If we learned anything from the SEC’s Media Days – of which there are four days’ worth, so the league can Just Brag More – it’s that the “S” and “E” could stand for Saban Envy. Even the schedule told us so.
On Monday, we heard Jimbo Fisher of Texas A&M. On Tuesday, Kirby Smart of Georgia. On Wednesday, Jeremy Pruitt of Tennessee. On Thursday, last but maybe not least, Will Muschamp of South Carolina. All apprenticed under Nick Saban. All have become head coaches in the realm Saban rules. (Even if he’s not technically the reigning SEC champ, which is the case as we speak.)
The SEC still reminds us of its seven consecutive national titles taken from 2006 through 2012. Four programs won those, Saban’s Alabama taking three. What’s notable is that, since Florida State and Jimbo ended that run, the only SEC team to win it all is Bama. Yes, Georgia came excruciatingly close in January – and Auburn was 14 seconds away from winning against FSU – but a league that has spent almost a decade chasing Saban hasn’t closed the gap. On the contrary.
Les Miles, who succeeded Saban at LSU, won the BCS in 2007 and played Bama for the 2011 title. That desultory 21-0 loss essentially ended the Tigers’ time as a national power. Miles was almost fired in November 2015 and was fired in September 2016. Florida and Urban Meyer traded mighty blows with Saban’s Crimson Tide for the 2008 and 2009 SEC championships, splitting those games and those BCS titles. Meyer left to spend time with his family after the 2010 season; the Gators are on their third coach since.
Gene Chizik took Auburn to the 2010 national title. (Actually, Cam Newton did most of the lifting.) Chizik was fired after the 2012 season. Under Gus Malzahn, the Tigers won the SEC in 2013 and the West in 2017; they went 23-16 in between. Tennessee has had four coaches since 2009, six if you count two interims, seven if you count Greg Schiano. Georgia fired Mark Richt in 2015 because athletic director Greg McGarity decided the man who won the SEC twice and the East five times could no longer deliver championships.
The league changed when Saban returned to it after two years with the Miami Dolphins. He’d done fine work at LSU, winning the SEC in 2001 and the BCS in 2003, but Saban in Baton Rouge wasn’t the Saban we behold today. Back then, he was one of many good coaches in a very good conference. Once Meyer exited, Saban became the only coach who mattered. There was a time when he and Meyer were seen as peers, but that, too, has passed. Saban has twice as many national titles.
The greatest criticism of Richt in his latter days was that he wasn’t Saban. (DNA will confirm that nobody else is Saban.) But much of the rest of the SEC, weary at having become the great man’s fiefdom, threw up its hands and decided to hire guys who’ve learned at the feet of the master. If we count Saban himself, 35.7 percent of the league’s coaches are fruits of the same tree, and none of them are in no-chance jobs. They’re at Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M and South Carolina.
One reason McGarity acted when he did was the realization that South Carolina, which had seen Steve Spurrier resign in October 2015, was making eyes at Kirby Smart, Saban’s longtime defensive coordinator. If the Bulldogs didn’t fire Richt and move on Smart, they might well have been playing against – and losing to – a former Bulldog for the next decade. Once Georgia snagged Smart, the Gamecocks settled on Muschamp, who was a dud at Florida.
You might ask: If you can’t win at a school that has every resource, why should you be expected to win at a school with a lesser history and a shallower recruiting pool? Because he worked for Saban. And say this for Muschamp: He has been better at South Carolina – the Gamecocks went 9-4 last season, beating Michigan in the Outback Bowl – than I’d have imagined. As Muschamp said Thursday, “When you work for coach Saban, you get a total education in the game of football.” Lesson 1 always being: Recruit like your hair’s on fire, which all the sons of Saban do.
Fisher was Saban’s offensive coordinator at LSU. Pruitt was defensive coordinator for Fisher at FSU and Richt at Georgia, but the reason he’s the new man in Big Orange Country is his work under Saban the past two years. (Well, that and Tennessee’s amazingly ham-handed search.) Jimbo will make A&M the West’s second-best program very soon. Pruitt’s prospects are less sunny. Apologies for the mixed metaphor, but he’s a blunt instrument in a fishbowl job – and glass breaks.
Asked Thursday about the proliferation of Saban acolytes in prestige jobs, Muschamp said: “Athletics directors are always looking for the next mold of what could be.” If Saban, who’ll turn 67 in October, keeps going, he could find that his greatest competitors are the guys he trained. Smart and Georgia almost beat him. He and Jimbo will go round and round in the West.
Still, we've learned from Mike Krzyzewski, who has five national championships, how hard it is for students to trump teacher. Many have tried, but only Notre Dame's Mike Brey has done the deed. As Brey said: "I know he's been a great mentor. I also know he likes to eat his young."
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