FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Nick Saban wasn’t always the greatest college football coach of all time.
First, he was a 35-year-old defensive coordinator, employed by his sixth different school (Michigan State). Then, he was 45, finishing 6-6 in his second season as Spartans’ head coach. After that, he was 55, and wrapping up a 15-17 two-year stint with the Dolphins in the NFL.
Now, however, the 67-year-old is the most accomplished coach in college football history, two wins away from his seventh national championship. To claim it, the face of the sport has to take down its future.
Standing across the field from the Alabama coach in Saturday’s Orange Bowl will be Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley, 35, the second-youngest coach in the country, and perhaps the most gifted offensive mind Saban’s defensive genius has encountered.
“I was talking with Coach Saban about the offensive coaches he goes up against,” ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit relayed this week. “He says this is the best guy he’s faced.”
Since ascending from offensive coordinator and taking over from Bob Stoops, the winningest coach in Oklahoma history, Riley has led the Sooners to a 24-3 record and back-to-back playoff appearances in two seasons as head man while orchestrating the most explosive offense in the country and shaping a pair of Heisman Trophy winners.
Though Riley may never sniff Saban’s legacy — it’s possible no one will — the Sooners coach ultimately could enjoy an even longer reign as the standard in the sport, perhaps fueled by an upset of the greatest coach — the third-oldest in the country — and dynasty in history.
“You can’t ignore the success that they’ve had and how consistent they’ve been,” Riley said. “I think there’s a lot of things that they do in their program that are outstanding, that I think any program in the country would want to do.
“We want to be the best Oklahoma we can be, and we think this thing can get a lot better.”
The baby boomer and millennial see eye-to-eye. The best is still to come.
“I think I’ve always been kind of geared up to always sort of look at what’s in front of you, not necessarily look what’s behind you, and I think that the next game is always the most important, the next season is always the most important, the next team, the next group of players, and there’s always a great challenge in that,” Saban said Friday morning. “I think that we sometimes use the analogy of every season is like climbing a mountain … next year it starts all over. So you have a process of things that are very challenging for that particular team, and that’s what I always sort of look at and focus on. Just don’t look back, always look ahead.
“And that’s not been something that’s been difficult for me to do. I think when it gets that way, then maybe that’s the time you shouldn’t be in it.”