Connelly: Nick Saban built a Bama dynasty and went on the best coaching run … ever
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Bill Connelly, ESPN Staff Writer
For an entire era, Nick Saban completely broke the definition of success in college football.
Mark Richt won at least nine games in 11 of 15 years at Georgia, with two conference titles and seven top-10 finishes, just one fewer than the legendary Vince Dooley had in 25 years. Richt was fired after the last of those nine-win seasons.
Les Miles never won fewer than eight games in 11 full seasons at LSU. He won a national title with five top-10 finishes, more than the Tigers had managed in the 35 years before his hire. He was fired after losing two games early in 2016.
After a run of six straight top-three finishes with two national titles, Dabo Swinney’s Clemson has merely averaged 10 wins over the past three years, and it kind of seems like a crisis. Lincoln Riley has won 65 games in six full-length seasons and Ryan Day has won 46 in four, and they’re both facing extreme pressure and doubt. And while I’m not going to pretend this is all because of one man in Tuscaloosa — losing three straight to Michigan, as Day has, will always test the patience of Ohio State fans, for instance — Saban’s relentlessly consistent success scrambled the brains of fans and administrators throughout the sport.
Simply put, Nick Saban, who announced his retirement from coaching Wednesday, was the best, most successful coach in college football history. No one — not Bear Bryant, not Bobby Bowden, not Bud Wilkinson, not Bernie Bierman, not Frank Leahy, not Woody Hayes, not Walter Camp — can match his seven national titles. And while the College Football Playoff didn’t come into existence until Saban had already won four titles, it will still take Swinney two more trips or Kirby Smart five more trips to match Saban’s eight appearances in 10 years.
It’s not even just the titles, though. Fluky losses happen, and they can derail title bids, but even when Saban’s Alabama teams didn’t win the title, they were almost always title-worthy.
Here’s a complete list of teams that finished either first or second in SP+ — my opponent-adjusted power rating — for at least five straight seasons:
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Penn, 1894-98 (five years)
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Michigan, 1901-05 (five)
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Georgia Tech, 1917-21 (five)
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USC, 1925-29 (five)
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Ole Miss, 1959-63 (five)
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Miami, 1986-91 (six)
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Yale, 1884-95 (12)
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Alabama, 2009-21 (13)
Miami’s five-year run of near perfection was good enough to inspire a 30 for 30. It was the only run of its kind between the mid-1960s and the mid-2000s. But in an era of 85-man scholarship limits, with tougher national title runs — a guaranteed 1-versus-2 matchup starting in 1998, a four-team playoff starting in 2014 — Saban’s Crimson Tide more than doubled Miami’s run and topped that of even late-1800s Yale, which had to compete with only a few dozen football-playing schools.
And even that doesn’t fully capture the brilliance of Saban’s run because it doesn’t capture the complete and total reinvention that happened halfway through it.
Saban won BCS national titles in 2009, 2011 and 2012 with otherworldly defense; SP+, in fact, grades the 2011 unit — which allowed 8.2 points per game and just 3.3 yards per play, pitched a shutout in the BCS Championship and allowed more than 14 points just once all year — as the best defense in college football history. But he saw that the sport was becoming far more offense-oriented. “Is this what we want football to be?” he famously asked of the sport’s increasing tempo and point totals in 2012. But as the joke goes, he wasn’t complaining — he was just confirming. Because starting with the hire of Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator in 2014, he shifted his program emphasis more to that side of the ball.
“It used to be that good defense beats good offense,” he told ESPN’s Chris Low in 2020. “Good defense doesn’t beat good offense anymore. […] It used to be if you had a good defense, other people weren’t going to score. You were always going to be in the game. I’m telling you, it ain’t that way anymore.”
So be it: After ranking either first or second in defensive SP+ for 10 straight years from 2008 to ’17, his Tide ranked first on offense for five straight years from 2018 to ’22. He completely reinvented his program, and its overall level never really dropped. The Tide continued to rank first or second overall every year and never went more than three years without another national title.
Until 2023. It stands to reason that, even when Bama’s level finally dropped a bit — even as the offense briefly battled its first QB crisis in years, and the Tide both lost at home to Texas by 10 points and had to survive four one-score finishes and a number of performances that were mediocre by their standards — Saban’s final team still went 11-1 in the regular season, won the SEC and derailed Georgia’s nearly two-year winning streak and hopes of a third straight national title. The Tide unjustly secured a CFP bid over unbeaten Florida State, but whether it was deserved or not, they damn near beat eventual national champion Michigan once they got there. Saban seemed to hate dealing with collectives and the NIL era, and he dipped into the transfer portal only so much, but he continued to clear an impossibly high bar when it came to procuring talent, and his worst team in 15 years was still excellent by the standards of anyone other than Saban himself.
