brett Greenberg

u Megan Holt

u Nick Kelly

u Silas Lyons

u Gene Myers

u Ken Roberts

u Sutton Smith

u Brooke Thomas

u Chris Thomas

u Ellie, Jon & Luke Thomas

u Max Wolborsky

u Eros, Schrodinger & Bobo

u Canelo and Li’l Rotten

In Memoriam

CECIL HURT

1959-2021

Cecil Hurt, longtime sports columnist at The Tuscaloosa News, died on Nov, 23, 2021, in Birmingham from complications from pneumonia. Hurt, 62, joined The Tuscaloosa News in 1982 as a sports writer and seven years later became the newspaper’s sports editor and columnist. A 1981 graduate of the University of Alabama with a degree in English and a minor in psychology, Hurt was born in Tuscaloosa and grew up in Huntsville and graduated from Butler High School. During his career at the News, he cov-

PUBLISHED BY PEDIMENT PUBLISHING

ered Alabama football, basketball, baseball and other sports. He was part of The Tuscaloosa News team that won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the 2011 tornado that devastated Tuscaloosa and surrounding areas. He was named the National Sports Media Association’s Alabama Sportswriter of the Year in 2016 and ’19 and received the Mel Allen Media Award from the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2019.

On the cover

Nick Saban coached Alabama to six national championships and nine SEC titles in 17 seasons. That includes perhaps the most dramatic title win of his run, a 26-23 overtime win over Georgia (and ex-assistant Kirby Smart) on Jan. 8, 2018.

MATTHEW EMMONS/USA TODAY SPORTS

Page 1

Nick Saban articulated his plan for Alabama football when he was introduced in January 2007: “I know there’s tremendous expectations here for what you would like to accomplish with this football program. I can tell you … I have even higher expectations for what we want to accomplish.”

On the back

Nick Saban knew the importance of a good start — in a game and in a season, with Alabama often starting the year at or near the top of the polls. And so it was that Saban’s Tide spent the 2019 preseason media day at Bryant-Denny Stadium ranked No. 2 in the nation.

©Copyright 2024 The Tuscaloosa News/USA TODAY Network. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechan ical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage system, without the permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. Printed in Canada.

MICKEY WELSH/ MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER

GARY COSBY JR./THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

Nick Saban

A CAREER THAT CHANGED ALABAMA FOOTBALL FOREVER

1 2 3 4 5

Run

To Glory

G.O.A.T. Stories

12 Six national titles in 17 seasons don’t happen by doing it the way it’s always been done.

Hire learning

28 When Rich Rodriguez snubbed the Tide, the stars aligned for Mal Moore to land his man.

Bronze mettles

36 Saban or Bryant?

What the numbers say about the Greatest (Coach). Of. All. Time.

Seasons In The Sun

Six-cess!

44Relive the thrills of Saban’s 17 seasons and decide once and for

Simply The Best The players

104A good coach is nothing without his players. We picked the 10 best of Saban’s tenure.

The games

122From Tua’s OT TD to Tebow’s tears, ranking the top 10 games from all 17 seasons.

The good and the bad

138 Get to know Saban’s five greatest rehab projects and his five biggest foes.

50 Years Of Love

Letters of love

14450 stories that tell Nick and Terry Saban’s story — from those

Moving On

End of an era

166From out of the blue, a legend’s time with the Crimson Tide was suddenly over.

A new DeBoss

176Alabama’s newest coach honed his philosophy with travels in the Midwest (and West).

Swing shift

182

More time for golf and family as Saban adjusted to a life after (coaching) football.

Alabama players on hand to work as painters for the 20th Habitat for Humanity house funded by the Nick’s Kids Foundation look on as Terry Saban embraces her husband Nick in March 2023.

GARY COSBY JR./THE TUSCALOOSA NEWS

Just 17 years in Tuscaloosa created a lifetime’s worth of glorious memories.

THE PRIDE & THE JOY

By Miss Terry Saban

The foundation was here at Alabama, ready for something special to be built upon it, a pyramid rising above years of football history. Late Alabama athletics director Mal Moore once said to me, “Most people do not realize how hard it is to win a championship. You must have great players and great coaches, but then the stars have to be aligned just right.”

Add to that formula Nick’s “process,” which is based on focused discipline, hard work and a relentless, competitive spirit. The combination of the two allowed us to navigate all of the changes to college football and challenges we’ve faced since arriving in Tuscaloosa.

