TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The idea was to make Bama Nation squirm.
With all this success, all these championships, things have been too comfortable for too long. It’s time to choose. With Nick Saban on the cusp of tying Bear Bryant’s all-time record with his sixth national championship, a day of crimson reckoning is coming.
If Saban wins his sixth title in 2016, we’re talking about an accomplishment beyond historic. It will be his fifth in an eight-year span at Alabama. He will have won six overall (one at LSU) in a 14-year period. Bryant won his six in 19 years.
That reckoning came for 50 students and fans during a recent afternoon on campus and around T-Town. CBS Sports surveyed them, asking this three-part question:
If Saban wins No. 6 to tie Bear, how do you define him:
Is he the greatest coach ever, better than Bear or something else entirely?
“Oh, that’s tough,” said recent graduate Bill Holemon, who was sitting down for dinner with his pals at Bob’s Victory Grille on McFarland.
Yeah, it was meant to be.
It turns out Bama Nation is conflicted. Only 11 of the 50 thought Saban would be the best ever if he won a sixth title. Twelve believed that another championship would elevate Saban above Bryant but not necessarily make him the best ever. Combined that's 23 of 50, less than half.
The remainder (27) thought a sixth Saban title would be good but not make him the greatest.
“Bear’s a legend,” said Alex Kersey, a sophomore mechanical engineer major from Houston. “I feel like sometimes we blow it out of proportion. None of us were alive when Bear Bryant was alive. All the stuff we base it off here is just lore.
“We kind of hold [Bryant] up on a pedestal like no one can get there. Six puts Saban on the exact same level. Seven makes him a God.”
Who’s to say that can’t happen? We’ve already suggested Saban’s accomplishments put him among the best team sports coaches of all time.
At 64, Saban has shown no signs of slowing down. The Tide will most likely start Saban’s 10th season in Alabama ranked in the top two nationally.
“No disrespect to older coaches, [but] it’s so much more difficult now,” offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said earlier this year. “What [Saban’s] doing now is unheard of. What he’s doing now is supposed to stop.”
There are others, like Tina Guy Pollard of Millport, Alabama, who will never be swayed.
“We would go to Shoney’s to eat breakfast and there [Bryant] was,” Pollard said while standing in a parking lot just off the main campus drag of University Ave.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “Saban’s the best at this day and time. But, the Bear, I’m sure Saban would tell you that same thing. That’s royalty.
“Your parents had a picture of him on the wall besides Jesus. Everybody knew he drank and nobody cared. When he walked on the field and he propped up on that goalpost, even the other team said, ‘My God, that’s Bear Bryant!’"
The questions themselves span different eras, even different types of football. Five different respondents compared the Saban-Bryant to Kobe Bryant (five NBA titles) and Michael Jordan (six).
“I think [a sixth title] would make [Saban] the best ever,” Jeff Ward, a freshman from Birmingham.
For sanity’s sake, the discussion doesn’t go back to the Paleozoic Age. Alabama -- and others -- continue to claim quasi-championships that were assigned by any number of metrics. This comparison fits nicely in the wire-service era -- after 1936.
The championships are easier to figure out at this point than Saban’s place in history. Bear Bryant didn’t have to deal with an 85-man scholarship limit. He didn’t, like Saban, coach through what is clearly now the golden age of the SEC.
Fans may not have been able to decide but there's plenty more working in Saban's favor. Bryant thrived while the sport was integrating. Saban has built a dynasty in an era of unprecedented parity and aforementioned scholarship restrictions.
Bryant's players trained in a day when water at practice was a luxury. Saban's Alabama relies on new age philosophies and a mental conditioning coach. The NFL is always a threat with juniors able to leave early.
Two of Bryant’s championships were won in the days the final AP Top 25 came out prior to the bowl games. Saban's had to go through both the BCS and College Football Playoff crucibles.
And Saban didn’t have a championship taken away from him (see 1966’s “Missing Ring”).
“Either way, it’s a cool time to be here,” said Paul Kolotka, a freshman from Illinois. “I think that’s a tribute to Saban’s success.”
That’s mainly what came through during that afternoon stroll through Tuscaloosa. Facilities are going up all across campus. Out-of-state enrollment outnumbers in-state for the first time.
In the middle of the day in the heart of a Deep South institution, you have to blink to make sure. The accents suggest this could be UCLA or Northwestern as much as an SEC campus.
“There’s a lot of kids that come here [from out of town who] wanted to come to a big football school,” said Danielle Cassady, a freshman from Athens in northern Alabama. “Ten years ago, no one ever would have said that.”
Alabama enrollment has increased 55 percent over the last 10 years to a record 37,000, according to the New York Times. The acceptance rate has fallen to 54 percent. Simply put: There are more, smarter students at Alabama within the time frame Saban has led football to greatness.
Correlation?
“Everything is named after the Bear here,” said freshman Gio Basso. “Check in, like, 50 years. See if everything is Saban Road and Saban Hall.”
Confronted with this information, Saban demurred, shifting credit to former president Robert Witt.
“I don’t take any credit for it,” he said. “I think we had great leadership and great vision here. … I’m just happy we’ve been able to have a program that was able to contribute to the overall [success].”
An Alabama Dining employee relaxing in the Ferguson Student Center may have put it best.
“I don’t think right now Saban is better than Bear Bryant," Matt Lowery said. "It’s hard to take a snapshot when Saban might have 10 years left. He might have two years left.”
Either way, it will continue to be a cool time to be here.