During his time dominating college football, he was also defining the future of it, hiring the coaches who would occupy seemingly every major job around him. At Michigan State, he hired future MSU head coach, playoff participant and soon-to-be Hall of Fame inductee Mark Dantonio. At LSU, Saban employed future national champion Jimbo Fisher, plus future SEC head coaches Will Muschamp and Dooley and future NFL head coaches Pat Shurmur and Adam Gase. The Bama staff was constantly raided by rivals hoping to find their own Saban. Current Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, Ole Miss‘ Lane Kiffin, Oregon‘s Dan Lanning, Florida‘s Billy Napier, Maryland‘s Mike Locksley, Miami‘s Mario Cristobal, Indiana‘s Curt Cignetti, Marshall‘s Charles Huff, Arkansas State‘s Butch Jones and Central Michigan‘s Jim McElwain are among the current active coaches who spent time under Saban in Tuscaloosa, as is the New York Giants‘ Brian Daboll. Hell, even Saban’s Miami Dolphins staff featured a number of future NFL coaches.
Then there was Kirby Smart. The former Georgia safety landed on Saban’s LSU staff in 2004, then scored an assistant role with Saban’s Dolphins in 2006. And from 2007 to ’15, Smart was the veritable right-hand man for the sport’s best coach. In 2016, he replaced Richt at UGA and proceeded to build the only Death Star that could consistently rival Saban’s. Georgia lost a heartbreaker to Bama in 2017’s national title game but returned the favor in 2021, then won a second title a year later. The Dawgs have finished either first or second in SP+ for three straight years, and while that’s still 10 years short of Saban’s incredible run, if any active coach has a chance of matching Saban’s exploits, it’s his greatest protege.
Saban’s last win, by the way, came over Smart. There’s some poetry in that.
Michigan State had been stuck in a rut when Saban began his first head-coaching job there in 1995. The Spartans had averaged just 5.9 wins per season in the seven years before his arrival, and after a few years of laying groundwork, his final MSU team went 10-2 with a top-10 finish in 1999.
LSU had been regarded as a sleeping giant for decades when Saban moved to Baton Rouge in 2000. The Tigers had enjoyed only one top-five finish between 1962 and ’99 and had averaged 5.5 wins over the previous 12 years. Saban averaged 9.6, breaking through with a 10-win campaign in 2001 and a national title in 2003.
Alabama, of course, was a spectacular mess when he finally gave in to athletic director Mal Moore’s persistent pleas and signed up after a brief sojourn in the NFL. Despite winning the 1992 national title, the Tide had averaged 8.1 wins per year with three top-five finishes in the 24 years since Bear Bryant had retired. Between 1997 and 2006, the school cranked through four head coaches and finished .500 or worse on five occasions. Boosters and administrators were pulling the program in about 17 different directions, but after a single transition year, Saban had everything aligned. And he unleashed a run of dominance we might never see again.
Sports
Stanley Cup playoffs daily: Senators on the brink, while Avs, Knights, Bolts try to punch back
All but one NHL team will end the season on a bitter note, as there can be only one Stanley Cup champion. But on Saturday, we could have our very first playoff elimination of the 2025 playoffs.
The Ottawa Senators are on the brink heading into Saturday’s game. Despite taking the heavily favored Toronto Maple Leafs to overtime twice in a row, the Atlantic Division champs have scored the game winner each time in the extra session. Can the Senators win one in front of the home crowd to extend the series to five games?
Elsewhere in the Atlantic bracket, the Florida Panthers won both of the first two games in the Tampa Bay Lightning‘s building. Will this be a shorter series than many expected? And out West, the Minnesota Wild will look to extend their shocking series lead over the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Clash of the Western Titans continues in the Centennial State, as the Colorado Avalanche look to even things up with the Dallas Stars.
Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, recaps of what went down in Friday’s games, and the Three Stars of Friday Night from Arda Öcal.
Matchup notes
Tampa Bay Lightning at Florida Panthers
Game 3 (FLA leads 2-0) | 1 p.m. ET | TBS
Having served his suspension for performance-enhancing substances, Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad is eligible to return for this game. The well-rounded blueliner skated 23:30 per game during the regular season, scoring three goals and 30 assists in 56 games.
The Panthers have another defenseman who has been delivering this postseason; Nate Schmidt scored a goal in Games 1 and 2, becoming the first defenseman in franchise history with two game-winning goals in a single postseason — and they’re only two games in!
All eyes will be on the status of Aleksander Barkov, who was knocked out of Game 2 via a hit from Brandon Hagel; Hagel was assessed a five-minute major penalty for the play and suspended for Game 3.
