To add quickly to the mountain of stories this week from sports media who have crossed paths with Nick Saban, there can’t be many better training grounds for a college reporter than stammering football questions at his news conferences and bracing for one of two outcomes: mumbling coachspeak or straight ridicule, both served with a glacial glare.
There were no Coke bottles back in the late 1990s at Michigan State, and very few jokes. Also absent: an inkling that this curmudgeon with middling teams would end up the greatest college football coach of all time. He was 25-22-1 in his first four seasons with the Spartans.
“Good coach? Yeah,” Derrick Mason, a receiver on Saban’s first two MSU teams and later an NFL star, said Thursday. “Great coach? I mean, seven nattys, arguably the greatest coach in any sport, period? No one saw that.”
No one saw coming the football-transforming loss of coaching greatness we all just experienced in a period of less than 24 hours this week, either. Saban is Alabama football. Retired. Shocking. Pete Carroll is Seattle Seahawks football. Kicked upstairs. Stunning. Bill Belichick is New England Patriots football.
It’s no surprise he and the Pats parted ways, and he’s not likely done, but taken together this feels like a moment. A historic one. A jarring one. A sad one. And one worth using to reflect and wonder whether we’ll ever see anything like this again.
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I doubt it. Those three careers are striking not just because of their astounding results but because of the way the coaches matured — and were allowed to mature — through uninspiring ones.
All three of those coaches share history, dominated this century and carry superlative titles. Saban is the undisputed college football GOAT. Belichick is widely considered the best NFL coach of all time, unmatched as he is with six rings, though he has been average recently without Tom Brady — as he was in the early 1990s with the Cleveland Browns, with Saban as his defensive coordinator. Which is why I think he’ll coach again.
Carroll is arguably the best of the three coaches who have won a college national championship and a Super Bowl, though Jimmy Johnson has a case (Barry Switzer doesn’t). He was 49 years old when he got the USC job in 2001, having most recently been fired after three solid seasons as head coach of the Patriots. Combined with his previous single season as Jets coach, Carroll was 33-31.
Belichick was 47 when he replaced Carroll as Pats head coach in 2000, having gone 36-44 with one playoff appearance in five seasons in Cleveland. He had the New York Jets job for a day and was best-known for being Bill Parcells’ favorite lieutenant.
Saban was 48 when he left Michigan State for LSU on the heels of a 9-2 breakthrough season in 1999 and some contract quibbling with then-MSU president Peter McPherson. He had tried to help Belichick with the Browns. He had replaced Carroll as Ohio State’s defensive backs coach in 1980. He had been a good defensive assistant and a solid head coach.
Their best work was ahead of them. Aren’t we supposed to know what coaches are by then? Sean McVay or Kliff Kingsbury? Dabo Swinney or Derek Dooley?
“It is amazing when you think about it,” said Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo, who is still close friends with Saban, of the wait for those three coaches to be great. “Freaking amazing. When Nick was here it got to year three, year four and it didn’t look like there was much progress, you know? But the thing I appreciate and I knew at the time is that he was building it the right way. It wasn’t about quick fixes then like it is now.”
Izzo, for the record, says he did believe Saban was on his way to greatness when they were helping each other recruit and hanging out at each other’s houses (Belichick popped in a few times back then). Knowing what we know now about all three coaches, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that smart people at the time could see their substance.
They projected as winners even if they weren’t winning those intro pressers. But seven Super Bowl rings, nine national championships and more than 900 wins collectively? That’s a bit above projection.
From 2001 through this past season, at least one of those coaches won or played for a championship in 15 out of 23 seasons, and at least one of them was close in all 23. This includes Saban’s LSU Tigers and Carroll’s USC Trojans splitting the national title in 2003, and Belichick’s Pats beating Carroll’s Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX — thanks to a goal-line play call Carroll would love to have back.
There were other mistakes along the way. There was scandal and controversy, a Heisman Trophy stripped, an unbeaten NFL season stymied by a gigantic Super Bowl upset and unforgettable plays to win and lose games. Snoop Dogg came to Carroll’s USC practices, Saban crushed oatmeal pies and Belichick was on to Cincinnati.
There was a surplus of the primary contributor to great coaching: great players.
And now we’re recounting their legacies, after one dizzying day.
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The consistently gruff Belichick figures to have another stop. Carroll, who could double as an enthusiastic life coach, also could coach football again. Saban has made it clear he won’t. He’s the most accomplished and has had the most interesting public journey over the years.
Always fiery on the sidelines, Saban has been famously hard to deal with for a long time. But Mason said his appreciation for Saban grew over the years as he saw how many of his former teammates Saban quietly helped in different ways.
Publicly, Saban has been more funny and relaxed in recent years, projecting the demeanor of someone who has learned to enjoy all the success — to some degree. For anyone who was trying to figure him out and avert his glare in the 1990s, that’s almost as surprising as all the success.
(Photo: Jim Rogash / Getty Images)
2024-01-12 17:25:02
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