Clearly, it is a moment for passage in football, as two ages end in the same week. There went Nick Saban, there went Bill Belichick, men who worked in worlds where hard-earned trophies are supposed to come only in a dribble, only they figured out how to make it them gush. There went seven national championships and six Super Bowl titles.
Great dramatic touch on fate’s part, news of their departures coming within 24 hours of one another, reminding us in one big gulp that time moves on. And in a way, Belichick’s exit puts the summation of Saban’s legacy into even sharper relief. It is even easier to see Saban’s greatness when you place the two now-closed dynasties next to one another.
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OK, yeah, to consider Belichick’s feats reminds us that the NFL was one nut that Nick Saban could not crack. The SEC, as rugged as it is, was never as unyielding for him as the AFC East, where he went 15-17 in two years with the Miami Dolphins.
And yeah, seeing Belichick go out at New England can’t help but make us recall that the manner of Saban’s departure from the Dolphins to Alabama was not his finest hour. This was late December of 2006, amid mass speculation that Saban was interested in the vacant Tide position, and he vowed at a press conference with one of those straight and stern Saban faces, “I guess I’ll have to say it, I’m not going to be the Alabama coach.”
A few days later, he was in Tuscaloosa. Oh, well. His Alabama defense could be pretty good at disguising its intentions, too.
But here’s the thing. Belichick’s historic run — at least in New England; who's to say he might not seek a last run somewhere else? — will forever be linked to one quarterback. Nobody could sanely question Belichick’s accomplishments but the fact remains he conspicuously ran out of title contention in New England once Tom Brady was no longer throwing passes for the Patriots. Also, when Belichick decided on a young prospect he really wanted, he often needed only to draft him or trade for him, not have to out-recruit Georgia and LSU. The good ones stayed in New England for years and years.
Saban had to constantly reinvent his roster and search for his troops. The very essence of college athletics speaks to transition, especially now. The players come and go, and today they really come and go. Strong forces pull at any hope of stability. Kids are kids, their moods change, their priorities wander, their eligibility runs out. There are good reasons so few coaches stay on top seemingly forever, impervious to deterioration or even doubt.
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But Saban did.
There are those numbers so outrageous, they seem illogical.
How he coached 117 home games at Alabama and lost only eight.
How his Tide played 127 unranked opponents and were beaten only four times.
How Alabama led at halftime 187 times under his watch and lost only nine.
How the Tide went 36-14 against top-10 opponents since 2008.
How Alabama, with all its tradition, did not have a single Heisman winner on the day Saban took the job in 2007, and now has four.
How, in the past 15 college football seasons, Alabama has six national championships and the rest of the entire world has nine
How several of the players on his last Alabama team were in nursery school the last time the Tide were ranked lower than 17th in an Associated Press poll.
How Alabama has been ranked in 261 consecutive Associated Press polls, and the next best is 114.
How the SEC this century has been the most powerful and deep football league the sport has ever seen, and Saban’s Tide have still gone 121-18 in conference games.
How the College Football Playoff has been in existence for 10 years, meaning there have been only 40 available spots for the entirety of the nation’s teams — and Alabama has taken 20 percent of them.
Never blinking, never budging. A bad year meant only 10 wins. And it wasn’t done with the same quarterback. Whose legacy is greater, Saban or Belichick? Might as well go to the Louvre and rank masterpieces. Their worlds are too different to compare. But to recognize Belichick makes you remember that Saban never got to offer his stars new contracts. And he still never stopped winning, stacking the rewards of consistency so high that it is hard to imagine anyone ever following his footsteps to such a peak.
It was a remarkable ride and it did not start easily. His first season at Alabama, the 7-6 Tide were beaten by Louisiana Monroe in Tuscaloosa. They lost as many games in November of 2007 — four — as Alabama would see in four seasons from 2015-2018, when the Saban dynasty was really cooking. But once in full motion, there was no stopping it.
And good luck to the guy replacing him.
History offers many examples of the plight of those who come next after legends in college, and it is not often pretty. They never quite match the ghosts who preceded them — usually in wins and most of all aura — and they pay a price.
The most renowned example is John Wooden at UCLA in basketball. Wooden spent 27 glorious seasons with the Bruins. There were six different UCLA coaches in the next 14 years. His immediate successor, Gene Bartow, went 52-9 and to the Final Four but was gone after two seasons, drained by the unrealistic expectations.
In football, Frank Solich was 58-19 at Nebraska after Tom Osborne, and still sacked. So was Earle Bruce at Ohio State, even though his Buckeyes were 81-26-1 post-Woody Hayes.
Alabama, of course, has been down this road. Bear Bryant made his legend in 25 seasons. There would be six Tide coaches in the next 24 years. Ray Perkins went first and lasted four.
Someone must soon start the business of following Saban and how intimidating might it be, to keep walking by the statue of the man you have been hired to replace?
Nobody wins forever, mostly because nobody coaches forever. The clock ticks for everyone, but the great ones find a way to slow it down. Two guys who did now share the exit ramp. Easy at this moment to see the similarities of their journeys. The differences, too.