Tampa Bay needs its stars and its scoring depth to get rolling to charge back into this series, with just two goals total in two games. Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has not been up to his typical, superhuman standards thus far, allowing seven goals on 39 shots (.821 save percentage).
In Stanley Cup playoff history, teams that start 2-0 in a best-of-seven series have won 86% of the time; that number rises to 98% if a team starts 3-0.
Vegas Golden Knights at Minnesota Wild
Game 4 (MIN leads 2-1) | 4 p.m. ET | TBS
If nothing else, this series has been a unique one from a starting-time perspective; each of the first four games will have had a different scheduled start time once the puck is dropped Saturday — 10 p.m. ET for Game 1, 11 p.m. ET for Game 2, 9 p.m. ET for Game 3 and 4 p.m. ET for this one.
Most observers didn’t believe the Wild were going to win this series. Nor did many predict that Minnesota players would be all over the scoring leaderboard midway through Round 1. Kirill Kaprizov is tied for the playoff scoring lead with Adrian Kempe and Cam Fowler (seven points), and is tied with teammate Matt Boldy for the goal-scoring lead, with four. The current playoff assists leader? Wild blueliner Jared Spurgeon.
This has been an uncharacteristically rough opening round for Adin Hill. He’s allowed 10 goals on 57 shots, generating a .825 save percentage and 3.78 goals-against average. Those rates were .932 and 2.17, respectively, in Hill’s 16 games played during the Knights’ 2023 Stanley Cup run.
While “Playoff” Tomas Hertl has shown up this series — to the tune of two goals and an assist — some of the Knights’ other offensive standbys have been quiet. Jack Eichel, Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev — who combined for 212 points in the regular season — all have a goose egg thus far.
Toronto Maple Leafs at Ottawa Senators
Game 4 (TOR leads 3-0) | 7 p.m. ET | TBS
The Maple Leafs have been led by a consistently strong performance of their Core Four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares; the quartet leads Toronto in scoring through three games. Perhaps a narrative is being rewritten before our eyes, after years of playoff disappointment for that group?
One specific area where Toronto has been dominant is the power play; their 55.6% conversion rate is tops in the league this postseason (and makes up, somewhat, for a penalty kill that is just 77.8% effective).
The Senators have had five different goal scorers this series, including Brady Tkachuk, who has been giving his all in his first playoff experience. Ottawa’s captain has two goals — and four penalty minutes, as he has kept himself in the mix whenever the action has gotten rowdier.
Will Ottawa stick with Linus Ullmark in goal for Game 4? The veteran has an .815 save percentage through the first three games — and an .874 mark in his postseason career.
Dallas Stars at Colorado Avalanche
Game 4 (DAL leads 2-1) | 9:30 p.m. ET | TBS
Game 3 was all about the return of Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog after an absence of 1,032 days. Landeskog skated 13:16 in the game, but did not record a point or a shot on goal.
While other teams are generating historic numbers on the power play this postseason, the Avs have struggled to a 15.4% conversion rate (fourth worst). This is in stark contrast to the regular season, when the Avs’ 24.8% rate was eighth in the league.
Tyler Seguin‘s overtime goal sealed the deal for Dallas in Game 3. it was just the second OT game winner in his career, after a span of 13 years (April 22, 2012).
The other good news on the Dallas front is that Mikko Rantanen — former Av, who was acquired on March 7 — finally picked up his first point of the series, an assist on the OT game winner. Have the floodgates opened?
Arda’s three stars from Friday night
1. The Oilers-Kings series
LA up 2-1 | 30 goals in three games
The first three games have been bonkers. Game 1 almost had an all-timer comeback, then the Kings rocked Edmonton in Game 2, while Game 3 saw multiple lead changes, quick back-to-back goals, a failed coaches challenge by L.A. on an Edmonton goal — which led to an Oilers’ power-play goal to take the lead. Just incredible.
Nemec scored the overtime winner in Newark to win the game for the Devils over the Canes — and avoid going down 0-3 in the series. This came after stints in the AHL this season, and being a healthy scratch earlier in the series.
“Goal” Caufield had a goal and an assist in Montreal’s emphatic 6-3 win over Washington in Game 3.
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Cole Caufield scores with a one-timer for Montreal
Cole Caufield scores on a one-timer to give the Canadiens the lead late in the second period.
Friday’s scores
Montreal Canadiens 6, Washington Capitals 3
WSH leads 2-1
The Bell Centre was electric for the Canadiens’ first home game in quite some time — and the fans were sent home quite happy on Friday night after a wild game. The two teams traded goals through most of the first two periods before Cole Caufield put Montreal up one at the end of the second — and a brawl ensued that spilled into the Washington bench. Although Alex Ovechkin scored 2:39 into the third to tie the game 3-3, the Habs poured it on thereafter with three straight goals, sending the “Olé!” chants to unforeseen decibel levels. Recap.
