Nick Saban, winner of the 2003 national championship at a school other than Alabama, came to Tuscaloosa with very high expectations before the 2007 season.
He was expected to do big things, but nine years later, could anyone have realistically imagined the Crimson Tide would become this much of a colossus under a coach other than Paul W. Bryant?
In 2007, Nick Saban’s first Alabama team lost at home to Louisiana-Monroe. In 2016, Saban hasn’t just conquered college football; he’s shown that he can win shootouts in national title games, not merely defensive slugfests.
Alabama once had The Bear, the man who won six national titles since the advent of the Associated Press Poll in 1936. Now, the man who never tires of the hunt — the one called The Hound — is right behind him with five national crowns, four of them at The Capstone.
Nick Saban — already the man who towers over the rest of college football, with the possible exception of Urban Meyer — has become that much larger after winning his fourth national championship at Alabama.
It’s all rather difficult to absorb in the freshness of the moment, after a deliciously entertaining College Football Playoff National Championship Game in which the Crimson Tide fended off the gallant Clemson Tigers, 45-40. However, the possibility certainly has to be raised:
Nick Saban just might surpass Paul Bryant as the greatest head coach in college football history when all is said and done.
This might seem like something which was obviously going to happen after Alabama’s 2012 national title, but when Auburn’s Kick-Six and Urban Meyer’s Ohio State team stood in the way over the past two seasons, the aura of inevitability which surrounded Alabama football had evaporated. Yes, the Tide reached lsat season’s first College Football Playoff. Yes, they stacked together consecutive SEC championships the past two seasons. However, entering this playoff, the Tide had looked little better than they did at the end of last season.
In other words, they looked formidable, but hardly invincible.
Quarterback Jacob Coker labored through stretches of the regular season. The passing game took a big step back compared to 2014, when Amari Cooper dazzled and often dominated. When Coker didn’t even start the Ole Miss game, and the Tide drowned in a sea of turnovers in a loss on home soil, it was easy to say that Saban had lost his fastball.
Moreover, it was easy to say that the pressure of feeding the beast of Alabama football — year after year after high-scrutiny year — was taking its toll. Saban did a tremendous job getting a very flawed 2014 team to the playoff and the SEC winner’s circle. Could he refresh not just his players, but his staff and his own supply of competitive energy?
The man who could become the best ever in his profession — collegiate football head coach — has blasted all doubts to smithereens.
If Saban coached remarkably well in 2014, he did much the same in 2015… only better.
When this playoff began in the Cotton Bowl, Alabama had its brand name, but a lot to prove anew to its critics.
We saw what Alabama did to Michigan State. That was an easy romp, a night when everything went right for the Tide. Alabama restored a lot of its swagger in that game, but the question remained: Could the Tide overcome a stronger, more complete opponent, one which could take a punch and respond with an upper cut of its own?
That question was answered in University of Phoenix Stadium.
In this game on Monday night in Glendale, Arizona, the Clemson Tigers gave Bama a four-quarter battle. Clemson was easily the most potent and well-rounded team Saban has faced in any of his five national championship games. The Tigers had the healthy and polished dual-threat quarterback previous Saban opponents lacked.
Jason White of Oklahoma (2004 Sugar Bowl) was injured and played with limited mobility against Saban’s LSU team. In Saban’s first natty with Alabama, Garrett Gilbert of Texas (2010 BCS title game) was inexperienced and rough around the edges. Jordan Jefferson of LSU (2012 BCS title game) was a plainly deficient signal caller. Everett Golson of Notre Dame (2013 BCS title game), like Gilbert, was not wise enough to handle the moment.
Unlike all of those quarterbacks, Deshaun Watson of Clemson offered the complete package. He rang up 40 points, making this by far Saban’s worst national title game from a purely defensive standpoint.
If you had told Clemson coach Dabo Swinney that his team would score 40 on Saban and defensive coordinator Kirby Smart (who now heads to Georgia), and that Heisman Trophy winner Derrick Henry would get just 108 yards on 35 of his 36 carries (bolting for 50 other yards on a first-quarter touchdown), you probably would have gotten a very big Dabo smile in return.
Swinney, an Alabama alumnus, experienced the signature thrill of being able to coach for a national title against his alma mater, 34 years after another Alabama grad, Danny Ford, led Clemson to its first national crown in the 1982 Orange Bowl.
Moreover, Swinney had his team prepared. He put his players in position to make plays, especially on offense. Being able to contain Henry on defense forced Alabama to once again give this game not to its Heisman winner, but to the quarterback who had struggled for much of the season.
Would Saban and offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin have Jacob Coker ready when the moment demanded excellence? Would they be able to get their quarterback to avoid a letdown and play a good game after his great game (25 of 30, no interceptions, 286 yards) against Michigan State?
Would Saban and his assistants be able to problem-solve their way through a game against Clemson in which the Tide encountered more adversity, more negative plot twists, and more defensive lapses than at any prior point over the past 12 years?
Yes. Yes. Yes. The answer is yes.
Saban found a way through the thicket of difficulties presented by Clemson, its quarterback, and a resilient defensive line which kept Henry at bay after that one 50-yard gallop in the early going.
He dialed up the onside kick which changed the flow of the game. He and Kiffin were able to locate O.J. Howard as the key to unlocking Clemson’s back seven, which suffered in the second half due to an injury to defensive back Mackensie Alexander. Those strikes to Howard — and a 95-yard kickoff return by Kenyan Drake — gave Alabama enough firepower to withstand Deshaun Watson’s best stuff.
14 teams could not beat Clemson this season. In the pre-playoff era, the Tigers would have won the national title.
This year, The Hound caught them at the end, with a little splash of O.J.
Coker to OJ…TD! #rolltide #NationalChampionship https://t.co/FtYpDSdClI
— The Comeback NCAA (@TheComebackNCAA) January 12, 2016
Nick Saban, the man who never tires of the hunt — the man whose greatest thrill isn’t merely winning, but winning again and again — is doing what he loves best.
He’s winning again and again… just when many thought he was about to lose that extra edge which separates the greatest champions from second-place finishers or one-hit wonders.
The Hound never grows tired of chasing. Nick Saban’s love of the chase has brought him one national title away from catching The Bear.
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