Regardless of whether Alabama or Missouri wins Saturday’s SEC Championship game, the influence of the late Don James will be evident on both sidelines.
Those are his boys, Nick Saban and Gary Pinkel, who are the respective head coaches for the most important game of the season in the SEC. Saban and Pinkel both played for James at Kent State and stayed around to work for him after their college careers ended.
Saban, a safety for the Golden Flashes, was talked into becoming a graduate assistant by James, then stuck around for a few years before beginning his meteoric rise as a head coach. Pinkel, an All-MAC tight end, would follow James from Kent State to Washington and assist him for more than a decade before embarking on a stellar career of his own.
Wherever Saban and Pinkel have gone, they took a lot of Don James with them. Both credit their college coach for being where they are today, which is just about as far away, football-wise, as one can get from Kent, Ohio.
“I think it probably goes back to his roots, our roots,” Saban said of Pinkel. “I think the way we both run our programs to a large degree is the way coach James did it when we were players.”
Said Pinkel: “Coach James was an organizational genius as far as organizing every little aspect of your football program, having a plan in place for everything, evaluating everything after you do it. I’ve been a head coach for 24 years now, and we still have that infrastructure in place.”
James, who won a MAC title in 1972 with Pinkel and Saban, compiled a record of 178-76-3 as the head coach at Kent State (1971-74) and Washington (1975-92). He died in October 2013 at age 80.
These James-minded philosophies will clash Saturday as Saban’s No. 1-ranked Crimson Tide (11-1, 7-1 SEC) must get by No. 16 Missouri (10-2, 7-1) to win the SEC championship and make the first College Football Playoff.
“Focus on what you got to do, channel your energy in the right place,” Saban said, channeling his best Don James. “You can’t think of the magnitude of the game.”
Just three years into their SEC existence, the Tigers are in their second consecutive title game. And like last year, when they lost to Auburn 59-42, Missouri enters the game as huge underdogs. The school seeks its first conference title since sharing the Big 8 championship with Nebraska in 1969.
“This is the fifth divisional championship we’ve won in the last eight years, but we haven’t won a championship in the Big 12 or the SEC,” Pinkel said. “That’s my responsibility. Hopefully we can play well and have an opportunity to do that.”
The matchup appears to be one that will test both coaches’ wits.
Alabama features arguably the best player in college football in wide receiver Amari Cooper. The 6-foot-1, 210-pound junior is bidding to become only the fourth wideout to win the Heisman Trophy, and the first to do it without having kick-return numbers to bolster his stats.
Those stand up pretty well on their own. After catching 13 passes for 224 yards and three touchdowns against Auburn, the 6-foot-1, 210-pound junior leads the SEC in receiving (1,573 yards) and touchdowns scored (14).
Missouri might have an answer to that. If it has an edge anywhere, it is with its defensive line. Led by ends Shane Ray and Markus Golden, the Tigers get after the quarterbacks like nobody else. They have recorded an SEC-best 40 sacks. Ray leads all conference players with 13.5 sacks and 20.5 tackles for loss. Golden has 8.5 sacks himself.
Alabama has given up a league-low 11 sacks this season (.92 a game), thanks in part to the mobility of senior quarterback Blake Sims. But the Tide have first-year starters at both tackles. And freshman Cameron Robinson, who mans the left side, suffered shoulder and ankle injuries in against Auburn. Saban said Friday that Robinson practiced all week and should be fine for Saturday’s game.
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