The best coach in college football history: Nick Saban or Paul “Bear” Bryant?
If you base the debate on national championships, there’s your short list. It consists of two Alabama coaching legends.
The iconic Bryant won six at Alabama. And with Alabama’s 45-40 victory over Clemson on Monday night, Saban has four national championships over his last seven seasons in Tuscaloosa. His other championship came at LSU in 2003.
This is a fun tap-room discussion that doesn’t have a definitive answer. When we compare coaches from different eras, it’s impossible to adjust the circumstances faced by each coach in a way that subjects them to the same standards.
Bryant has those six national titles, one more than Saban. So that gives Bryant the edge, right? Well, not necessarily. Bryant won his six in a 37-season career that ended in 1982. Saban has five in his 20 seasons as a college head coach.
If I have to cast a vote, it would go to Saban.
This isn’t a generational thing. I’m nearly 57. I’m familiar with the Bryant legend — and quite fond of it. I’m old enough to remember watching Bryant’s Alabama teams of the late 1960s and 1970s. My appreciation and respect for Coach Bryant increased when I got to know one of his former players and assistant coaches, my friend Gene Stallings — who won a national championship coaching Alabama in 1992. I listened to hours of Bear Bryant stories from Stallings and could never get enough.
This isn’t a short-attention thing, either. I actually have an aversion to that. I can’t stand it when some NBA player has a couple of excellent seasons and wins a championship and a breathless talk-show host instantly rates the player N0. 5 on the list of the top 10 players in league history. Slow down, bubba.
So why Saban? This is by no means a complete list, but here are some quick-hit reasons for putting him ahead of the Bear:
First of all: it isn’t true that any coach could win at Alabama because of the dynasty created by Bryant
It isn’t true. Saban isn’t taking advantage of the program that Bryant created. Saban didn’t succeed Bryant. Saban didn’t succeed Stallings, either. Saban took the ‘Bama job in 2007 after an ugly 10-season stretch led by three failed coaches: the scandal-plagued Mike DuBose (24-25); the over-his-head Dennis Franchione (17-8), and the overmatched Mike Shula (26-25). The Crimson Tide were 67-58 between 1997 and 2006. Saban’s nine-season record at Alabama is 105-18, a winning percentage of .854. In 25 seasons at Alabama, Bryant’s winning percentage was .824.
Compared to Bryant’s glory years, the SEC is much tougher now
SEC teams have won eight of the last 10 national championships. And during the 25 season before that, SEC teams won three national titles, total. Back to Saban: the SEC has won nine of the last 13 national championships going back to his 2003 title at LSU. That means Saban has won five of the last 13 national titles; the rest of the SEC over that time has combined for four national championships. When Saban and LSU won the title in 2003, the SEC was ranked first nationally in conference strength of schedule. In Saban’s four national-championship seasons at Alabama — 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015 — the SEC was ranked No. 1 in strength of schedule in three of the four years with the exception being No. 2 in SOS in 2011.
In Bryant’s six national title seasons — three of which were “split” championships with the AP and UPI polls disagreeing on No. 1 — the SEC was rated with the nation’s toughest schedule once, in 1965. The conference was ranked no better than third in national strength of schedule in Bryant’s other five title seasons.
In his championship seasons, Saban faced more difficult schedules
During the Bryant’s six national title seasons, the Crimson Tide’s difficulty of schedule was rated among the top 15 nationally only twice, in 1965 (12th) and 1978 (5th). And three of Bryant’s national-title squads played schedules that didn’t qualify for the national top 30 in difficulty. And what about Saban? His LSU team was ranked 41st in SOS. But with his other national champions, Alabama played the nation’s No. 2 schedule in 2009, the No. 17 schedule in 2011, the No. 14 schedule in 2012, and the No. 1 toughest schedule in 2015.
The BCS and the College Football Playoff, while imperfect, eliminated confusion in the polling place
It isn’t as easy to win a national title during the BCS and Football Playoff era. In his day, Bryant could often cherry-pick bowl games that best gave his Crimson Tide a chance to win and move up in consideration for the “mythical” national championship determined away from the field, by voters in the AP and UPI polls. And Bryant also benefited by the timing of the voting in the olden-days system.
