re: What is it about Nick Saban that makes him such an extraordinary Head Coach?

He's one of the most disciplined and business like coaches out there.

What set him over the top from being a very very good coach at LSU to being the machine he is now was the media hype machine created when he was hired at Bama.

The media basically anointed Saban before he had a chance to unpack his office and made him out to be more than he was at that point. Keep in mind that time was in the height of ESPN's influence. That allowed him to come in and immediately recruit at a high level.

Take all that and mix in perfect timing of his first full recruiting class, 2008, being an insanely loaded in-state class allowed him his first #1 overall class and the cornerstones to his first 3 titles.

The aforementioned discipline and business-like approach make him one of the only coaches suited to maintain all that talent. Most coaches it would crumble under its own weight.

All those things together make a big ball and once it got started rolling it wasn't stopping

TL:dr = discipline and approach + the perfect storm of circumstances