Comparing Saban and Harbaugh's First Ten Years of Coaching
Saban:
Obviously Nick Saban spent a long time working his way up the coaching tree to reach the point he is now. That being said, I want to focus on his first ten years of head coaching.
First HC Stint - Toledo
1990: 9-2
-The MAC was attrocious at this point. This was, of course, before the scholarship limitations drastically changed college football.
-After only one season at Toledo, Saban left for the DC position with the Browns.
Second Head Coaching Stint - Michigan State
1995: 6-5-1
1996: 6-6
1997: 7-5
1998: 6-6
1999: 9-2 (MSU won 10 games this year, but Bobby Williams coached the Bowl Game)
Given the success that Dantonio has had at MSU, this is a VERY lackluster performance. One could certainly make the argument that Dantonio inherited a worse program than Saban did.
Third Head Coaching Stint - LSU
2000: 8-4
2001: 10-3
2002: 8-5
2003: 13-1 (National Championship)
(Adding all pre Bama information for context)
2004: 9-3
Fourth Coaching Stint - Miami Dolphins
2005: 9-7
2006: 6-10
Overall Record: 82-35
Harbaugh:
This has been covered exstensively, so I'll save everyone the season-by-season break down.
Overall College record: 58-27
As we all know, however, Harbaugh took over a 1 win Stanford team, that many have labeled the worst P5 football team of all time. The first three seasons at Stanford accounted for the heavy bulk of his overall losses.
Overall record: 36-11 (With super bowl appearances, and conference championships. Is also the first coach in NFL history to take a team to take a team to three straight championship games in his first 3 seasons.)
Who has the edge?: Respectfully, Harbaugh. Saban has a NC in his first ten years coaching, but I would put a Super Bowl appearnce for a rookie coach in the NFL as the more impressive accomplishment. Harbaugh's accomplishments with Stanford are nothing short of "amazing."
Harbaugh has won everywhere he has went.
Saban has not.
There you go.
But when you lay it out, it becomes much more impressive.
TWSS
So glad I can only see you on the app
Please stop responding to him. It detracts from the enjoyment of Mgoblog for those of us who aren't on the app. And probably for those on the app as well.
Truthbtold is the last person who'd be familiar with terms like "CEO" or "VP."
is not totally accurate. If we are putting Saban's year in the MAC, we need to include Harbaugh at USD. Also, he went to the SB in his second year, not his first year at the 49ers. If you look at the career trajectory of both, they are pretty similar. One less quantifiable "same same but different" observation is Harbaugh is an offensive guru that has punishing defenses, while Saban is a defensive guru with punishing offenses.
One thing I know is Harbaugh will get his. Maybe even starting this year. He has created the us v. everybody vibe. He takes all the heat, but i'm sure his guys will be riled up by it all off season. To those at the spring game last year and this year, the difference was night and day. As was the difference between the bowl game and the end of the regular season. By the end of this season, we should have a fully functional Harbaugh team. We shall see.
I think it's tough to compare Harbaugh to Saban because they are different. Both are successful, both are top 5 coaches, but they are different.
I would like to say this a bit differently. Harbaugh has won without amassing a huge personnel advantage. Saban has not. He was mediocre at MSU until he got "his people" in. Most of all, thouhgh, Saban was 15-17 in the NFL, where the salary cap brings talent levels a lot closer together. Harbaugh was 36-11. AFAIC, those stats alone make Harbaugh a better coach.
There is no way Saban wins as many NC's as he has coachinng at a school that doesn't cheat. Saban is a very good coach, but h has to have boosters who will buy him whatever pieces he wants to win NC's.
Unfortunately, the Bammer Boosters have cemented Saban's "legacy." But let's see how many NC's Harbaugh wins in the next ten years while playing within the rules.
Ok, let me push back in one area here: Saban has a huge personnel advantage right now, yes. He has a streak of #1 overall classes.
But that streak hadn't started when he started winning championships at Alabama. The team was eh his first season, but in his second season he was neck-and-neck with Florida for a national title berth. He won in 2009 with a team still featuring many players that he hadn't recruited, and by his second title in 2011 he still hadn't been pulling in #1 overall classes every year. Top 5, yes, but not #1. He knows how to coach up players.
(By the way, want to see some carnage? Look at 247's list of the top classes in 2010. Check out the top two or three teams. See if you can even recognize all those top prospects. Busts everywhere; woof.)
