"Nick takes a lot of those (college) coaches to school," he said. "He's an advanced thinker. He's the guy that has more than one way to do everything. He practices it and teaches his players to do it, then he gets them to do it." I love that, Nick takes a lot of college coaches to school. Well, they all do work for universities and education is priority #1.
Really all you need to know is that Bill Belichick said Nick Saban 'taught me more about defense than I taught him'. You can't get any higher praise than that, any other quote or snipit or soundbyte from any other person about Nick's coaching ability pales in comparison.
Let me add btw that I think college teams will start to put a bigger emphasis on scheming as the years go on. It's inevitable really... Used to, major colleges could just 'line up and whip 'em' because they had better athletes than the other teams, a la the old Cornhuskers and ND and Sooner teams - they just had better athletes than anyone else, and you could afford to just line up and run it down their throat. But these days, with the number of teams in D1, and the limited scholarships, the talent pool is being spread out over a vast area, making the difference in starting 11 talent between teams not as much a factor. This trend will continue, and in order to beat a team that has as much talent as you, or close enough to compete, you must outscheme/outthink/outplan them...and you are starting to see teams that have a staff that can do that step up to the front (Saban, Stoops, Carroll, Ferenz, and even Spurrier to some degree). Not that schemers weren't successful in the past, they were...it's just that the landscape of college football is changing, and that change forces teams to devise ways to win other than just having twice the talent...hence the emphasis/premium on X/O coaches.
Football Is A Coaches Game And college football more than professional. That being said, every coach will be outcoached in some game at some point just due to nothing more than the stars lining up properly, and the players executing the gameplan either flawlessly or ineffectively. It has happened to every coach, and it will happen again to Coach Saban. That being said, I think Saban, and his assistants, have done a very good job of putting together offensive and defensive schemes that take advantage of the skills the players available have. It has been easy to see this on the offensive side because we have had tremendous skill position players since DiNardo was the coach. (Like him or not, DiNardo did recognize offensive talent. He was not so good at defense, and he was woeful at recognizing the value of character.) It is only now that LSU has the quantity of players with the skills on defense that Saban has been looking for. And the way LSU has been recruiting I do not look for a shortage of quality defenders to be a problem in the next few years.
Its funny, On NFL count down right now thier talking about the Pats defense, thier talking about them giving up 15 pts a game on average and the way they play defense. They're leading the NFL....... If I wouldn't have known better I would think they were talking about LSU's Defense. I think people will start to disect the Defense LSU and NE run and then start trying to run it for thier own teams.
That won't work ... Because the Patriots and LSU defenses can't be copied very easily at all. I watched all 18 Patriots games on TV and 11 of the 14 LSU games (3 not televised up here in NH), and read everything on their web sites. Both teams defenses CHANGE from week to week, depending upon the opposition. Patriots defensive players are often quoted as saying they get plenty of new wrinkles every wednesday morning when the game plan is installed, and say the defense changes as often as the New england weather. That's the whole idea ! That's why good offensive teams don't catch up with either team's defense - because it changes and is thus unpredictable. Peyton Manning fooled team after team by coming to the line of scrimmage with 25 seconds on the time clock and waiting to see hoe the D lined up and then Manning checked off repeatedly to offset that. But unlike other teams, the Patriots defense did not tip their hand early and that is what led to the plug being pulled on the Colts juggernaut offense. They are complex defenses and take dedication from the players. They require a true defensive genius calling the shots. You can't copt "genius" and it's hard to copy that kind of player dedication to film study at the college level.
