In Reply to: and then the 'but'... posted by Pyperkub on August 01, 2025 at 10:31:51
While I'd generally agree that a good OC is fundamental to any team's success in today's game, Saban's program at Alabama dominated regardless of who was coaching the offense. In total, he coached in 11 national title games at Alabama and won 6 of them. Of those 6 titles, Kiffin and Sarkisian were the OCs in only 2 of them, each was also on the staff for one team that lost a title game. Saban won the title in 2017 (a year that was sandwiched between Kiffin and Sarkissian's OC tenures) with Brian Daboll as the OC. In his 17 seasons at Bama, Saban posted an overall record of 206-29, and six of those losses came in his first season at the start of his very quick rebuild following the disastrous tenure of Mike Shula. Following that first season, the low points of his tenure were a couple of 11-2 finishes in 2019 and 2022, which is still pretty dominant.
And as far as Ohio State's NC last season goes, sure Chip played a role, but he was far from perfect and probably wasn't nearly as big a factor as the $20 million they spent on the roster was.