Anyone who knows me knows that I strongly dislike Nick Saban
and the Alabama Crimson Tide. I think I am not alone in that dislike too. For
some, it is his feeble attempt at football swag; for others it is simply the
fact that he has won so often; and for others who know football, it is simply
the fact that he is not as great of a coach as people make him out to be. I say
this for the following reasons:
Saban has only deserved one championship he has won at
Alabama. First of all, in 2010, the Texas Longhorns were dominating the game,
and I strongly believe that they would have won if Colt McCoy did not get hurt.
However, for the sake of McCoy’s future NFL career, Coach Brown decided to take
him out of the game. Immediately the attitude of the team, staff, and fans
watching all across the stadium and on TV dropped. Say what you will, but McCoy
was a huge part of that team just like any QB is for any team so I say with
confidence that Texas would have won that game if Colt had stayed in. Secondly,
when the Tide won the championship in 2012, they should not have even been
there. They played LSU for the title, but the fact of the matter is that if the
FBS has a playoff system instead of the senseless bowl system, Bama would not
have been in the championship game, and this is based solely on the fact that
LSU already beat them during the regular season. On top of this, who is to say
that any other one-loss team wasn’t just as good as Alabama? They did not
deserve this championship. The only championship that Saban deserves is 2013.
Saban could not make it in the NFL. When he coached the
Miami Dolphins in 2005 and 2006, they did horribly. Therefore, he left the NFL
to return to college coaching. The fact is, however, that Alabama was an
already thriving program. He just had to ride the train that was already
rolling and take the credit for it, which is precisely what he did, and now
(since they have national titles), recruiting is an easy task. Saban,
therefore, just had the luck of the draw by getting to coach Alabama.
For some, this may not be a huge deal, but for me, credit
needs to be paid where it is due; and it is not due to Nick Saban.