New offensive philosophies required developing new defenses. Changes to recruiting rules and the recruiting calendar prompted adjustments. Losing coaches to competing programs meant bringing in new staff. Implementing the NIL rules and the transfer portal also resulted in change. The 2011 tornado

The day after one of the gutsiest championship victories in Nick Saban’s tenure — a 45-40 thriller over Clemson on Jan. 12, 2016, in Scottsdale, Ariz. — a blearyeyed Saban raved about “The Process” his team embraced to win again: “It’s one I’ll always remember,” he said.

MATT KARTOZIAN/ USA TODAY SPORTS

ripped through Tuscaloosa and shook every player, student and resident to the core, but the team lost no time in helping those in need with food, water, clothing — and helping clean up for the days and weeks that followed; Nick’s Kids Foundation was also able to build several Habitat for Humanity homes for those who lost everything. COVID-19 provided new and unique challeng-

How change fueled Nick Saban’s success as college football’s most consistent coach.

G.O.A.T. STORIES

By Nick Kelly

Eli Gold walked into Nick Saban’s office needing to record the video.

Gold, the radio voice of Alabama football, was set to serve as emcee for Bama Blast, a pep rally for freshmen at Bryant-Denny Stadium. Coaches for other UA programs had showed up with a couple players to speak to incoming students, but the Crimson Tide’s football coach had traditionally only recorded a video that played on the stadium’s big screen.

“When do you want to record this thing?” Gold asked.

Saban looked puzzled.

“Why would I want to record it?” Saban replied.

“Well, that’s the way it’s always been done,” Gold said.

Then Gold learned a lesson that wasn’t forgotten in Saban’s 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa: You don’t use that phrase — the way it’s always been done.

Nick Saban coached Alabama to six national titles in 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa. The Tide’s dominance is reflected in the AP Top 25 poll, where it spent 138 of 251 weeks under Saban ranked No. 1 since debuting there under him on Nov. 2, 2008.

MICKEY WELSH/MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER

Saban told Gold he intended to attend in person but needed to know the time.

“3 p.m.,” Gold said.

“I will be there at 3:01,” Saban replied.

On the day of the event, freshmen were filing in. No sign of Saban at 2:59 p.m. Gold decided to start the program.

Then at 3:01, Saban walked out of the tunnel. Gold handed him the mic and off he went. The new football coach shared how everyone was part of this project. Even someone who couldn’t run, throw or catch the football, Saban reasoned, could still contribute.

“He had everybody eating out of the palm of his hand,” Gold said. Saban proved then, and time and time again over his 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa – winning six national championships and nine SEC titles in one of the most dominant stretches in college football history — that he was not afraid of change when growth and success were the byproduct.

“You contrast that 2009 championship team with 2020 or the 2017

Over 38 years, Nick Saban hit 11 cities en route from West Virginia to Alabama.

ONE LONG DRIVE

By Ryan Ford

It’s a little over 700 miles from Fairmont, West Virginia, to Tuscaloosa, Alabama — about an 11-hour drive south on I-59, if you take the direct route by car.

Nick Saban’s trip between the two took a bit longer — 38 years, give or take a few months — and featured stops in not-necessarily-on-the-way college towns such as Annapolis, Columbus, East Lansing and Toledo, plus big cities such as Houston and Miami. But each pit stop was a spot to fuel his coaching philosophy, especially as he crossed paths time and again with a bevy of football giants.

These, then, are a few of the stories of Saban’s drive from undersized safety to the center of the college football universe.

Michigan coach

Lloyd Carr and Nick Saban, then coach at Michigan State, chat before a 1995 game in East Lansing, Mich. Saban went 34-24-1 in five seasons at MSU.

ALAN R. KAMUDA/DETROIT FREE PRESS

1969-72: Safety, Kent State

Saban was all set to attend the Naval Academy out of Fairmont but opted instead to stay closer to West Virginia. His options: Ohio University, Miami (Ohio) and Kent State. He opted for the Golden Flashes, who were “the absolutely worst program of the bunch,” he later told Athlon Sports, but close to his uncle in Canton, about 30 miles away.

The Flashes went 8-12 during Saban’s first two seasons under coach Dave Puddington, who was replaced in 1971 by Colorado defensive coordinator Don James — in what turned out to be a momentous turn in Saban’s career. “Those two years when he coached me were a tremendous learning experience for me,” Saban told Athlon Sports in 2011.

James quickly turned the program into a winner, with a Mid-American Conference title and a Tangerine Bowl berth in 1972, his second season in Kent. But Saban missed one-third of that season, his senior year, with an ankle injury suffered in a 28-7 loss to Northern Illinois on Oct. 28. For the final month of the season, plus the leadup to the bowl in Tampa, Saban served as a de facto graduate assistant. “Don James taught me the importance of preparation, the importance of having a plan and the importance of communicating that plan to your people,” Saban told the Detroit Free Press in 1994. “This particular situation pertained to football, but such a philosophy is important to success in any aspect of life.”

