tigertales
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Ledger article: Saban's Lies Won't Fly in Bryant's Territory
Saban's Lies Won't Fly In Bryant's Territory
By **** Scanlon
****.scanlon@theledger.com
In his first two seasons at the University of Miami, Larry Coker won a national championship and came within one bad call of winning another one. Four years later, he was fired.
So Coker would probably say he understands why Nick Saban jumped ship on the Miami Dolphins and took the money and security offered by the University of Alabama.
Nobody understands better than a head coach that it's a what-have-you-done-lately profession, and that it only takes a bad year or two for the posse to catch up, maybe three if you have won a championship.
But understanding it and doing what Saban did are two different things. Coker has a level of decency that wouldn't allow him to lie like Saban did.
Saban is not the first coach to vehemently and repeatedly deny what he knew to be true, but he went further than most. He put on that defiant smirk, looked right in the camera and said he wasn't going to coach at Alabama.
That was last week. On Thursday they introduced him as the new head coach in Tuscaloosa, and Saban said his heart was in the college game. Alabama athletic director Mal Moore said the hiring "signifies a new era of Crimson Tide football."
We'll have to see about that.
What Alabama wants and demands from its football coach is to dominate every season the way Bear Bryant once did.
Saban used the words "dominate" and "dominant" at his press conference Thursday because that's what they want to hear in Tuscaloosa. At press conferences, he is good at telling people what they want to hear.
Whether he can deliver is another matter. He delivered a 15-17 record in two years with the Dolphins and a 0-0 post-season mark. Not exactly the new era they were expecting in Miami.
I can think of at least six reasons why Saban isn't going to dominate the SEC-Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee-
and he's not Bear Bryant. Once Tide fans figure that last one out, Saban is in for a rough ride. His chances of being around when his eight-year contract expires are about as good as the chances of a Slick Nick Saban's Pre-Owned Cars franchise in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
Saban wasn't even Alabama's first choice. They made a run at West Virginia's Rich Rodriguez a month ago. Rodriguez turned it down very publicly, using the offer as leverage to get a better deal at West Virginia. There ensued an almost deathly silence about the Alabama opening, followed by whispers that an NFL head coach had agreed to take the job.
Now, after a month of lies, we know which one.
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1/6/2007, 3:47 pm
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