Tag: nick saban

Louis Riddick wanted to hire this coach if he became Giants GM

There was quite a bit of news on the coaching front this week — not just in the NFL but in college football as well, with legendary coach, Alabama’s Nick Saban, announcing his retirement.

Prior to the Giants hiring Dave Gettleman as their general manager in December 2017, Louis Riddick was being considered for the position. The Giants, of course, went with Gettleman, which did not work out well for them.

As it turns out, Riddick had big plans for his head coach had he landed the Giants’ GM job. In fact, it appears Riddick reached out to Nick Saban proactively while still being in the running for the position.

This wasn’t the first time Saban’s name was connected to the Giants.

According to Bruce Arians back in 2018, Saban coveted the Giants head coaching job and there were also rumors that Saban nearly replaced Tom Coughlin when his tenure with the Giants ended.

It’s certainly an interesting ‘what if’ scenario, especially considering the way that the Gettleman era is remembered among fans.

It’s interesting to think about how Riddick would have fared as the Giants GM, especially if he was able to lure Saban away from Alabama.



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Georgia’s Kirby Smart matches Nick Saban’s elusive Alabama feat

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — A year ago, Kirby Smart became just the second of Nick Saban’s assistant coaches to beat him. On Monday, Smart became perhaps the first coach since Saban re-entered college football back in 2007 who can lay claim to owning the sport in the way he has for so long. 

Each and every time someone has looked likely to put a halt to Alabama’s year-over-year dominance, Saban endured and his opposition faded. There was Dabo Swinney’s Clemson, which twice beat Alabama in national title games, but sans-Trevor Lawrence hasn’t made it back to the playoff. There was Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State and Urban Meyer’s Ohio State. Ever so briefly, there was Ed Orgeron’s LSU. All success stories. None relevant for nearly as long as Saban’s Alabama. 

Now? Smart has done what no one could since Saban all the way back in 2011 and ’12. He’s won two straight national titles, the second of those coming on Monday night at SoFi Stadium with a 65-7 mauling of TCU. Alabama’s season finished all the way back on New Year’s Day with a victory in the Cotton Bowl, the sort of game long rendered irrelevant by the standard Saban has set in Tuscaloosa. 

Kirby Smart celebrates after Georgia’s national championship win.
Charles Baus/CSM/Shutterstock
Nick Saban was the last coach to win two straight national titles.
Getty Images

Alabama will be back, of course. Saban hauled in the No. 2 recruiting class in the nation last month, and no one in their right mind expects the Tide to go down easy. But at least as of Tuesday morning, it’s Smart whose program sets college football’s standard. 

“The disease that creeps into your program is called entitlement. I’ve seen it firsthand,” Smart said, not an hour after reaching the mountaintop. “If you can stomp it out with leadership, then you can stay hungry. And we have a saying around our place: We eat off the floor. And if you’re willing to eat off the floor, then you can be special.” 

That might as well be the Saban of yesteryear talking. 

“He gets everything out of us,” receiver Kearis Jackson said of Smart. “We’re all on scholarship and he’s gonna get that scholarship out of us.” 

This national championship game domination looked remarkably like Saban’s 42-14 shellacking of Notre Dame in 2012, another decimation that delivered a back-to-back title. 

That one saw Alabama cement itself as the center of the sport. This one saw Georgia take up the Crimson Tide’s mantle, with Saban relegated to sitting and watching as an ESPN analyst. Right down to players citing imaginary doubters postgame, though, this was a work of art out of Saban’s book. 

“Really just instilling in us that we’re not gonna be hunted here at the University of Georgia,” right tackle Warren McClendon told The Post about Smart’s impact. “We’re gonna be the ones doing the hunting. And we’re gonna be the aggressors and we’re gonna come at our opponents every week.” 

At Smart’s Georgia, that’s the right mindset to have against anyone. Sonny Dykes’ TCU, certainly. And yes, even Saban’s Alabama.

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Rat poison worse than ever as Alabama opens season

Alabama is a double-digit favorite in every game this season. But don’t tell that to Nick Saban.

“I think the rat poison this year, not to bring up a sore subject, it’s worse than ever,” Saban said on his radio show this week. “I’ve had more people ask me how we’re going to do against Texas this week than how we are going to do against Utah State. I mean, I’m like, ‘We don’t play Texas this week.’”

The Aggies come to Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday night before Alabama goes to Texas in a marquee Week 2 matchup.

Saban, who has derided “rat poison” frequently in the past, connected his hatred of media hype to the Bible, reciting Matthew 23:12.

“Then I go to church on Sunday,” Saban said, “and the sermon is, ‘He who exalts himself will be humbled. He who humbles himself will be exalted.’ So it’s almost like, you put rat poison in that same thing, it almost fits perfectly.”

Nick Saban and Alabama open their season against Utah State on Saturday.
AP

That wasn’t the last Saban — whose team is considered the favorite to win the national championship — had to say on a subject that has brought passion out of him before.

“We’ve got to play one game at a time,” he said. “‘How can Alabama lose to this team? How can this team beat Alabama, three months from now?’ Who gives a s–t? How about this game? How about the church of what’s happening now? Now. Can we focus on what’s happening now? How come no one is interested in now?”

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