Nick Saban

Nick Saban

Nicholas Lou Saban (born October 31, 1951, in Fairmont, West Virginia) is an American college football coach and the current head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Saban took the Alabama position after coaching the Miami Dolphins for two years and previously coaching Alabama's SEC Western division rival, LSU. Saban's eight-year contract for a total of $32 million made him the highest paid college football coach in the United States. Saban's career record as a collegiate head coach is 98-48-1. He is also rumored to be a possible candidate for the head football coach position at West Virginia University.

Assistant football coach

Saban was an assistant coach at Kent State, Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy and Michigan State in NCAA Division I-A, and with the Houston Oilers and Cleveland Browns in the National Football League. Having worked under Bill Belichick in Cleveland, he is part of the Belichick coaching tree.

Head football coach

Toledo

Saban was hired to lead the Toledo Rockets in 1990. Coming off of a 6-5 season in both 1988 and 1989, the Rockets found quick success under Nick Saban by going 9-2. The two games that the Rockets lost all season came by narrow margins: one point to Central Michigan, and four points to Navy. With the 9-2 season, Toledo was co-champions of the Mid-American Conference. Saban left Toledo after one season.

Michigan State

When Saban arrived in East Lansing, Michigan prior to the 1995 season, MSU had not had a winning season since 1990, and the team was sanctioned by the NCAA for recruiting violations committed under his predecessor, his former mentor, George Perles.

• 1995-1997 - Beginning in 1995, Saban moderately improved MSU's fortunes, taking the Spartans to minor bowl games (all of which they lost by double-digit margins) in each of his first three seasons. From 1995 to 1997, Michigan State finished 6-5-1, 6-6, and 7-5. In comparison, MSU had finished 5-6, 6-6 and 5-6 (prior to NCAA forfeits) in 1992-1994.

• 1998 - On November 7, 1998, the Spartans scored a major upset by defeating #1 ranked Ohio State 28-24 at Ohio Stadium. However, even after that stunning upset (and an early-season rout of then-highly-ranked Notre Dame) the Spartans finished a disappointing 6-6, including three last-minute losses featuring diastrous turnovers, defensive lapses, and special-teams misplays, and failed to earn a bowl invitation. There was wide media speculation that failure to make a bowl in 1999 could cost Saban his job.

• 1999 - Saban led the Spartans to a 9-2 season that included wins over Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. Conversely, the two losses were routs at the hands of Purdue and Wisconsin, thus knocking the Spartans out of BCS contention. Following the final regular-season game against Penn State, Saban abruptly resigned to accept the head coaching position with LSU. Saban's assistant head coach and successor, Bobby Williams, then coached MSU to a Citrus Bowl victory over Florida, giving the Spartans an overall record of 10-2 for the 1999 season. It would be the best season in terms of wins for the Spartans since 1965, and it would see the Spartans reach their highest ranking since the 1966 team.

Louisiana State

In December of 1999, Saban accepted an offer from LSU to become their next head coach.

• 2000 - In 2000, the Tigers went 8-4 and won the Peach Bowl. The season was somewhat mired by several embarrassing losses, including a 17-34 blowout loss to the Auburn Tigers, a 10-13 loss to the UAB Blazers, and a 9-41 blowout loss to the Florida Gators.

• 2001 - Saban enjoyed his best season thus far on the Bayou, as he led LSU to a 10-3 record, including an SEC Championship and a Sugar Bowl victory. After a loss to the Ole Miss Rebels, the Tigers closed out the year with six straight wins, including a win over Tennessee in the 2001 SEC Championship Game, and a 47-34 win over Illinois in the 2002 Sugar Bowl. It was the first outright SEC championship for LSU since 1986, and the first time the Tigers had won the Sugar Bowl since 1968.

• 2002 - The season opened with high expectations, but a 26-8 thrashing at the hands of Virginia Tech raised serious questions about their outlook. However, the Tigers would rebound to win their next six straight, but after a mid-season injury to quarterback Matt Mauck, LSU lost four of their last six games to close the season, including a 35-20 loss to Texas in the Cotton Bowl, and finished 8-5.

• 2003 - The Tigers started this season with five wins, including a 17-10 victory in Tiger Stadium over the defending SEC champion, and then undefeated, Georgia Bulldogs. They lost the following week to Florida, 19-7. After the loss to Florida, LSU ended their regular season with a win over the Ole Miss Rebels to win the SEC West. After winning the SEC West, the Tigers defeated the Georgia Bulldogs to win the SEC. They were selected to play the Oklahoma Sooners in the Sugar Bowl, which was the host of the BCS Championship Game in 2003. The Tigers won the game 21-14. LSU became national champions for only the second time in school history, and for the first time since Paul Dietzel and Billy Cannon led the Tigers to the national championship in 1958.