They are both great coaches. But right now, Harbaugh hasn't won a title anywhere; Saban has 5. I prefer Harbaugh over Saban because I like my psychopaths out in the open, but other teams have good coaches and are successful because of it. Same with Meyer at OSU.
But I don't respect any NC win that Alabama has under Saban. He's a great coach, but it's difficult to respect something with so much cheating, and dishonesty involved,
Lots of place cheat and lots of places are dishonest - it is still very hard to win a national championship, let alone 4. You don't have to like Saban but you should still be impressed with what he has done at Alabama.
Hey, cheating worked for the Patriots and that team is the standard by which all others must be judged. They didn't win the SB last year because they didn't want to, not because the Broncos bitch-slapped them twice during the season and proved to be the better team.
Maybe New England and Saban both need to go back to the Cheater drawing board ...
How has Saban cheated? I hate Saban more than anyone on the planet, but while at Bama he hasn't a big scandal or major sanctions. You can knock on him for dishonesty in recruiting, but Harbaugh is in that same boat with unloading players just weeks before signing day to pursue more highly rated recruits. Then of course we can debate till we are blue in the face about all the hiring of recruits parents. Harbaugh did nothing wrong in any of this, but I'm sure fans down south would consider it cheating. At the end of the day, neither Harbaugh or Saban are cheaters. They are just willing to push the rules as much as possible to gain an advantage. Meyer does it too. The stuff going on at Ole Miss is actual cheating.
but Harbaugh is in that same boat with unloading players just weeks before signing day to pursue more highly rated recruits
No. Harbaugh pulled an offer to a kid a few months before signing day because the kid wasn't putting in the necessary effort. We only heard about it a few weeks before signing day.
Its not really a fair comparison, and even if it were, I am not sure of the point. Harbaugh is great and the perfect person to lead Michigan, but he has no titles and Saban has 5 NC's. You can't deny that kind of success.
to be successful would certainly be true, do we really care? Harbaugh would never allow himself to get pulled into that quagmire and we should be thankful for it. However, I don't think any of us give a damn about whether Jim ends up with more wins as a college coach than Saban.
Let Saban rewrite the record books once belonging to the Bear. That's an Alabama thing. The other isn't.
The mental gymnastics people do to discredit his accomplishments make my brain hurt.
I think you hit it on the head. If I am picking which coach I want to lead my team then I am picking Harbaugh all day. If I had to rank which coach is bettter just based on what they have accomplished in their coaching career, you have to pick Saban.
much of the Louisiana's talent went everywhere BUT LSU.
Saban put the lockdown on that.
People like to blame it on Durkin but Harbaugh got thoroughly outcoached by Urban this year.
Not really a fair comparison. When Saban took over at LSU they were an absolute shit show the previous years. When Saban took over at Bama that school had been absolutely irrelevant for years. Neither school was loaded with football talent. Saban had to stock the pond at both schools and develop a culture of winning. Safe to say he absolutely succeeded at the highest levels possible. Both schools won titles and became mini NFL training camps. Harbaugh has achieved a great deal, but still no titles to his name regardless of what lens you look at him through. We really need to see him acquire some hardware before we consider him the greatest coach in college football. Also, I would like to see a comparison of Meyer's first 10 years coaching to Harbaughs. I think that would be a more interesting analysis.
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I'd say your phone is a Harbaugh hater. Time for a new phone?
we should pump the brakes a little now. There is a lot of work to be done before this is a legitimate discussion.
So...any "good" coach would have won FIVE(!) national championships if he spent a chunk of time at LSU and Alabama? Interesting theory...
LSU was not a winning program when Saban got there. As it stands, they have won two titles. He is the one that transformed them.
Alabama, of course, is as dominant a power as there has been in the game, both now and over the decades. It's a different case.
I think a lot of coaches can win in those places now because of the rampant cheating impressive talent they have available. However, there have been plenty of coaches at those schools that have failed spectacularly enough to demonstrate that not just anybody can do it.
I think Saban is at a place where it is easier to win; I also think he is inarguably a good coach, and for however much he may be a caustic jerk to the outside, players obviously want to play for him. Like the question about elite talent development versus genetics yesterday, it seems to be both.
As you say, many have been there but only the Bear came close. Saban does have excellent organizational skills and they are as needed just as much as Xs and Os. i think the Bear and Bowden were probably better with the Xs and Os, but certainly there organizational skills were far better than most of the coaches of their respective eras.
