COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF
Semifinals
Orange Bowl: No. 1 Clemson (13-0) vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (11-1), 4 p.m. Dec. 31, ESPN
Cotton Bowl: No. 2 Alabama (12-1) vs. No. 3 Michigan State (12-1), 8 p.m. Dec. 31, ESPN
Championship game
Semifinal winners will play at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 11 in Glendale, Ariz., ESPN
After defeating one of his former assistants in the SEC Championship game, Alabama coach Nick Saban will take on another in the College Football Playoff.
So it goes as the Saban coaching tree continues to sprout head coaches in high-profile jobs.
In the SEC title game, Alabama defeated Florida, coached by Jim McElwain, the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator under Saban in 2008-11. And in the playoff-semifinal Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve, Alabama will face Michigan State, coached by Mark Dantonio, the defensive-backs coach under Saban at Michigan State for five seasons in the 1990s.
During a recent appearance at the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta by the coaches of the four playoff teams, Saban was seated on a stage next to his latest protege-turned-opponent, Dantonio.
“He’s certainly done a lot better job at Michigan State than I ever could do,” Saban said.
He may have a point. Dantonio is 87-32 with three Big Ten championships as Michigan State’s head coach since 2007. Saban was 34-24-1 with no Big Ten titles at Michigan State from 1995-99, although he had to deal with NCAA probation and scholarship reductions for violations that occurred during his predecessor’s tenure.
Dantonio smiled when a reporter asked Saban for his memories of Dantonio from 20 years ago. Then a reporter flipped the question, asking Dantonio what it was like to work for the famously demanding Saban back then.
“He’s not going to smile about that one,” Saban interjected.
Dantonio said he learned much from Saban during those years, particularly about coaching defensive backs, both coaches’ specialty. He said he wouldn’t be where he is now if Saban hadn’t hired him back then.
“Yeah, it’s difficult. Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s difficult,” Dantonio said of working for Saban. “But there’s a silver lining with that. I knew when that ball went over our (defensive back’s) head, he was never going to look at me and say, ‘What were you telling them?’
“He taught me a lot organizationally and (about) preparation for games. A lot of the things we do and the way our program is shaped is patterned after, really, Jim Tressel (under whom Dantonio coached at Youngstown State from 1986-90) and Nick Saban.”
Coaches with ties to Saban have become increasingly in demand as Saban has won four national championships, one at LSU and three at Alabama.
In this state, the head coaches of both the Falcons and UGA worked for Saban. The Falcons’ Dan Quinn was Saban’s defensive-line coach with the Miami Dolphins in 2005-06. And Georgia’s newly hired Kirby Smart will cap his 11 seasons as a Saban assistant, the past seven as Alabama’s defensive coordinator, by continuing to work with the Crimson Tide through the playoff.
Other former Saban assistants with notable head-coaching jobs include Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, who was offensive coordinator under Saban at LSU from 2000-04, and newly hired South Carolina coach Will Muschamp, who was on Saban’s defensive staff with LSU and the Dolphins.
Although Saban and Dantonio are only five years apart in age — 64 and 59, respectively — their paths first crossed when Dantonio was playing high school football in Zanesville, Ohio, in the 1970s and Saban was recruiting the area for Kent State. Dantonio, an all-state safety, went to South Carolina.
Before he was hired by Saban as a Michigan State assistant in 1995, Dantonio was an assistant at Akron, Youngstown State and Kansas.
“Mark coached at Kansas with Glen Mason, who I coached with at Ohio State, and had done a really good job,” Saban recalled. “I thought we were fortunate to be able to hire him, and he did a fantastic job for us in the five years that we were there.
“I always thought he’d do great if he ever got an opportunity to be a head coach. … To see people who did a great job for us when we were together and worked hard because they had goals and aspirations that they wanted to accomplish … go on and do that is something that makes me feel proud and very happy,”
They have opposed each other as head coaches once previously, in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando at the end of the 2010 season. Alabama defeated Michigan State 49-7 in that game.
Saban and Dantonio will cross paths again on New Year’s Eve, a long way from Zanesville High.
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