'Cheating' Nick Saban Ripped as Most Overrated Coach in College Football
The role of the coach in sports is one of the most hotly debated topics no matter what the sport under discussion, and Nick Saban’s role as head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide has generated quite a bit of question as to whether it’s his genius on the field of battle or the simple fact that he fields the best athletes that is the secret to his success.
After all, Bill Belichick could coach the 2017 Cleveland Browns, and while they probably wouldn’t have gone 0-16, they probably wouldn’t have gone to the Super Bowl either.
But one anonymous coach has taken this from a simple barroom debate into something more sinister.
Speaking to CBS Sports, one coach implied that there’s no way Saban is running a clean show in Tuscaloosa, and that’s why he’s bringing the best roster to championship contention every year like a kid hacking a video game to give himself all 99-rated players.
In a survey of “one-fifth of the 129 active coaches leading FBS teams entering the 2018 season,” CBS guaranteed anonymity in return for no-holds barred honesty. Here’s one respondent’s take on Saban:
“If you had the No. 1 recruiting class in the country every year [you’d win like Nick Saban]. He shows up at every single game with a better roster than the teams he’s playing. … If you count cheating and getting the best players in the country as part of running a program, he’s the best in the country. It’s like saying an NFL coach is the best coach in the league if he gets 25 first-round picks every year.”
Granted, it seemed to be just one dissenting voice calling Saban “overrated”; in CBS’ poll, Saban was not among the four coaches (Willie Taggart of Florida State, James Franklin of Penn State, Kirk Ferentz of Iowa, and Lane Kiffin of Florida Atlantic) who got more than one vote.
For one thing, the anonymous source isn’t wrong when it comes to the whole argument that having the best players is more than half the battle for coaches in any sport.
After all, even Bill Parcells couldn’t win a playoff game in Dallas in four years of trying, but when he had one of the greatest defenses in NFL history, he won two Super Bowls.
And when Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal left the Bulls and Lakers, respectively, Phil Jackson looked a lot less like an NBA genius, returning to form only when Jordan came back and when the Lakers fleeced the Memphis Grizzlies in the Pau Gasol trade.
But then again, half of a college coach’s job is recruiting.
The fact that Nick Saban can deliver the best players to Alabama year after year — the Tide ranked No. 1 for best recruiting class according to 24/7 Sports for seven straight years from 2011 to 2017 and fifth in 2018 — is as much a part of his job as the Xs and Os stuff.
And as for the anonymous statement’s part that said “if you count cheating,” it’s possible that Saban has an unfair advantage, but it’s one that he himself created. There is no evidence, at least none that has been unearthed by the NCAA or by zealous media watchdogs, of any actual recruiting violations at the school.
For a recruit, “come play for a team that has won five national championships in the last nine seasons” is a powerful draw.
Likewise, the Crimson Tide had 12 players drafted by the NFL in 2018 and have had at least one and as many as four players picked in the first round every year since 2009.
Even if a recruit doesn’t ultimately care about college except as the means by which he’s eventually going to get paid big money to play the game in the pros, dangling the carrot of “we are more likely to get you to the NFL” is a huge factor.
So of course Saban has the best players on the best team winning the most games year in and year out.
As the old saying goes, “don’t hate the player, hate the game,” and college football is a sport where success breeds success with continuity as its catalyst.
In other words, the game’s rigged in Saban’s favor for the Tide to win titles, because Saban keeps rigging the game every time the Tide wins titles.
It’s a circle. And what do circles do? They roll, as in Roll Tide.
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