How Nick Saban's legacy looms over Michigan State-Oregon bowl game

Mark Dantonio and Mario Cristobal share roots, even though they don't exactly intertwine.

They both come from Nick Saban’s coaching tree, nearly 20 years apart. And the connections and shared philosophies — while not direct or duplicated — will be on display when Dantonio’s Michigan State football team faces Cristobal and Oregon in the Redbox Bowl on Dec. 31 (3 p.m., Fox).

“I think the parallels in programs run by guys that worked for him under that tree have a lot of similarities…,” Cristobal said during a teleconference Thursday. “I think you're seeing how that blueprint carried over to different places with little tweaks here and there.”

Dantonio was the defensive backs coach on Saban’s staff at MSU from 1995 until Saban left for LSU at the end of the 1999 season. Dantonio remained in East Lansing for one more season under Bobby Williams, then returned as head coach after the 2006 season.

More:MSU's LJ Scott changes mind, declares for 2019 NFL draft

“I always thought he'd do great if he ever got an opportunity to be a head coach,” Saban said of Dantonio in December 2015. “He's certainly done a lot better job at Michigan State than I ever could do. So he's done really well. I'm proud of him.”

Cristobal, who left Alabama following the 2016 season to become Willie Taggart’s co-offensive coordinator with the Ducks last year, is in his first full season as Oregon’s head coach.

A noted recruiter, Cristobal helped build Alabama’s current dynasty while he was Saban’s offensive line coach for four seasons from 2013-16. When he joined the Crimson Tide staff, Cristobal replaced former MSU assistant Jeff Stoutland, who was on the staff from 2000-06, including with Dantonio on Williams’ 2000 staff.

Many of the Ducks’ dominoes of the last year also had coaching ties to Saban and/or MSU.

• Taggart left Oregon for the Florida State job at the end of the 2017 season, hiring former Dantonio and Saban assistant Harlon Barnett as his defensive coordinator.

• Cristobal was promoted as Oregon’s head coach before its Las Vegas Bowl appearance. He spent six years as Florida International’s head coach for six years until he was fired in 2012.

• In January, Cristobal hired former MSU head coach Williams away from Saban to be the Ducks’ special teams coach. Williams was running backs coach at MSU in 1990 under George Perles and remained on Saban’s staff, taking over for him as head coach for the 2000 Citrus Bowl and the next three seasons. After being fired from MSU in 2002 and spending a brief one-year stint as a position coach with the Lions, Williams had been with Saban for all but one year since 2004. That included stops with LSU, with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins and at Alabama.

Dantonio, who was associate head coach under Williams at MSU in 2000, reminded reporters he was a graduate assistant coach at Purdue in 1981 when Williams was a running back there.

“Our relationship goes way back,” Dantonio said of Williams. “He's an outstanding coach, recruiter and person, so it'll be great to see him as well.”

But many of those relationships dovetailed from working for Saban. And both Dantonio and Cristobal believe that is where they grew their cardinal coaching tenets, and the Oregon coach said at Pac-12 media days in July that working for Saban meant “you essentially get your Ph.D. in certain parts of your coaching regimen and structure.”

“It has stood the test of time for many decades,” Cristobal said Thursday about Saban’s system, “and is something a lot of guys have invested time into.”

The clearest link is between Saban and Dantonio. One of Saban’s early jobs was as Perles’ defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator at MSU from 1983-87, with his last game the Big Ten champion Spartans’ win in the 1988 Rose Bowl.

Dantonio has said over the years how much Saban helped him to coach the position they both played in college, and he has continued to assist with the Spartans’ defensive backs as head coach.

“I was Saban's defensive backs coach for five years,” Dantonio said. “The basis of what I know defensively really comes from all the coaches I've worked with, but I think he's had the most dramatic impact on me as a defensive coach.”

Dantonio has done what Saban failed to do at MSU: win big bowl games and turn the Spartans into a perennial contender for Big Ten titles in the past decade. He led the Spartans to the 2015 College Football Playoff semifinals, where they got knocked out, 38-0, by Saban, Williams and Cristobal’s Alabama juggernaut that won the national title that year.

Cristobal – who played offensive line at Miami (Florida) and has only coached that side of the ball – recognized a lot of what he saw in MSU in 2015 from Saban’s program. He sees a continuance of that for the 7-5 Spartans this season, particularly on defense.

“Michigan State plays a physical and aggressive brand of football. Very disciplined with explosive players at the playmaking positions,” Cristobal said. “We understand the challenges ahead of us.”

Dantonio and MSU split two regular-season games against Oregon and then-coach Mark Helfrich in 2014 and 2015. He sees many of the same traits from those teams in the 8-4 Ducks this year, as well as other familiar things that bear Saban’s fingerprints.

“I'm very impressed with what I've seen in terms of their skill players, they always good skill out there. Outstanding quarterback. Defensively, they're going to play extremely hard out of a 3-4 front,” Dantonio said. “Outstanding football team and they're right there, much like our football team. You can look at the games that they've played, and they had an opportunity to win every one of them.

“Should be a great game and a great matchup.”

Contact Chris Solari: csolari@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @chrissolari. Download our Spartans Xtra app for free on Apple and Android devices!