1973-74: Grad assistant, Kent State

Thus, it was an easy transition to an actual GA spot under James for the next two seasons. “It was one of the easiest personnel decisions I’ve ever made,” James told the Free Press in 1994. “I knew that Nick was going to be a good coach.” The Golden Flashes went 16-6 over Saban’s two seasons as a GA, earning James a big promotion: The University of Washington, where James built a Pac-10 dynasty and captured a share of a national title in 1991. Dennis Fitzgerald was promoted from defensive coordinator and gave Saban a fulltime job.

1975-76: Linebackers coach, Kent State

Saban’s final two seasons in Kent weren’t terribly notable, as the Golden Flashes went 12-11. But Saban was pulling double duty in that first season, as he earned his master’s degree in sports communication in 1975.

1977: Outside linebackers coach, Syracuse

Fitzgerald recommended Saban to his former teammate at Michigan: Frank Maloney, the coach of the Orange. Even then, four years removed from his playing career, the foundation of a coaching legend was in place — even as Saban favored a practice outfit of shorts and mid-calf white socks.

“All business,” Glenn Williams, a Syracuse offensive lineman in 1977, told The Daily Orange in 2017. “I

2009

W, 26-21

After 17 seasons, the Tide returned to the top of the college football world.

The crew

Alabama’s stars and their key statistics for 2009:

uu QB GREG MCELROY

198-for-325 passing, 2,508 yards, 17 TDs, four INTs

uu RB MARK INGRAM

271 carries, 1,658 yards, 17 TDs, 334 receiving yards

uu LB ROLANDO MCCLAIN

105 tackles, four sacks, two INTs

uu SS MARK BARRON

76 tackles, seven INTs

uu CB JAVIER ARENAS

76 tackles, five sacks, five interceptions, 551 kick return yards, 493 punt return yards

TBy Chase Goodbread

he wait, by the calendar, was 17 years — the time separating Alabama’s 2009 national championship from its predecessor in 1992, when former UA coach Gene Stallings led a 13-0 campaign. Troubled times, marked by NCAA sanctions, losing seasons in 1997, 2000 and 2003, and too-frequent turnover in the coach’s chair conspired to drag the program through a more trying stretch than most of its fans had ever seen. On the heels of those years that illustrated just how far the Crimson Tide had fallen came the tease of 2008, when only a loss in the SEC title game prevented UA from returning to the championship stage. It’s little wonder, then, that Nick Saban’s first title a year later hit Tide fans like ice water hits a parched throat. Just as Stallings won a title in his third year at Alabama, so too did Saban. “I want everybody here to know this is not the end,” Saban told fans during the celebration in Bryant-Denny. “This is the beginning.” That was a pledge that would ring true time and again.

RANK THE YEARS

No. 2

WHY: This is a vintage Saban team — built around physical offense and sterling defense. Alabama ran the table to go 14-0 with a signature win over Tim Tebow-led Florida in the SEC Championship Game. It will forever be remembered as the first cornerstone of the Saban dynasty era.

Alabama’s championship drought ended when Saban hoisted the AFCA Coaches Trophy after beating Texas at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. According to ESPN, the Waterford Crystal trophy was handmade in Ireland and has been valued at $30,000.

KIRBY LEE/ USA TODAY SPORTS

2009

The season

An atmosphere of unfinished business permeated a team that returned eight defensive starters and some key offensive skill talents from a 2008 squad that knocked on the national championship door. The Tide opened with a win over an ACC foe in Atlanta for the second consecutive year, 34-24 over No. 7 Virginia Tech. From there, UA won its next six games with relative ease until a thrilling 12-10 win over rival Tennessee, coached by future Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin. It wasn’t the team’s only close call. Five weeks later, Auburn was on the brink of spoiling the Tide’s unbeaten season before a late touchdown clinched the Iron Bowl. With the support of a top-shelf defense and a powerful running game, quarterback Greg McElroy navigated his first season as a starter with a pedestrian TD total (17 in 14 games), but with only four picks and heady play in clutch moments.

Tide turns against Gators

Rematch and revenge were the themes as Alabama and Florida met in the SEC title game for the second consecutive season. In the 2009 rematch, however, Saban’s vaunted signing class of 2008 — the first class he assembled at UA with the benefit of a full recruiting cycle — was a year better and a year more mature. The Alabama running game took over, as Mark Ingram — a key member of that 2008 class — ran for 113 yards and three touchdowns. Freshman running back Trent Richardson added 80 yards on just 11 carries in a runaway 32-13 victory. The No. 2 Crimson Tide converted 11 of 15 third downs, and with Florida’s run defense overwhelmed, UA held possession for 21:12 of 30 second-half minutes. The game-clinching play came in the fourth quarter when cornerback Javier Arenas intercepted Florida’s Tim Tebow in the Alabama end zone. It was the Tide’s first SEC title since 1999.

