I know I’ve had too many posts that begin with the words “Nick Saban” lately, but I couldn’t pass this up. While the rest of the college football world has been either laughing about the so called “Saban” rule – that keeps head coaches in the football building instead of the recruiting trail during the spring – or celebrating the victory of Saban not being able to out recruit them, Nick Saban has been figuring out a way to keep up the face time with high school recruits. Video conferencing.
The NCAA allows for prospects to call, or in this instance, video conference with head coaches recruiting them. All they have to do is go to the distance learning lab, which is in most high schools now. Saban has a web cam in his office and can talk face-to-face with them even though he can’t step foot in their high school. In a rare instance Kevin Scarbinsky brings something other than lame-ass Dennis Miller wannabe metaphors to the table and actually does some reporting.
As we speak Urban Myer is having the web cam installed in his office, as is Ron Zook. Phil Fulmer on the other hand is still figuring out how to get his glaze encrusted finger unstuck from the rotary dial. Just when he though he had this telephone thing beat too.
(HT: Ian Rapoport)
Picture Me Rollin 
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April 26, 2008 at 11:43 am
MoonDog
While that may be true of Fulmer, at least there isn’t a time delay with telephonic communications. In Nick the Great’s case, there is a few seconds of down time between the video/audio transmission and actual reception.
During that down time, Saban has inserted blurbs like “money,” “cash,” “cars,” “women,” and “sex.” So while Saban’s lips are moving and perhaps you can’t hear what he’s saying, those words are the only thing circling around in the recruits mind. It’s called, very simply, Bama cheats.
July 12, 2008 at 10:42 am
Fair Opinion
WILL SABAN DO BAMA LIKE HE DID THE DOLPHINS ??
Le Batard: Saban leaves Dolphins as a loser, weasel
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
The punctuation on the Nick Saban Dolphin Error is greasy and greedy. You know what he was as Dolphins coach? A failure. A loser. A gasbag. And one of the worst investments Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has ever made. He was less of a success than Dave Wannstedt and more of a traitor than Ricky Williams. There has been very little in franchise history that came with more expectations and fewer results than this hypocrite who at the end avoided the hard questions one last time.
Talk like a warrior. Behave like a weasel.
Maybe Saban would be better off in college. Because, in the pros the last few days, he has looked like a complete and utter amateur.
He will be remembered in these parts as a quitter and a liar. He leaves the franchise in last place, with what used to be his good name somehow far lower than that. And for this he’ll get a $25 million raise and more job security in Alabama. Makes you wonder what USC’s Pete Carroll or Ohio State’s Jim Tressel are worth, doesn’t it?
Larry Coker, a decent man, gets fired for his one championship. Saban, a duplicitous one, gets the most lucrative job in college football.
Saban could have fixed his reputation today if he had that mental toughness he is always sermonizing about. We have the meandering spiel memorized by now. About ”competitive character” and ”overcoming adversity” and blah, blah, blah. You preach it, Nick. But you don’t live it. Not when it’s easier to run away and hide.
Miami, 6-10 against an easy schedule, was swept this year by younger teams in its division — the Jets and Bills. The team isn’t better than when Saban arrived, just older. What little winning Saban has done has been with players left for him by Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt. What’s the best decision Saban has made in two years? Can you name one?
So it makes sense that he would lack hope. But when his players are losing, he asks them to be proud and fight and overcome, even though what they do hurts a hell of a lot more than what he does. But now, reputation in tatters, integrity stained, he runs away from this fight — to be a dictator to kids who question less and have less power to challenge him. Of course he’d go. It’s a good deal easier. And a new crowd eager for a savior can hear his hot-air speeches about being a gladiator.
Saban made Huizenga look like a public fool with all his condescending talk of integrity recently, reprimanding reporters at every turn while his agent secretly kept taking slimy calls from Alabama in the shadows. What a raging fraud Saban sounds like today, every bit as counterfeit as Miami’s Super Bowl expectations.
Oh, a man, even one under contract, is allowed to change his mind and listen to other offers, especially those that double his salary. But what makes Saban’s behavior so unctuous recently is that he had the audacity to question the questioners with super-sized arrogance even while lying all along to his players and his boss. Huizenga has given this man everything he has wanted — given him more than any NFL owner anywhere has given any other coach. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than Saban leaving him to answer the hard questions today.
Makes you wonder, too: Huizenga went after Ricky Williams and his money with cutthroat zeal, and Williams is still paying him back. But Saban just broke a contract, too. There are no outs in Saban’s contract to go back to the minor leagues.
Remember how mad you were when Williams retired? Well, he wasn’t cheating on you. He wasn’t grabbing for more money. His body hurt from a beating, and he wanted to rest. What Saban has done is a more traitorous act — the most traitorous act in the history of the franchise. He’s leaving simply because he couldn’t handle a hard job on the sidelines of a game in which he asks others to be violent. He gave up, in other words. And filing it under ”family” now as a diluter, in search of understanding, rings hollow because you can’t believe anything the man says about this situation. You think he’d be leaving if he were 3-13?
Saban, infomercial sermonizer, talked a lot about loyalty and integrity and toughness.
But, in the end, these were not his guides.
They were only the kinds of things he demanded of others.
July 14, 2008 at 8:17 am
picturemerollin
Fair Opinion – Since this post is almost 3 months old I don’t think that your posting of the Le Batard’s column will get many looks but thinks for offering someone else’s opinion as your own – odd the since he wrote this Le Batard has also stepped away from what he was doing?
To answer your question – only time will tell. Maybe he does walk away in another year or two and you’ll be proved right but even if he walked away today the talent level is higher than when he arrived.
If he does stay I believe that you and those of like mine still won’t care for him and that is certainly your privilege but as for this Alabama fan, I’m ecstatic to have him as a coach and I hope he stays a long time. I don’t really get concerned about what happened in Miami. And if he stays a short time I believe that the Alabama program will be better for him being here.