Alabama’s Nick Saban won a BCS Championship at LSU in 2003. He won his second national title in his third year at Alabama, with two more in the next three years. His $7 million salary, by far the country’s highest, is actually a reasonable investment.
Is Ohio State’s Urban Meyer now the country’s best college football coach?
Only two coaches have ever won national championships at multiple schools. And the second one beat the first one in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
Ohio State’s Urban Meyer won two national championships at Florida before Monday night’s 42-20 beatdown of Oregon, which could’ve been so much worse for the Ducks. He’s off to a 38-3 start with the Buckeyes, topping Saban’s 33-8 in his first three years at Bama. His .845 career winning percentage across four schools beats Saban’s .754 at four.
And it's not even fair to note that Saban never won a national championship despite two season-ending quarterback injuries in the same year, after we saw Buckeye third-stringer Cardale Jones dumptrucking Ducks all over Dallas after OSU lost two Heisman contenders earlier in the year. Because who'd ever done such a thing before?
For years, declaring Saban the country’s best coach has been no declaration at all, merely an acknowledgement of fact. Things change. You now have to present evidence in order to keep Saban atop your list.
The national champions
The national champions
That 2-1 head-to-head record between the two coaches, which Alabama fans lorded over Meyer for years after their third meeting preceded a Meyer meltdown and sabbatical, is now 2-2. Meyer's Buckeyes put 537 yards on the prized Tide defense in the soul of SEC country during a 42-35 Sugar Bowl win.
Think about this. Michigan just beat the NFL for Jim Harbaugh, a head coach who's won both the NFC and the Orange Bowl, and the Wolverines still don't have a coach more proven than their archrival's.
Saban is 63. Meyer is 50. If Saban wins another title, he’ll tie Bear Bryant for the most trophies ever. He might go down as the greatest coach in the sport’s history, considering that multiple-schools thing. But the man who holds the conch right now also has a whole lot of time to make a run at that mark.
Joey Bosa, Michael Thomas, Ezekiel Elliott, and Vonn Bell are sophomores. Jalin Marshall is a freshman. Four starting offensive linemen could return. At least one of these QBs is coming back. Guess whose team is more loaded for next season, Saban's or Meyer's?
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