Picture-perfect drama

Two dramatic sequences in the regular season will be remembered as springboards to UA’s first national title under Saban. The first came to be known as “Rocky Block” — nose guard Terrence Cody blocked a 45-yard Tennessee field goal attempt as time expired, squelching a game-winner for the Volunteers that allowed UA to escape with a 12-10 victory. It was Cody’s second blocked field goal on the day. Weeks later, Alabama’s unbeaten mark was under equal duress as it trailed rival Auburn 21-20 in the fourth quarter. In a possession that came to be known as “The Drive,” McElroy led a methodical, 15-play drive ending with a short touchdown pass to running back Roy Upchurch with 1:27 left to take a 26-21 victory. McElroy completed seven of eight passes, including two third-down conversions to Julio Jones, in directing the series. Noted artist Daniel A. Moore, who typically renders no more than one print for a given season, produced one for both Cody’s block and Upchurch’s touchdown grab.

Calendar daze

How the Tide fared in its 14 games on the 2009 schedule:

Sept. 5 Virginia Tech* W, 34-24

Sept. 12 FIU W, 40-14

Sept. 19 North Texas W, 53-7

Sept. 26 Arkansas W, 35-7

Oct. 3 at Kentucky W, 38-20

Oct. 10 at Ole Miss W, 22-3

Oct. 17 South Carolina W, 20-6

Oct. 24 Tennessee W, 12-10

Nov. 7 LSU W, 24-15

Nov. 14 at Mississippi St. W, 31-3

Nov. 21 Chattanooga W, 45-0

Nov. 27 at Auburn W, 26-21

Dec. 5 Florida** W, 32-13

Jan. 7 Texas*** W, 37-21 *Atlanta; **SEC Championship Game, Atlanta; ***BCS Championship Game, Pasadena, Calif.

Mark Ingram’s run toward becoming Alabama’s first Heisman Trophy winner began in the season opener against Virginia Tech, when he had 26 carries for 150 yards and one TD at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

Strike a pose

Ingram became the first Heisman Trophy winner in school history. The Crimson Tide sophomore rushed for 1,658 yards on 271 carries (a whopping 6.1-yard average), with 17 touchdowns on the season. He crossed the 100-yard mark in nine of the team’s 14 games, including a career-high 246 on 24 carries against South Carolina on Oct. 17. Putting Ingram over the top in the balloting was a head-to-head matchup of Heisman contenders against Tebow in the SEC Championship Game. Ingram outshined the Florida quarterback, who already had a Heisman on his resume, with 113 rushing yards and three touchdowns, plus two receptions for 76 yards. Tebow would finish in a distant fifth place for the Heisman, while Ingram nipped Stanford running back Toby Gerhart by a vote count of 1,304-1,276. Ingram was brought to tears when his name was announced. “I’m a little overwhelmed right now, I’m sorry,” his remarks began. “It’s a great honor to be a member of this Heisman fraternity. I’m so excited to bring Alabama their first Heisman winner.”

PAUL ABELL/USA TODAY SPORTS

MARK J. REBILAS/USA TODAY SPORTS

Trent Richardson had 109 yards and two TDs in the BCS title game.

Defense wins a title

2009

Hooked ’em for history

Alabama and Texas entered play ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, and both were undefeated. The Crimson Tide had never beaten the Longhorns in the series (0-7-1), and it faced one of the top quarterbacks in the country in Heisman finalist Colt McCoy. The Alabama rushing attack ultimately controlled the game, however, as Ingram (22 carries, 116 yards, two TDs) and Richardson (19 carries, 109 yards, two TDs) overwhelmed the Texas defense in tandem. Defensively, Alabama defensive tackle Marcell Dareus knocked McCoy out of the game with a shoulder injury on the Longhorns’ fifth offensive play, then returned an interception for a touchdown near the end of the first half. Texas quarterback Garrett Gilbert found a second-half groove and closed the gap to 24-21, but Alabama linebacker Eryk Anders responded with a strip-sack that was recovered by Courtney Upshaw at the Texas 3-yard line with 2:55 remaining. Ingram followed with a touchdown to put the game away.

