Nick Saban unplugs Alabama and then plugs them back in
Both coordinator hires have been completed for the Crimson Tide...and it looks like it'll be more of the same in Tuscaloosa.
Up till now, what’s really set Nick Saban apart from other coaches is how adaptable he is and willing to take in new inputs either from the coaching staff or in recruiting. The Tide play defense differently these days than they used to in the past. Granted, they’re worse at it, but their evolution was stark. Offensively they are, or were, considerably different than back at the turn of the decade when they won three National Championships in four years (2009, 2011, 2012) before Lane Kiffin overhauled their approach.
Most coaches fade with time because they were highly dependent on their initial staffs and lacked the skills to replenish and rebuild their staff rooms when success inevitably lead to the departure of top assistants. Dabo Swinney took off after hiring Brent Venables to coordinate the defense and Chad Morris to install a HUNH spread offense. Morris left but they still had good assistants left behind and brilliant young quarterback Deshaun Watson. Last year Venables and some of the last offensive assistants left and the Tigers really slipped, so Dabo finally brought in fresh blood rather than just promoting young internal candidates.
Bill Belichik and the New England Patriots have totally collapsed after losing a ton of the brainpower which was responsible for their machine-like approach to winning football games. Consider the following losses:
Quarterback Tom Brady: One of the most well prepared, true field generals the game has ever seen. They’d give Brady a menu of plays to choose from at the line of scrimmage and he had a ton of authority to adjust the offense into the right play.
O-line coach Dante Scarnecchia: The Patriots prized intelligence on the O-line under Scarnecchia and built units which routinely hit high marks for simply doing their jobs without errors. Brady could make things work so long as he knew what to expect from his line and Scarnecchia coached the unit from 1999 until 2019. He left with Tom Brady.
Ernie Adams: From 2000 until 2020, Adams was New England’s “football research director.” Everything shady they did was likely under his jurisdiction but so were their elite level scouts of opposing teams, self-scouts of their own teams, and evaluations on incoming players. It’s likely that a huge chunk of what has been attributed to Belichick’s brain was actually from low profile Adams.
The Patriots have tanked since losing those guys and no longer have the same machine-like approach to masterminding and executing precise gameplans for taking down their opponents.
I could do a similar exercise for the Golden State Warriors, who in addition to having on-court brilliance from Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green also have Steve Kerr, Andre Iquodala, and Ron Adams on the bench forming committees with elite brainpower.
Nick Saban’s Alabama has never worked that way. He didn’t keep the same people around, his gift was for identifying and hiring special people who could help Alabama maintain an edge and incorporating them into “the process.”
With the hires of Tommy Rees from Notre Dame as offensive coordinator and Kevin Steele as defensive coordinator, I think those days may be over.
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