• 2004 - LSU finished the regular season 9-2, and lost to the Iowa Hawkeyes in the Capital One Bowl 30-25. At the end of the 2004 season, Saban left LSU to coach the Miami Dolphins.

Miami Dolphins

Nick Saban accepted the job of head coach for the Miami Dolphins on Christmas Day, 2004.

• 2005 - The season and the Nick Saban tenure officially kicked off with a 34-10 win against the Denver Broncos. From there, however, the Dolphins struggled, losing seven of their next nine games to fall to 3-7. The two wins came over the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints, a game that took place in Tiger Stadium due to Hurricane Katrina. The main culprit to the Dolphins' struggles was an underperforming offense that struggled to put points on the board. After a frustrating two months, however, the Dolphins would rally late in the season, as they won their final six games, including a win to end the season in Foxboro over the New England Patriots. The team finished the year 9-7, and narrowly missed the playoffs in Saban's first season.

• 2006 - Going into the 2006 season, the Dolphins were expected to contend for a playoff spot. The season, however, turned out to be a major disappointment. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper never recovered from his devastating knee injury from the previous season, and was ultimately benched after the fourth game of the season, when the Dolphins lost to the Houston Texans. Culpepper was eventually put on Injured Reserve, and it is still uncertain if he can ever return to his previous form. Meanwhile, as Culpepper was unable to play, Drew Brees, who doctors feared would never be the same again and who Saban had also considered signing, had an incredible year for the New Orleans Saints. After starting the season 1-6, however, the Dolphins got hot. They won four straight games, including wins over the Chicago Bears, who were then unbeaten, and the Kansas City Chiefs. Suddenly, the Dolphins were back in the playoff hunt at 5-6, but a 24-10 loss the following week to the Jacksonville Jaguars all but ended their playoff hopes. The Dolphins would rebound the following week to administer a 21-0 shelling to the New England Patriots, a game which shocked commentators over the fashion in which the Dolphins easily dominated the heavily favored Patriots. Unfortunately, the win would be the last bright spot for the Dolphins. Quarterback Joey Harrington was playing worse and worse, and was eventually benched in favor of third-string quarterback Cleo Lemon. While the defense was very good, the offense was anemic, with the only bright spot being Ronnie Brown, Saban's first draft choice, who gained over 1,000 rushing yards on the season. The Dolphins would lose their next two games to the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets to fall to 6-10 on the season. This was Saban's first losing record as a head coach.

Changes outside Miami, however, were brewing. On November 27 2006, The University of Alabama announced that head coach Mike Shula had been dismissed. Nick Saban was rumored to be at the top of Alabama's wish list, but Saban refused to discuss the job while his NFL season was still underway. During the month of December 2006, Saban was repeatedly questioned by the media about the Alabama job, and he repeatedly denied the rumors in his weekly press conferences, adamantly stating on December 21 "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach." Saban did eventually meet with Alabama officials on January 1 2007, following the Dolphins' season ending loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

Alabama

Saban during a pre-game interview

Nick Saban announced on January 3, 2007 that he accepted an offer to become Alabama's 27th head coach, following a meeting with Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga.

On January 4, 2007, Nick Saban was officially introduced as the head football coach of The University of Alabama at a press conference on the Alabama campus.

On September 1, 2007, his Crimson Tide opened the season with a 52-6 win over the Western Carolina Catamounts, scoring more points than during any game in the 2006 season.

He became the fifth Alabama coach since 1900 to start his first season 3-0, earning a win over then-ranked #16 Arkansas Razorbacks. However, Bama ended the regular season with a disappointing 6-6 record, including a 4 game losing streak to end the season.

File:NickSaban LSU-AL-07t.jpg

Nick Saban addressing a player and Coach Smart on the sidelines of the 2007 LSU game

Criticisms and defenses

Saban's decision to return to college football was met with a great deal of criticism from both the NFL and college football realms. Saban was referred to as a "liar," by ESPN's Pat Forde and "shameless" by the Chicago Sun-Times. When asked whether Saban was "a raging fraud", Hall of Fame coach Don Shula responded, "What other conclusion can you draw? The guy likes to hear himself talk and then doesn't follow up on what he says." Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has refused to publicly criticize Saban over the move.

According to the Dolphin's veteran lineman, Keith Traylor, he would have retired if Saban returned to Miami. To quote, "If the regime had stayed the same, I wouldn't have come back. You just didn't want to hear it. I can't talk to you that way, don't talk to me that way. We're grown men. We get paid just the same." Fellow Dolphin's defensive lineman Vonnie Holliday echoed Traylor's remarks. "There's not as much yelling and screaming on the field [now]," Holliday said. "There's a sense of a little more relaxed atmosphere and going about business, and I think it's great."

