Following is the transcript of my interview with Nick Saban, Alabama Head Football Coach. The interview took place on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 2, 2018 in his Tuscaloosa office. I sat across the desk from him in a leather, four-legged chair.
Me: Thank you, Coach Saban, for agreeing to sit down with me today for this brief interview. You have a great office here at the University of Alabama.
Coach Saban: Thank you, Paul. They treat me well.
Me: Coach, your Alabama football team played superbly last season. You won yet another national championship title and now you’re undefeated and number one in the country this season. Congratulations—it’s hard for me to imagine anyone will beat you this year.
Saban: Here at Alabama we play to win championships. This team works hard—and we have terrific players.
Me: Well, Coach Saban, you probably expect me to ask, like everybody else, about your season so far and the talent on your team. Frankly, I’d rather discuss college football in the larger picture.
Saban: That’s fine.
Me: My first question has to do with the classification of conferences—the so-called Power 5 versus the so-called Group of 5.
Saban: I’m not surprised. You look like a Group of 5 guy.
Me: Be that as it may, we’ve started yet another season with this classification system. It’s well-accepted the system is one of the “Haves” versus the “Have-nots” where the “Haves” have put up a lot of barriers against the “Have-nots.” Many thoughtful people have a problem with this fact.
Saban: I’m sure they do.
Me: Do you realize, Coach, this country fought a revolutionary war, in part, to get away from the class system? Our country goes through a lot of turmoil to get past these things. Why do you suppose major college football always seems to be going backwards?
Saban: The easy answer? Because we can. There’s simply no law or Force for Good to stop us. The only law we really care about is the Law of Inertia.
Me: Backwards inertia, I suppose you mean? There may not be laws in your way, as you say, but what about the American ideas of Equality of Opportunity and Fair Play?
Saban: Those concepts have simply never existed in Division 1 football. We’ve merely codified, you might say, the way things have been and should continue to be. And there are enough people in the country who support us.
Me: Yes, your people absolutely do support you. So, is it fair to say then that some teams and schools simply need to know their place and be kept in their place?
Saban: Those are your words.
Me: But you agree, correct?
Saban: Look, there’s a lot of noise in the world. Anyone paying attention who says something meaningful isn’t really heard. It’s just a fact. So we do what’s in our best interests and nobody does a thing to stop us. Besides, football’s just a game.
Me: Yes, but it’s a game that plays a big role in our society. I always look at the experts’ projections on who will be in the upcoming season’s College Football Playoff. Every year it seems to be the same teams from the previous playoffs. I mean, look, the last three championship games have involved a total of just three different teams: Alabama, Clemson, and Georgia. And if Kirk Herbstreit—the expert who keeps telling people he’s an expert—is correct, it’ll be Alabama and Clemson again.
Saban: [smiling] The system has symmetry, doesn’t it?
Me: People listen to you—you’re one of the all-time great college coaches—and that’s all you have to say?
Saban: Well, I do appreciate Herbstreit’s words, but really the guy is barely qualified to call Bingo at a nursing home. He played at Ohio State, you know, and I assume he was educated there, too. So don’t put too much credence into his projections. Otherwise, I like the guy.
Me: Okay, but getting back to my point—this “symmetry” you reference. This was your main intent and the intent of the big-college powers, correct? To keep it all within a few teams?
Saban: I know what you’re getting at, and you’re right. The system is designed so that the elite teams—let’s say there are ten—will be in the playoff from year to year with the occasional intruder. But that’s our long history, too. You shouldn’t be surprised.
Me: Ten teams have a chance?
Saban: Don’t be naïve, Paul—the system is always open to upstarts like Washington and Wisconsin and Stanford and whoever else, even little Notre Dame. They do have a chance to get in. The important thing is that thirty or forty teams will begin every season with high expectations of getting into the playoff.
Me: But those expectations will largely be unfounded?
Saban: I believe so. Even within the Power 5 most teams don’t have a chance. But expectations are important. Iowa State and Vanderbilt and Minnesota don’t have a chance. But they have hope, and hope is worth gold.
Me: Isn’t fairness important?
Saban: Not really, but that’s an argument some will make. I think things are perfectly fair inside the Power 5.
Me: It’s really limited fairness, though—fairness among a few. Certain teams will always get the benefit of the doubt. Others will just have to enjoy playing the game without accomplishing much. That’s how I see it. And there’s hardly any fairness when it involves the Group of 5.
Saban: [he nods]
Me: You do realize, Coach, there are more than 120 major college football programs. Even in the NFL, with its thirty-two teams, they all have a fair shot at the playoffs. There are fewer teams and more playoff spots.
Saban: We’re not the NFL.
Me: I’m just trying to make a point.
Saban: It’s a bad point.
Me: Why?
Saban: They draft and we recruit.
Me: Yes, that’s true.
Saban: In other words, they take and we persuade. There’s a big difference. Persuasion is a difficult thing, and a team is good or bad depending on how well the coach can persuade.
Me: I see.
Saban: And like any hard-working small business, my staff and I analyze the talent and take initiative and risk in our recruiting business. It’s all about the players, you know, and we know how to get them.
Me: Okay, then, extending beyond, do you think it’s wrong for Group of 5 teams like Houston and Boise State and UCF and others—teams who recruit well and are coached well—to hack the class system you’ve created?
Saban: I don’t like the word hack. It’s used too much.
Me: But you know what I mean?
Saban: First of all, I didn’t create the system. I only influenced it. But I think some teams and schools should know their place and be kept in their place, even though they might be good enough. We’re doing our best to keep them down, which I probably shouldn’t say out loud. The Group of Five does have a chance at one spot in a New Year’s Day bowl, such as the Fiesta. But it will always be hard for them to make the four-team playoff.
