re: How would you categorize the Saban teams?

Contrary to what many believe, the 2007 season was the product of a phenomenal coaching job until the end of the first half vs MSU. The week before, Bama was a 4th and 4 stop with ~3 min left of beating the eventual NCs and winning the SEC West; and doing it with the 5th best talent in the division.

Beat Ark, East champ UT, took the eventual national runner-up to OT and as already noted, came within an eyelash of beating the eventual national champs starting 2 players that would start for them.

All of that with 3 former walk-ons STARTING on defense, along with mostly a mix of 2 and 3 stars filling out the rest. Vandy's never had it that bad.

Saban is much more than a great recruiter and CEO, he is a great game-week and game-day coach. I can still see him running down the sidelines vs OM and calling TO to talk to the officials about a ruling they had missed; they eventually agreed, thus sealing the close win. He knew the rulebook better than the SEC officials. (He's not perfect, but yes he should have called TO vs AU in 2013 to kick the winning FG. He was being aggressive as always and knew that Bama would unlikely win in OT.)