When coach Nick Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007, he boldly proclaimed “We want to be a champion in everything that we do.” Since that time, Alabama has won three national championships and become the nation’s number one destination for recruits and the top source of NFL talent while simultaneously graduating its players. No other program has won more games, captured more awards, or come close to approaching the kind of consistent success as the Crimson Tide. In Nick Saban vs. College Football , author Christopher Walsh not only explains what separates Saban from his peers and compares his accomplishments to some of the all-time legends, but tells why, if there were a Mount Rushmore of college football coaches, Saban’s face would already be on it. From his upbringing in West Virginia to his relationship with legendary coach Bill Belichick, “the process” has not only led to Saban having a statue along Alabama’s “Walk of Champions” in front of Bryant-Denny Stadium, but the establishment of a new standard that may be unparalleled in college football history. Christopher Walsh is an award-winning sportswriter. His honors include the First Amendment Award from the Associated Press Managing Editors, two Pulitzer Prize nominations, the Herby Kirby Memorial Award from the Alabama Sports Writers Association, and Enterprise Story of the Year from the Football Writers Association of America. He is the author of 100 Things Crimson Tide Fans Need to Know & Do Before They Die and Crimson Storm Surge: Alabama Football Then and Now . He lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Nick Saban vs. College Football By Christopher Walsh Triumph Books Copyright © 2014 Christopher Walsh All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60078-912-0 Contents Foreword by Tony Barnhart, Introduction, Part I, Reasons Why Saban Is Such a Good Coach, How They Stack Up, Part I: National Championships, The Mount Rushmore of College Football: Paul W. "Bear" Bryant, Part II, Saban's National Championship Teams, How They Stack Up, Part II: Dynasties, The Mount Rushmore of College Football: Knute Rockne, Part III, Saban vs. His Peers, How They Stack Up, Part III: All-Americans and the NFL Draft, The Mount Rushmore of College Football: Bobby Bowden, Part IV, Saban vs. History, How They Stack Up, Part IV: Winning Big Games, The Mount Rushmore of College Football: Nick Saban, Acknowledgments, Sources, CHAPTER 1 Reasons Why Saban Is Such a Good Coach His Parents Even though Saban had no intention of coaching until after his playing career had ended at Kent State University, football was in his blood from the start. Nicholas Lou Saban was born on October 31, 1952, and named for his father and his cousin Lou Saban, who coached the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and Denver Broncos, all at the professional level (and headed a coaching tree that included Marty Schottenheimer, Bill Cowher, and Tony Dungy). Looking back, though, just about everything in his life helped prepare him for his career choice. Saban grew up in West Virginia, about a mile from the community of Monongah, where he went to high school. It's just west of Fairmont, not too far from Morgantown, and about 90 miles to the south of Pittsburgh. For football that's strong Steelers territory, but he also liked Roberto Clemente and the Pirates, along with the San Francisco Giants. With no brothers, there were a number of women who had a significant influence on Saban during his younger years. In addition to his mother, Mary, whom he's always been close to, older sister Dianna was quite an athlete herself. His father had three sisters, and his mother was one of four girls, while young Nick spent a lot of time playing at Grandma Saban's house. But the person who undoubtedly had the strongest influence on him was his father, who was extremely well-thought-of by the community. "I was very fortunate growing up, and my dad was a coach, but he never went to college, but he coached Pop Warner, American Legion baseball, all those kinds of things. He also had a service station and a little Dairy Queen restaurant, and I started working at that service station when I was 11 years old, pumping gas," Saban said. "Notice I said it was a service station; it wasn't a self-serve. So you cleaned the windows, checked the oil, checked the tires, collected the money, gave the change, treated the customers in a certain way. We also greased cars, washed cars. So the biggest thing that I learned and started to learn at 11 years old was how important it was to do things correctly. There was a standard of excellence, a perfection. If we washed a car ... I hated the navy blue and black cars because when you wiped them off the streaks were hard to get out, and if there were any streaks when he came [to check], you had to do it over. So we learned a lot about work ethic. We learned a lot about having compassion for other people and respecting other people and we learned about certainly the