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Nick Saban (ex-HC Alabama Crimson Tide)

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The "Saban Effect" in the SEC:

Shadow of Nick Saban looms large for SEC coaches

Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes the truth causes seismic shifts in a league that considers itself the best football conference in the country.

Either way, this just in: Alabama coach Nick Saban's shadow in the SEC has grown to epic proportions.

It's a prime reason administrators and power brokers at some schools have gone into full panic mode, creating the kind of starry-eyed climate in which not even veteran coaches who've won more than 70 percent of their games and SEC championships (and national championships, in some cases) are safe.

In 15 years at Georgia, Mark Richt won on par with the game's great coaches. But he couldn't win a national title, and the Bulldogs couldn't capitalize on the SEC East's swoon.

Mark Richt is out at Georgia despite averaging nearly 10 wins per season and winning 74 percent of his games during his 15-year career. He won two SEC championships at Georgia, but neither came in the past 10 years. He had also lost three in a row to Saban, including a 28-point rout back in October.

Les Miles was almost out at LSU. Miles -- with his athletic director going underground and LSU's board of supervisors talking openly about Miles potentially being on his way out -- was marched to a slow, public death for weeks. Or so it seemed. As the backlash grew against LSU and cooler heads prevailed regarding the amount of money it would take to buy out Miles and bring in, say, Jimbo Fisher, suddenly LSU athletic director Joe Alleva reappeared after LSU's 19-7 win over Texas A&M to tell us that Miles would continue to be LSU's coach.

Good thing he cleared that up in a timely fashion.

After all, Miles is even more accomplished than Richt. The Mad Hatter has won 78 percent of his games, including a pair of SEC championships and a national title within the past nine years. It's true his last SEC title came four years ago, and it's also true that his record in the SEC the last three years has dipped to a very pedestrian 14-10. But most egregiously, he has lost five in a row to Saban.

Hard to believe a coach could go from No. 2 in the country (with the nation's No. 1 recruiting class for 2016) to the brink of being unemployed in a matter of four weeks, but Miles did. It's also yet another reminder that the trajectory of this league changed forever when the late Mal Moore lured Saban back into the college game in 2007.
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Entire article: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14259323/nick-saban-impact-mark-richt-les-miles
 
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AS MICHIGAN STATE'S COACH IN THE '90S, NICK SABAN WAS NOT WELL LIKED, BUT HE WAS SEEN AS BRILLIANT FOOTBALL MIND

Sixteen years and one month ago, St. Nick disappeared. Nick Saban had always been an odd kind of savior at Michigan State—reserved, even distant—but he had a reputation, even in 1999, as a brilliant football mind. For most of Michigan State's rabid and frustrated fan base, that was enough.

In his fifth year in East Lansing, Saban justified the faith in him, leading the Spartans to a 9–2 record, their best in 33 years.

And then he left for an LSU program that had just gone 3–8.

Michigan State fans were riled up, of course. Most fan bases would be. Within the program, though, there was a different kind of anger. In a team meeting shortly before he decided to leave, Saban left many players with the impression he would stay at Michigan State. He never really did say goodbye.

But then, it's weird to say goodbye when you never seemed that interested in saying hello. Saban had never been as popular in the school's football offices as he was with fans. Even now, people who liked him at Michigan State feel compelled to explain themselves.

Former Michigan State assistant Bob Casullo: "I'm probably unusual in that I'm a Nick Saban fan."

Former Spartans receiver Muhsin Muhammad: "I'm probably in the minority too: I had a good relationship with Nick."

What was the problem? Well, you hear a lot of stories about football coaches with bad tempers. The difference with Saban, summed up by former receiver Gari Scott: "He always looked like he was mad."



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Former Spartans center Jason Strayhorn says, "There is no softer side to Nick. He is all business."

There is an old coaching maxim about knowing when to kick their butts and knowing when to pat their backs. Saban followed half of it. Sometimes Saban would excoriate his assistant coaches in front of the players so viciously, the players became uncomfortable.

"We would all say, 'He can't be like this at home,'" Scott says.

In film sessions, he would talk until he found a reason to be angry. Then his voice would rise. And then he would take it out on the team in practice.

Strayhorn remembers one film session when Saban erupted over a missed assignment by a player named Anthony Pleasant, which was interesting because Pleasant did not even play for Michigan State. He had played for the Cleveland Browns when Saban was their defensive coordinator. Yet somehow, Saban would make Michigan State's players pay for a mistake Anthony Pleasant had made in the NFL. To this day, Strayhorn says of Pleasant with a laugh, "I hate that guy."

When Saban left for LSU at age 49, he famously sent a plane back to Michigan to pick up any assistants who wanted to join him. Nobody got on it. They stayed in East Lansing to work under his former assistant, Bobby Williams. For many observers, there was an easy and obvious conclusion: They never wanted to work for the guy again.

And a lot of players surely thought: Good riddance.

But time passed. And every now and then, two of his former Spartan players would be chatting, and one would admit:

"I'm rooting for LSU."

And the other would say: "Me, too."

And then one of them would say: "Don't tell anybody."

We all know now what Saban did after he left East Lansing. He became one of the most successful coaches in any sport. On Dec. 31, he will lead Alabama into a College Football Playoff semifinal against Michigan State, with his eyes on a fifth national title.

But in 1999, that story had not been written. Many people in the media wondered if Saban was worth the $1.2 million annual salary he got from LSU. (Compared to current coaching salaries, that looks like the minimum wage, but it was enormous at the time.) You could reasonably argue that Saban had cashed in on one great year.

So, why did some of his Michigan State players quietly pull for Saban's LSU team? Well, it was not out of affection for Saban. Affection was never an integral part of Saban's program. Sometimes it seemed like affection might just get in Saban's way.

In East Lansing, Saban would often quote one of his favorite books, the M. Scott Peck bestseller, The Road Less Traveled.

The first section of the book is called "Discipline". The first part of "Discipline" is called "Problems and Pain." The first line of "Problems and Pain" is …

Life is difficult.

Before Saban won any national championships, before anybody knew anything about his beloved "process," before he was even well-known enough to be liked or disliked nationally, that was the guiding principle of Saban's program: Life is difficult. You embraced that, or you didn't last.

"He expects the players and coaches to be perfect in what they do," Casullo says. "He knows how he wants all these things done, and when they're not done that way, it frustrates him."

Entire article: http://www.campusrush.com/michigan-state-spartans-nick-saban-alabama-1521111385.html
 
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Per college football news Nick Saban of LSU might be headed to Cleveland. No links yet, but on there front page in breaking news it talks about it. I dont know if I like this choice, due to the lack of success college coaches have had at the professional level. I guess we will have to wait and see...

www.collegefootballnews.com

Just amused by this first post, given that there is (yet again) a vacancy by the lake. And, Mike & Mike this morning discussing the question, if 'Bama wins the NC this year, will Saban leave for the NFL?

BTW, if it got him out of college ball, it just might be worth it to have the Tide win it all one last time.
 
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