Miles vs. Saban: Bringing the gavel down

Miles versus Saban.  Les versus Nick.  The Hat versus the Nicktator.  Crazy fourth down calls versus volcanic eruption on the sidelines during 45-10 blowouts.

When Alabama hired Saban, Tide fans crowed.

“We have got us a great coach now,” they said.  “Your coach is an idiot, and we have the man who made LSU what it is!”

“Oh yeah?” LSU fans replied. “Les has lost fewer games in his first three years than Saban did in any of his three years, and we did get another national title under Les, including the AP title!  So there!”

One can only picture the two fan constituencies on opposite sides of a gym in the 1950s, one side chanting “We’ve got Saban, yes we do, we’ve got Saban, how about you!” and the other replying “We’ve got Lester, yes we do, we’ve got Lester, how about you!”

But who is really a better coach?

I asked six high school coaches from the state of Louisiana this question.  All were happy to talk about it, but all asked that I not use their names.  I had extended conversations with two of them about it, and much shorter conversations with the other four.  Three are head coaches; three are assistants.

My first question:  Better coach, Miles or Saban?

The responses:

“Saban.”

“Saban, no question.”

“Saban.”

“Saban, without a doubt.”

“Saban, easily.”

One coach begged off, saying that he didn’t watch a lot of college football due to concentrating on his own team.

The coaches who answered the question were unanimous in their appraisal.  Saban is the better coach, hands down.

Here are some of the comments that the coaches made on the subject:

“X’s and O’s, Saban is the best in the country.  He’s so far ahead of everybody else it’s scary.”

“Saban is the best planner in the country.  He has his days planned out to the minute, he knows what they need to be doing every single minute of the day.”

“I went to a talk by Saban a few years ago, and it was incredible.  The stuff he was talking about was just unbelievable.”

“He’s always going to find good assistants, though because of what you will learn, the contacts you will make, and what it looks like to have him on your resume.  He demands perfection, not just from his coaches, but from players, trainers, staff, everybody.”

But two of the coaches added caveats.

“He’s an (euphemism for jerk). Everybody knows it.  He’s incredibly difficult to work for. He works his assistants like slaves.”

“If you work for him, you are not going to like him.  He has fired GA’s on the field for forgetting headsets.”

One of the coaches, who has heard Saban speak, had a question for the Saban, but chose not to ask it when Saban sarcastically responded to another coach’s question.

Those same qualities that made Saban such a success at LSU wore thin in his five years in Baton Rouge.  By the time he left, according to more than one of the coaches, nobody in the football or athletic departments was sad to see him go.

And the man they brought in to replace Saban at LSU is vastly different in personality.

“He’s more of a CEO-type coach.  He hires his coaches and lets them do their jobs,” another said.

“Which guy do I like better?  Miles, by a long way,” one coach said.

That same coach pointed out that Saban’s arrogance had harmed relationships with coaches in the state.  He pointed as one example to coach at a school in southeast Louisiana (to whom I did not talk) who had grown so sick of Saban that he wouldn’t send his prized recruit to LSU.

When Saban left and Miles was hired, the coach did a one-eighty and encouraged the player to reconsider the Tigers.  The player eventually committed to LSU.

Some of the difficulty with this question comes in the definition of what the coach is.

College coaches must be master organizers, arranging practice schedules, recruiting trips, professional development and so on for the more than 100 people including players under them.

They must be master salespeople, capable of convincing more than 20 seventeen-year-olds every year, along with parent(s) and other interested parties, that the school and program that the coach represents is the perfect place for them.

They must monitor and assist in the academic development of nearly 100 18-22 year-olds.

On top of all that, they have to be masters of the zone blitz, zone blocking, zone coverage, and zone reads.  They must know how to call their own offense, run the defense, and talk in-depth about the benefits of the rugby punt versus the traditional punt, tackle twists and chipping on ends,  play-action and shotgun, and be able to do it all under pressure.

And speaking of pressure, they have 12 three-hour periods on Saturdays in the fall to prove that the rest of the year has not been wasted.  And if they fail the test, there are 90,000 people sitting their watching it happen and all to eager to let them know about it.

Viewed in this light, Saban has to be viewed as the better “football-man.”  But Miles appears to excel in other, less visible but perhaps just as important parts of the job.  However, it would be pure folly to accuse either of being a failure in the area that is not their respective strengths.

Suffice it to say that the two are near the top of the college coaching heap at the moment, and the challenge for both is just to stay there.