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Urban Meyer Discusses Nick Saban, If He’s ‘The Best’ Ever
Urban Meyer discusses Nick Saban and if he'd rank him as "the best" ever college football coach.
January 23, 2016
Urban Meyer discusses where he’d rank Nick Saban among the best college football coaches of all time.
Urban Meyer is no stranger to Nick Saban’s work, and vice versa. The two have been butting heads since Meyer’s days with the Florida Gators.
After taking a year off from coaching, Meyer landed with the Ohio State Buckeyes, where he’s continued the program’s championship tradition. He’s gone 50-4 in four seasons with Ohio State, and led the program to a national championship last season. In route to the Buckeyes’ eighth title, Meyer knocked off Saban and the heavily-favored Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl. With the championship, he joined Saban and Pop Warner as the only coaches with titles at more than one FBS program, categorized as Division I-A during Warner’s coaching era.
Meyer is one of the best coaches to ever walk the college football sideline, but Saban, with his fifth championship, is arguably the greatest ever.
Gridiron Now recently spoke with Meyer, who discussed Saban’s place in history.
“I certainly think he’ll (Saban) go down as one of the greatest in the history of college football,” Meyer said. “I know everybody knows that. But I don’t want to say ‘the best’ — one of the top two or three.”
As Gridiron Now points out, Meyer was not slighting Saban, rather complimenting him.
Saban has developed an unprecedented consistency at Alabama, which has been instrumental in his success. Recruiting has played a big part into that.
“What he has is consistency in all areas — recruiting, developing players and holding a staff together,” Meyer said. “One of the issues I’ve had over the years is losing assistant coaches. They become head coaches (Tom Herman). He lost a couple this year and one became a head coach (Kirby Smart).”
“Alabama is going to lose a few players like we did, but every year Coach Saban finishes first or second in recruiting.”
While Saban has set the bar, Meyer is not far behind. At 51 years old and with three championships to his name already, it’s not crazy to think Meyer could catch Saban. Ohio State’s steady influx of top talent will keep the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff hunt on a regular basis.
Maybe Meyer’s holding out to crown the “best ever” until he’s done compiling his resume.