Me: Hard or impossible?
Saban: [a short pause] Nothing is impossible . . . from what I understand.
Me: Anyway, Coach, that’s just one spot for five conferences. You played college ball at Kent State and got your start as a head coach at the University of Toledo. Those schools are among the “Have-nots.” So what I hear you saying is, once you get yours, damn the torpedoes. Kent State and Toledo and the rest can just go to heck in a handbasket.
Saban: I didn’t say that.
Me: But that’s what you think?
Saban: Yes.
Me: Do you respect those schools, Coach? That’s where your history is.
Saban: Definitely, no question about it. There are many great people at those schools. But most of those players where I worked and studied aren’t big enough or fast enough or strong enough. In this world, you have to be enough.
Me: And so you try to keep them down even though they’re as much a part of the fabric as you are. I’ll agree the University of Alabama does have a rich history. Lots of Heisman winners. Bear Bryant and his great fedora coached here. The school has had quarterbacks like Joe Namath, Ken Stabler, Bart Starr—
Saban: Yes, great quarterbacks.
Me: Do you realize that Brett Favre went to Southern Miss. Terry Bradshaw went to Louisiana Tech. Doug Williams went to Grambling. Phil Simms played at Morehead State. The greatest running back—Walter Payton—went to Jackson State. They all won Super Bowls, too. This new kid Carson Wentz went to North Dakota State, for pete’s sake. Because they all went to small schools, are they beneath you? Are they not enough?
Saban: Look, you’re trying to corner me or something. Stop it. I’m getting annoyed by your jibble-jabble, like a squirrel digging for a nut. Here’s the thing: Our system is for the important schools. That’s all I have to say. Some schools just aren’t as important.
Me: I’m surprised that you would be so forthcoming on the topic.
Saban: [takes a drink from a bottle]
Me: What are you drinking, Coach?
Saban: This? This is red wine.
Me: I’m a bit of a wine lover, also, although I usually drink it from a glass. I like pinot noir as my favorite.
Saban: I like pinot, too, anything crimson really—shiraz, cab, malbec. I think this particular bottle is a red blend. I’ll ask my assistant later.
Me: Well, Coach Saban, we’ve got wine in common anyway.
Saban: [takes another swig from the bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand] I suppose so.
Me: Anyway, it occurs to me, Coach, if we can talk for another moment, that whenever there’s a power grab, such as the so-called Power conferences are always doing, it’s done out of fear. Would you agree?
Saban: Yes. I believe all power grabs, regardless of their type or nature, are motivated by fear and weakness.
Me: So, is it fair to say the big conferences—the Power 5—have banded together based on their fears and weaknesses?
Saban: No comment. You just need to meet for yourself the people running the system. Personally, I think they’re a bunch of pencil-necks. I hate talking to them—big egos and small minds with very little going on in their lives. They’re fundamentally weak as people.
Me: Like the guy who heads the Big Ten?
Saban: Yes, he’s a bonafide head-case. He and the other people are the ones who really created this “five-conference fist,” I sometimes call it, which they like to pound all over the place. But, in a sense, they sign my paychecks so I put up with them.
Me: The number of universities remains the same while the athletic talent is growing. I can see where their fright comes from.
Saban: Of course. It’s natural that more talent is being spread around. In fact, a lot of great talent is buried on my Alabama roster.
Me: Are you saying that many of your talented kids will never see the field, then?
Saban: Between you and me, I recruit a lot of fantastic football players and then never play them. I manipulate their youth and egos to get them to sign with Alabama and stay with Alabama.
Me: How do you do that?
Saban: Truthfully? I talk big and compliment their moms’ food.
Me: That sounds like an underhanded thing to do—the manipulation thing, not the food thing.
Saban: Well, it is. I don’t like myself for it. I don’t like myself for a lot of things I do in my job just to win games. But recruiting is all about manipulation—it always has been. At least my guys aren’t playing for somebody else.
Me: Like Houston or Boise State or UCF?
Saban: Yes.
Me: Kudos to you, I guess. You wield a lot of power.
Saban: I’m Nick Saban.
Me: Yes, you are.
Saban: [a pause] Are we about done here with all of these questions? I feel like I’m saying too much. I have a coaches’ meeting in a few minutes, anyway, and I need to go down the hall and splash some cold water on my face. This wine is really something.
Me: Yes, Coach Saban, just one or two more things.
Saban: Make it quick. I’m feeling flushed and my cheeks are hot—and I’m annoyed.
Me: Well, Coach, I’m a bit of a wordsmith, you know—
Saban: I like to do crossword puzzles myself, and other word games. I’m working on this crossword right here—
Me: Uh-huh. I see it. Anyway, just to wrap up this brief interview a little outside the field of sports, which you might appreciate, did you know that one anagram for your name “Nick Saban” is “Basin Cank?”
Saban: No, I didn’t know that. And don’t tell anybody.
Me: Another anagram for your name is “Ban In Sack.”
Saban: Have you been talking to my wife?
Me: No.
Saban: You better not.
Me: Well then, Coach, on that note I think I’ll let you get back to your job. You’ve got another big season underway, but I appreciate the time and insights you’ve given me today. You’ve been surprisingly forthright in your comments and I really have enjoyed meeting and talking with you.
Saban: [raising the bottle over his head while pointing with his other hand] There’s the door, Group of Five guy.
Me: [nodding and getting up from the leather chair] Roll Tide. . . .
[End of conversation]
Interview and transcription by Paul Samuelson