Harbaugh probably has a better grasp of both than does any other coach of this era. Meyer cetainly has the winning pct that states he is the best among today's coaches, but the same thing that keeps Saban from earning, based by on-field results, what should be his in a TKO, minus any type of debate. However, it's his access to players, not unlike Carroll's, as we learned later, many coming in a not so acceptable manner that keep him from being given this title without any caveats. And its his relationship with the ncaa director that will ultimately be his undoing. Urban, having the same thing hanging over his head and the shit that went down in FL, and a hint of it in Colombus this year after the MSU loss, that will probably force him into retirement again, this time permanently.
Mr. King, as you said, "players want to play for him." They had the same option at Michigan State, but they didn't have the same guarantees of playing with a roster filled with other first round draft picks, and those other benefits Alabama offers players that MSU doesn't that probably made him less likeable then.
While an LSU employee, then Chancellor Emmert hired Saban as LSU's head coach. That is pretty well known. What is not so commonly known is that he led an internal investigation that resulted in "minor" violations. " A university instructor accused the school of having systemic academic fraud in its football program, including plagiarized papers on bobsledding players were turning in and un-enrolled students showing up to take notes for football players, who often slept through class. A graduate assistant also spoke out about the plagiarism problem."
As is the norm for Emmert, after he announced his plans to go to UW, the truth came out and as more and more witnesses came forward, "not allowed to speak at the time," because Emmert always chose those who would be interviewed and those who would not.'. As one said, "It was a complete whitewashing, the normal way they took care of business here." Minus the guilty football players, it's doubtful Saban would have won his first while at LSU or if he would not have been considered "highly toxic" if the investigation would have been run honestly. The payoff to two "whistleblowers" was over 100K each.
Prior to him leaving, he had managed to have his salary increased to 500K pr year, the highest paid head of any public campus in America. Two years later, in 2003, he had Saban's salary increased to 2.3 million, the highest in the country at that time.
At Bama his taking care of Nick hasn't lessened. Bama, as has been their history since they've had football has been under some type of investigation. When it has since Emmert has become head of the ncaa, he has decided to overse the investigation, very uncommon for the head man and opposed to his claim, "the head of the ncaa isn't involved with any investigation." As one of his ex-employees says, "He picks which ones he will be involved with, simple as that."
Although he's helped his buddy out, it hasn't been without cost. The light is shining brighter and I do think it will, as it has many others reflect most of what there is to see.
As one member of the ncaa says, "Alabama has two perceived friends in high places: Emmert and Alabama graduate Derrick Crawford, a director of enforcement for the NCAA. In the outside world, it's akin to being accused of a crime and having the charges investigated at the police station where your uncle is the police chief and your friend is the chief detective."
Nick is a damn fine coach. So are many others. Given his roster, those few with equal organizational skills should have, and I can't think of a damn reason they would not have, enjoyed the same amount of success when handed that roster every year with no questions as to where it came from. So actually, aside from being able to take a roster filled with talent far surpassing that of any of his foes, he usually gets them to where they should be I don't see greatness in that feat.
I once thought any warm body could have a winning season at michigan...
it is hard to knock 5 NCs.
Saban is a much better college coach by all tangible measures. Our only hope is that Harbaugh can rival Saban...
jdon
There's always a synergy between great programs and great coaches. A program can only provide so much--a fanbase, some buildings, a local talent pool, hoards of under-the-table cash, that sort of thing. A coach has to make it work. We know this. Even OSU, in the past, has seen this. Texas is demonstrating this right now.
The best coaches are in demand at the best places and they get to pick their destinations. It all goes together. Now, you are entirely correct to say that it helps to be at Alabama. It's safe to say that Saban wouldn't have won four titles at a place like Vanderbilt, or even Notre Dame. But that is also why he is not at either of those places. I think we're on the same wavelength here.
As for why he didn't win at MSU...
Well, there are lots of ways to approach this. I like to consider MSU's long-running loser mentality, where they were basically OK with a mediocre football team that did well occasionally. I think that grated on Saban, and he even said so when he was quoted saying "I don't see why we can't have two great teams in the state and have one great game every year." He was addressing the media, and also (IMO) the MSU community.
An alternative explanation is that MSU's reluctance to do what it takes to win went further than just investing in the football program and extended to its unwillingness to "go off the books" to get the players he needed. It wouldn't surprise me if LSU and Alabama were places that had less of a problem with that.
And FWIW it took him longer than expected but by his last season MSU was good and set up to stay that way if they had a coach with a pulse.