On the other hand, 5-time Dolphin pro bowler Jason Taylor has a different view of his former head coach. He was quoted in an interview with Sports Illustrated's Mike Silver, who wrote, "Taylor is more charitable toward Nick Saban, the Dolphins coach who in January bolted to Alabama only two years into a five-year contract, after repeatedly denying that he was interested in the Crimson Tide job." "I loved Nick; I thought he was great," Taylor says. "He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but I was his kind of guy. Yeah, his decision was selfishly based, but at the end of the day, isn't everybody going to take the best job that's available? Find me one NFL head coach who didn't lie last year. I don't want to get too political, but we're in a war based on false pretenses. We have problems in this nation with health care and affordable housing, and how many politicians have lied about that? And people want to freak out because Nick Saban wouldn't coach a football team?"

After leaving LSU for the Dolphins, Saban's agent, Jimmy Sexton, revealed "numerous offers" from NFL teams Saban had allegedly turned down earlier in his career, thus retroactively confirming most of the rumors.

On January 3 2007, Saban met with members of the Miami media following his introductory press conference at the University of Alabama. During an off-the-record portion of this meeting, Saban used the term "coonass" while relaying a story told to him by a member of the LSU board of trustees. It is unclear whether the term was used by the LSU official, then quoted by Saban, or Saban used the term in an effort to put the story in proper context. The term coonass is regarded as a badge of ethnic pride by some members of the Cajun community, however it is considered an epithet by others. Therefore, Saban soon explained, "The term in question is not language that I use or condone, and I can understand how some would take offense." Saban and many University of Alabama officials were upset that the recording was released by the media due to the fact that Saban had told the reporters that they were off the record.

On November 19, 2007 Nick Saban at a press conference after a loss to underdog Louisiana-Monroe stated, "Changes in history usually occur after some kind of catastrophic event. It may be 9-11, which sort of changed the spirit of America relative to catastrophic events. Pearl Harbor kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever, and that was a catastrophic event." A spokesperson for him said, "What Coach Saban said did not correlate losing a football game with tragedy...The message was that true spirit and unity become evident in the most difficult of times. Those were two tremendous examples that everyone can identify with."

Yearly coaching results

College career

Year	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Bowl/playoffs	Coaches#	AP°
Toledo Rockets (Mid-American Conference) (1990)
1990	Toledo	9–2	7–1			—	—
Toledo:		9–2	7–1
Michigan State Spartans (Big Ten Conference) (1995–1999)
1995	Michigan State	6–5–1	4–3–1		L Independence	—	—
1996	Michigan State	6–6	5–3		L Sun	—	—
1997	Michigan State	7–5	4–4		L Aloha	—	—
1998	Michigan State	6–6	4–4			—	—
1999~	Michigan State	9–2	6–2			7	7
Michigan State:		35–24–1	23–16–1	~Saban resigned 11/30/99. Williams coached bowl game.
LSU Tigers (Southeastern Conference) (2000–2004)
2000	LSU	8–4	5–3		W Peach	—	22
2001	LSU	10–3	6–3	1st	W Sugar†	8	7
2002	LSU	8–5	5–3		L Cotton	—	—
2003	LSU	13–1	8–1	1st	W Sugar†	1	2
2004	LSU	9–3	6–2		L Capital One	16	16
LSU:		48–16	30–12
Alabama Crimson Tide (Southeastern Conference) (2007–present)
2007*	Alabama	6–6	4–4	5th (West)	Independence	—	—
Alabama:		6–6	4-4	* Current as of November 24, 2007.
Total:		98–48–1
National championship         Conference title         Conference division title or championship game berth
†Indicates Bowl Coalition, Bowl Alliance, BCS, or CFP / New Years' Six bowl. #Rankings from final Coaches Poll. °Rankings from final AP Poll.

National Football League

Year	Team	Overall	Finish	Playoffs
2005	Miami Dolphins	9-7	2nd AFC East	None
2006	Miami Dolphins	6-10	4th AFC East	None
TOTALS		15-17

Personal

He is married to Terry Saban (formerly Constable) from West Virginia; they have two children, Nicholas and Kristin.
Lou Saban, Nick's cousin, is a former two year All-Big Ten Indiana University star football player and head coach of the NFL Buffalo Bills, Denver Broncos and New England Patriots.
Nick graduated from Kent State University in Kent, Ohio.

External links

• RollTide.com: Official University of Alabama Crimson Tide athletics site
• RollTide.com: Transcript of Saban's Remarks at Introductory Press Conference
• College Football Data Warehouse: Nick Saban Collegiate Coaching Data
• Nick Saban Quotes