Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
JOHN ZENOR
Associated Press
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Nick Saban didn't promise Alabama will win national or Southeastern Conference titles by 2010, or anything nearly so bold.
The Crimson Tide's all-business new coach certainly has such high ambitions, but he preferred to discuss what it will take to elevate the program back to that level.
"We're not going to talk about what we're going to accomplish," Saban said at his introductory news conference Thursday. "We're going to talk about how we're going to do it."
He'll employ the same formula his LSU Tigers used to win a BCS national title in 2003 along with two Southeastern Conference championships: stout defense, strong recruiting and a hardworking mentality.
Saban said he missed college football during two years with the Miami Dolphins.
"My heart's here. I love it here," he said. "I like to affect people, and that's why I'm here. This is obviously one of the best places in the country to have an opportunity to do that."
The money isn't bad, either. Saban agreed to a reported eight-year deal worth an estimated $32 million plus incentives, the richest in college football but still a pay cut from the Dolphins.
He takes over a program with six AP national titles and a proud legacy led by the late coach Bear Bryant, but is more focused on the future than the past.
"It's what you do now," Saban said.
Alabama athletic director Mal Moore believes Saban will do plenty.
"His teams always play with confidence and pride and I know that in order to win a national championship, a team has to be mentally as well as physically tough," said Moore, who played and coached under Bryant. "Coach Saban's teams have always possessed those qualities."
As for the big salary, Moore said, "I just think it was a very crucial hire for us in this time in our history."
Not everyone in Alabama was convinced.
"That certainly makes a strong statement in a state that funds education at one of the lowest per-pupil rates of any state in the country," said state Rep. Richard Lindsey, chairman of a House committee that writes the education budget. "I think we've let it get out of hand."
But the school's faculty senate president, chemistry professor John Vincent, had a more positive view.
"The money doesn't come out of the academic side of the university. The academic side is self sufficient," he said. "Of course I would like to see these kinds of benefits available on the academic side, but this hiring offers much to the university."
Saban's wife, Terry, encouraged the move to Tuscaloosa and another college job.
"It's the relationships, that family feeling, that we missed," she said.
And the warm reception on Wednesday afternoon didn't hurt, either. Saban said when he arrived at LSU from Michigan State as a less well-known coach, it was just him, an equipment manager and his agent.
Not this time.
"When the plane landed, we were overwhelmed that there was this huge crowd of people just cheering, like your mother's saying, 'Come on home,'" Terry Saban said.