Central to the Crimson Tide’s unbeaten season was a defense that was among the most dominant of the Saban era. Its heart and soul was Rolando McClain, who enjoyed his most productive college season at middle linebacker. UA lost McClain’s linebacking mate on the inside, Dont’a Hightower, to a season-ending knee injury suffered against Arkansas, but Saban plugged in freshman Nico Johnson with solid results. Also defensively, safety Mark Barron, Arenas and Cody were chosen first-team All-SEC. Barron notched seven interceptions and another 11 pass breakups. Arenas added five picks and, atypical for a corner, ranked third on the team in tackles for loss with 12. Dareus and Anders were effective as an inside-outside pass rush tandem. Five starters (McClain, Hightower, Barron, Dareus, and cornerback Kareem Jackson) would go on to be firstround NFL draft picks. UA limited five SEC opponents to 10 points or fewer and held rival LSU to only 15.

Texas running back Tre’ Newton is smothered by linebacker Rolando McClain (25) and defensive lineman Terrence Cody (62) at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. The Longhorns were held to 276 total yards.

GARY A. VASQUEZ/USA TODAY SPORTS

Poll positions

Saban’s success at Alabama was no laughing matter, even if he did (occasionally) let out a guffaw or two.

FUNNY BUSINESS

By Tommy Deas

Imade Nick Saban laugh. This would have been around December 2009, with Saban’s Alabama football team on the way to the first of six national championships in his tenure with the Crimson Tide.

I got a call from Jeff Purinton, Saban’s media liaison, informing me (not for the first time) that the coach wasn’t happy about our cov erage in The Tuscaloosa News, where I was early in my 10year tenure as execu tive sports editor.

We had been running a series of stories on freshmen and other players Saban deemed off limits to the press, facilitated by an open locker room after the SEC Championship Game. It allowed our reporters to talk to those the coach normally shielded from interviews. With the team having down time before beginning preparations to play Texas for the BCS championship, we ran one such story per day.

By week’s end, Saban had seen enough and had Purinton ring me up.

I told Jeff that we did the same as other outlets,

talking to those rookie players because it was our only chance to do so.

“I’m going to hand him the phone,” Purinton said.

Saban lit into me like a Somali pirate, using the kind of off-color language coaches often use on the practice field but rarely in public. He told me exactly what he thought of us writing about his freshmen.

I explained that was a matter he needed to take up with the SEC, since the open locker room was league policy. We broke no rules.

“Well how about if we pull your credentials?” Saban said.

I’m not sure what he expected, but it wasn’t me laughing out loud.

The phone went silent. For a split

MARK J. REBILAS/USA TODAY SPORTS

second, I thought maybe he had hung up on me. I figure Saban had never before had someone laugh at him when he was on a rant.

“What,” he finally asked, “are you laughing at?”

I replied: “Well if you do that, I guess we’re both going to be on ESPN tomorrow,” figuring this would be national news. “Do you want to do it together? I could come down to your office or you can come over to mine.” And Saban laughed. Not nervously, but a real belly laugh.

So we talked it out. He said next time he might just close the locker room and let the SEC fine him. I told him that would be between him and the conference. We left it there. I had a few exchanges with Saban over the years. He playfully jabbed me at a postgame press conference when I wrote about Alabama’s lack of sacks because he emphasized “affecting” the quarterback over sacking him. He phoned a time or two more to express his discontent with something our staff wrote, or I’d get a call from one of his aides telling me I might expect such a call. I think he finally gave up on me. He didn’t give up on winning. Or teaching. Or his process, which changed college football more than is probably appreciated even yet, with

so many others trying to emulate his ways in an effort to achieve his results. I grew up during Alabama’s era of dominance under the late Paul W. “Bear” Bryant. Like most, I assumed we’d never see anything like it ever again. Well, we not only saw it play out before our eyes, but we saw an era even more dominant under Saban. If they ever make a Mount Rushmore of college football coaches, Saban and Bryant will occupy two of the spots.

We watched Saban evolve from being perceived (by those outside Alabama’s fan base) as the game’s Darth Vader to a kindly, grandfatherly figure more full of positive reinforcement than spit and vinegar. Where once he commanded by force, he cajoled a new generation of players, replacing figurative kicks in the rear with pats on the back. He changed because players changed. He seemed forever a step ahead of the game.

For Saban’s 17 years at Alabama, I got a ringside seat to history and greatness as my career kept me adjacent through many roles. I doubt Saban remembers that time I made him laugh. But I do.

Tommy Deas is Sports Director and Senior Sports Strategist, Center for Community Journalism, USA TODAY Network

Alabama coach Nick Saban dons the Old Leather Helmet trophy awarded to the Crimson Tide for defeating Miami in the 2021 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta as offensive lineman Evan Neal (73) and defensive lineman Phidarian Mathis celebrate.