For example, two of Bryant’s championships (1964, 1973) were awarded to Alabama despite the fact that the Crimson Tide ended the season by losing bowl games after the release of a final poll that crowned the mythical champion. That wouldn’t happen today. In 1973 No. 1 Alabama lost to No. 3 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl but still received “national champions” status by the UPI coaches’ poll, which was conducted before the teams played.
Bryant’s six national title seasons ended with a win over No. 9 ranked team in 1961, a defeat to the No. 5 team in 1964, a victory over the No. 3 team in 1965, a defeat to the No. 3 team in 1973, a win over the a No. 1 team in 1978, and a triumph over the No. 6 team in 1979.
Saban shared the 2003 national title with USC in a poll-splitting deal. But in capturing his three national championships at Alabama, Saban had to defeat No. 2 Texas in 2009, No. 1 LSU in 2011, No. 1 Notre Dame in 2012 and top-ranked Clemson this season. And don’t forget how Saban and Alabama had to survive SEC championship games along the way to No. 1. And this season the Tide also had to get by No. 3 Michigan State in the national semifinals just to get a crack at a No. 1 Clemson team that had won 17 consecutive games going back to last season.
According to ESPN, Saban has the most wins in CFB history against teams ranked in the top three nationally
(Hat tip, ESPN.) Saban is 13-8 in such games; Lou Holtz is second with 12 wins. The difference is, Holtz also lost 16 games vs. top-three opponents.
In the modern era, Saban’s teams have to play more games to become national champions
To win a national title these days, it’s a 15-game climb to the top of the mountain. And that includes an eight-game SEC schedule. In Bryant’s day, teams could earn a national championship by playing no more than 11 or 12 games and a six-game SEC schedule. Yeah, but aren’t the overall schedules softer now? Actually — no, they are not. And that’s even with a couple of cupcakes included on the schedule. Earlier in the piece I cited the respective strength of schedules during Coach Bryant’s national title seasons as they related to Saban’s SOS in his championship years.
Alabama has been ranked No. 1 in the AP poll for at least a week in each of the last nine seasons
(Hat tip, ESPN.) That snapped a tie with the Miami teams coached by Jimmy Johnson and no other school has a streak of consecutive seasons of being No. 1 in the nation for at least a week that stretched longer than five.
Saban is working with fewer scholarships, loses more players to the NFL, and is taking on enriched programs
Bryant began coaching at Alabama in 1958, and had no limit on the number of scholarships he could hand out until the early 1970s, when the NCAA capped scholarships at 105. This absence of limitations and the generous 105-scholarship allotment enabled Bryant’s Alabama to hoard talent and maintain an edge over rivals. Even in the late stages of his career, when the scholarships were reduced to 95, Bryant still had more to offer than Saban does now; Saban has coached under the current 85-scholarship limit during his time at Michigan State, LSU and ‘Bama. Compared to the system in place when Bryant dominated, the good/great college football players can leave earlier for the NFL draft now, and that presents another challenge for Saban, who must maintain a high recruiting standard to keep Alabama stocked with elite talent.
And with the revenue pouring into college football, more programs can increase recruiting budgets and have access to top recruits. The massive amount of money in the sport, generated through lavish TV contracts, has certainly given weaker teams a chance to move up, and compete at levels that once seemed beyond their reach. In Bryant’s time — with much of his coaching career playing out during integration — fewer college football programs had the financial means to become serious competitors on the national stage. It was a smaller college football universe back then.
Saban hasn’t had an undefeated team at Alabama; the Bear had three. But again, Saban’s teams have had to survive more treacherous schedules than Bryant’s squads, making it less likely to avoid getting tagged with at least one loss. Bryant also won more conference championships than Saban, but it was easier to conquer the SEC when the mighty Bear ruled the south.
If you choose Bryant over Saban, you’ll get no argument from me. I revere Bryant. And there’s certainly a basis for putting Bear at No. 1, all time. But in trying to do the best I could to apply historical context, I gave the edge to Saban.
As current Alabama athletic director Bill Battle — who played football for Bryant — told reporters after the Crimson Tide prevailed over Clemson: “I think Coach Bryant is the greatest of his era. I think Coach Saban is the greatest of his era. I think they’d both be proud of each other. And if they had to play each other, I don’t know who I’d bet on.”
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
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