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Christian Dvorak helps Canadiens regain the lead
Christian Dvorak finds the net in the third period to help the Canadiens to retake the lead vs. the Capitals.
New Jersey Devils 3, Carolina Hurricanes 2 (2OT)
CAR leads 2-1
Down 0-2 in the series, the Devils went up 2-0 in their first game back home, on goals from Nico Hischier and Dawson Mercer. But a pair of third-period, power-play goals — from Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho — knotted things up, and the game went to overtime. Scoreless after one extra period, the game was ended by Simon Nemec, the second overall pick in the 2022 draft, who had been a healthy scratch previously in the series. Recap.
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Simon Nemec’s wrister wins it in 2OT for the Devils
Simon Nemec finds the winning goal as the Devils outlast the Hurricanes in double overtime.
Edmonton Oilers 7, Los Angeles Kings 4
LA leads 2-1
It takes a full-team effort to get up off the proverbial canvas when down 0-2 in a series, and that’s just what the Oilers got on Friday. Ten different Oilers hit the scoresheet in this one, including superstars like Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard, as well players further down the lineup like Connor Brown and Evander Kane. The Oilers also made the switch in goal to Calvin Pickard for this game, and he responded with 24 saves on 28 shots. On the Kings’ side, Adrian Kempe had his fourth goal and fifth assist of the playoffs, putting him into first in the points race and tied for first in the goals race. Recap.
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Connor McDavid’s empty-netter secures Game 3 for the Oilers
Connor McDavid notches the empty-netter to secure a Game 3 win for the Oilers.
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Greg Wyshynski
NEWARK, N.J. — Simon Nemec hasn’t had an ideal start to his NHL career. But in Game 3 of the New Jersey Devils‘ Stanley Cup playoff series against the Carolina Hurricanes, he finally had his career highlight.
The 21-year-old defenseman scored an unassisted goal at 2:36 of double overtime on Friday night to give the Devils a 3-2 win and new life, cutting the Hurricanes’ series lead to 2-1.
In the process, Nemec, the No. 2 pick in the 2022 NHL draft, had the most impactful moment of his pro career with his first playoff goal.
“I was so happy,” he said. “Amazing feeling. It’s been a tough season for me, and that’s a really big win for us.”
A native of Slovakia, Nemec spent his first season after the draft in the American Hockey League. He split time between the AHL and the Devils in Year 2, thrust into action because of injuries to the New Jersey defense. He split time between the NHL and the minors again this season. Nemec has played 87 games in the NHL, with five goals and 18 assists while skating to a minus-17.
He was a frequent healthy scratch in New Jersey, including Game 1 on Sunday, and his lackluster play caused many to wonder if Nemec would live up to his lofty draft position. Nemec was last on the Devils in goals above replacement at minus-8.7, according to Evolving Hockey.
Thanks to injuries to defensemen Luke Hughes and Brenden Dillon, Nemec was called upon in Game 2 against Carolina and was back in the lineup for Game 3, in which the Devils lost defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic to injury after just 10 shifts. That injury, plus the multiple overtimes, meant massive increases in ice time for veterans such as Brian Dumoulin (36:29) and Brett Pesce (32:25), as well as more responsibility for Nemec.
“You just need guys to step up at the right times,” Dumoulin said. “He knew he was going to be going out there, we’re going to be relying on him, and we needed him. You could see that he took that moment. He wasn’t scared of it, and he took the reins of it.”
Nemec said the overtime goal, which beat Carolina goalie Frederik Andersen (34 saves), was the kind of boost he needs in his career.
“Yeah, it helps me a lot,” he said. “I feel like my confidence is back the last couple games. I’m just trying to play my game and do this stuff. I have to play offense a little bit, too, so my confidence is higher, and I just feel good about myself.”
Devils coach Sheldon Keefe admitted that he dreamed about defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler, who returned to the lineup for the first time since Feb. 4 and played 27:09, being the Game 3 hero.
“But if I was really thinking, I would have said, ‘Wouldn’t this be something if the young guy who just stepped up so big for us here, if he ended the game?'” Keefe said.
The message the coach gave his team in the overtime intermissions was one of aggressiveness. That apparently wasn’t lost on Nemec.
“We’ve got to go win this hockey game. We don’t want to sit back, we don’t want this game to go on forever,” Keefe said. “Credit Nemo with doing that. To have the mindset to do it, not just sitting back and conserving energy. He was on the front foot. You love to see it and love to see him get rewarded.”
Game 4 of the series will be Sunday afternoon in New Jersey.
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