Nick Saban brought the Alabama Crimson Tide back to being a national power in college football, and his legacy is fully secure no matter how he finishes.
When you mention the greatest college football coaches of all time, Alabama’s Nick Saban is high on that list, if not at the very top. With seven conference titles (five with Alabama), five national titles (four with Alabama) and countless awards filling his resume, Saban has solidified himself as a legend in college coaching.
The NFL…not so much, but I digress.
Yet despite his sustained track record of success in the game, there are still rumblings that Saban may have more to accomplish if he wants his legacy as one of the greatest to remain intact. Last week, a columnist from Gridiron Now penned a piece about how if Saban were to lose another national championship game, it would have a negative affect on how he is viewed.
Let me grab my Lee Corso pencil real quick and give it the ol’ “Not so fast, my friend”.
To think that another national championship loss would tarnish or even remotely negatively affect Saban’s legacy and stature as a legendary coach is a misguided argument at best.
Saban will be considered one of the best to ever coach in the game, possibly the best ever, regardless of how future seasons at Alabama – where it looks like he’ll stay until he retires – pan out for him.
Alabama Crimson Tide Football
The comparisons to championship coaches like Bear Bryant aren’t even valid. The Gridiron Now writer stated “And while five wins versus one loss is hardly a record worth frowning upon, but it does leave the door open as to who the greatest coach ever is if Saban fails to reach six titles and tie Bryant.”
But Bryant coached in a much different era, with different rules, different paths to championships and – most importantly – far less games to win in a season.
Saban has won his four Alabama national championships during the BCS and College Football Playoff eras, both of which had definitive national championship games set aside. He also had to navigate eight SEC Championship Games, going 7-1 in those contests, as well as national semifinal games in the last three seasons, going 2-1 in those games.
All of that before Saban even sniffed a title game, which he now has an unreal 5-1 record in as a coach.
That’s just three losses in the games which matter most over the past 16 seasons. Even Saban’s mentor, Bill Belichick, has two Super Bowl losses and four AFC Championship Game losses.
While Bear Bryant’s six national titles are certainly impressive, one has to consider that he coached far fewer regular season games, no conference championship game, and only a single bowl game which may or may not have been against what would be considered the number two team in the nation.
Bear was unquestionably a legendary coach, but would his teams have been able to withstand a 12-game regular season and then a gauntlet of games against top teams to even reach a championship game? My guess is Bear might have a title or two less given those circumstances.
Losing “another” national championship game would mean Saban found a way to win out a regular season, a conference title game and a national semifinal once again just to get there. Disappointing end? Of course…but not a ding to the legacy.
Would Alabama opponents troll and have fun at the expense of Saban were he to lose another national championship game as head coach of the Crimson Tide? Most certainly, but that would die down quickly and wouldn’t become a permanent part of the Saban conversation.
Next: Most Overrated SEC Football Teams of Last 10 Years
The truth is, Saban has done all he needs to do in this game. Any further titles – conference or otherwise – are just extra icing on an already over-iced cake. Unless the unlikely scenario of Saban going from 5-1 in national championship games to 5-5 or worse happens, he’s got nothing to worry about in terms of his legacy.