re: Saban coaching records that will likely never be broken

Going to the 4-team Playoff 8 of the 10 years of it's existence was pretty cool. BAMA is a tree-shredding machine.

If Saban is the GOAT then it is because he coached at the last football factory in America. At UAT Saban had an unlimited and unsurpassed budget for overall payroll, NIL, recruiting, gold-plated facilities and most importantly no pushback from the admissions office or the Bama administration. Bama football is only very vaguely associated with the University of Alabama and for all intents and purposes it is a totally autonomous organization. How would have Saban done at GA Tech, Purdue, NC State, Vanderbilt or any football program with any integrity or admissions requirements? The point is, the drive-thru window guy at McDonald's could win 9-10 games every year at Bama.

What’s wild is that with all Saban’s success, the Tide only repeated as SEC champions twice.

Speaks to the testament to this league. It’s about as hard maybe even harder to win a title in this conference as it is to win a national title.

Yes you correct and I apologize, I had the misguided opinion that football is NOT the the be all and end all of what a university should be. Aesthetics be damned, education be damned, improving lives be damned, having a championship football team is all that matters. I'm sure you already know that Elmer "Streak O'lean" Ferguson, Jr. the hot shot high school QB from Buzzard Breath, West Virginia is planning to visit UAT. Row tyde baby!

Yes indeed, you cannot get a bama zealot to understand something when their self-esteem, self-worth and self-respect demands that they NOT understand it. Row Tyde baby!

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For the most part I agree. These are the possible exceptions:

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I agree that Kirby (and probably only Kirby) has a better than average shot at eventually matching or surpassing the 10 season span and 15 season span win total records (especially the 15 season span)

The 10 season span win total will be very difficult to top imo. To put that total in perspective, Georgia would need to win 41 games over the next 3 seasons to equal that record by the end of the 2026 season. It will become much more doable as time goes on however as Kirby is certainly on pace to top it by the end of the 2030 season once he has completed 10 full seasons after the shortened 2020 Covid season.

Good point as well about it being easier to reach the higher win totals each season with the expanded playoff. However, the inverse is true when it comes to breaking the Top 2 finishes records. It's now much easier to make the playoff but also much more difficult to finish in the Top 2 with the expanded playoff.

To clarify the SEC Championship game winning streak I included wasn't a consecutive seasons streak. It was simply how many consecutive SEC championship games won in the years a team makes it to the game.

Good catch on Frank Leahy and Notre Dame's 4 consecutive Top 2 finishes streak. I missed that one. I should also mention that Dabo and Clemson also matched that streak finishing in the Top 2 for 4 consecutive seasons from the 2016 season thru the 2019 season.

Good point about the 2020 Covid season screwing up Kirby and Georgia with the 11+ win streak record and especially the 10+ win streak record.

I should also point out that Ohio State would also have a shot to equal or surpass the consecutive 11+ win and 10+ win streaks albeit over the course of two coaching tenures (Urban Meyer and Ryan Day in tOSU's case) if not for the Covid shortened 2020 season

To me the 13 consecutive seasons of 11 or more wins and the 6 Top 2 finishes in a 7 season span are the two Saban records that are going to be very difficult if not impossible to equal.

All it takes is one season going "only" 10-2 during the regular season and a little bad luck either not making the SEC title game or losing the SEC title game and then losing your bowl game or 1st playoff game to finish with "only" 10 wins at the end of a season. In Georgia and Kirby's case, they'd have to avoid that scenario occurring even once between now and the end of the 2033 season.

I personally think Kirby will equal or surpass the 16 consecutive 10+ win seasons record and the most wins in a 15 season span assuming he coaches that long.

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with any integrity or admissions requirements

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Angry this morning I see but lets discuss this statement.

Stanford was part of Operation Varsity Blues. The scandal for academic fraud through admissions.

And let us not forget about integrity at Stanford

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Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said on Wednesday he would resign from his post after a review by a panel of scientists concluded that research papers he contributed to contained “manipulation of research data,” according to a report released by a special university committee.

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What was that about integrity?

You might want to rethink before you post in the future

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If Saban is the GOAT then it is because he coached at the last football factory in America. At UAT Saban had an unlimited and unsurpassed budget for overall payroll, NIL, recruiting, gold-plated facilities and most importantly no pushback from the admissions office or the Bama administration. Bama football is only very vaguely associated with the University of Alabama and for all intents and purposes it is a totally autonomous organization. How would have Saban done at GA Tech, Purdue, NC State, Vanderbilt or any football program with any integrity or admissions requirements? The point is, the drive-thru window guy at McDonald's could win 9-10 games every year at Bama.

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Sorry youre poor

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If Saban is the GOAT then it is because he coached at the last football factory in America. At UAT Saban had an unlimited and unsurpassed budget for overall payroll, NIL, recruiting, gold-plated facilities and most importantly no pushback from the admissions office or the Bama administration. Bama football is only very vaguely associated with the University of Alabama and for all intents and purposes it is a totally autonomous organization. How would have Saban done at GA Tech, Purdue, NC State, Vanderbilt or any football program with any integrity or admissions requirements? The point is, the drive-thru window guy at McDonald's could win 9-10 games every year at Bama.

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For argument sake you may have been able to make this argument as recently as the 80s and 90s up until the turn of the century but from about the end of the Mike Dubose coaching era on this argument doesn't jive with reality. It certainly doesn't apply to Nick Saban's tenure as Alabama's head coach.

From the day Coach Saban took over as Alabama's head coach in January 2007, he has recruited players from over the country that not only excelled on the football field but players that were also good enough students to get offered scholarships and to be accepted into much more prestigious schools academically when they chose to sign and play somewhere else.

Alabama foitball has consistently been ranked among the top 10 to 15 teams nationally in APR, graduation rate, and the number of players graduating on time throughout Saban's tenure there. Not only was he recruiting an elite caliber of football player, he was also in the vast majority of cases recruiting student athletes with the type of character and work ethic to succeed both on the field and in the classroom. You can look at the team's consistently high APR numbers as well as the number of former players who graduated and in many cases graduated early to see this was true.

Granted, the Alabama administration's pushback to admitting average to below average student athletes during Saban's tenure as head coach wasn't likely as intense as the pushback from the administrations at the Stanfords, Cals, Northwesterns, Notre Dames, Michigans, UVAs, Vandys, or the more elite ACC or Big Ten schools but needless to say that doesn't apply to most other schools.

The Alabama administration during Saban's tenure was no less lenient when it came to admitting student athletes than the FSUs, Clemsons, NC States, and Miamis of the ACC were, Big 12 teams not named Texas were, the less prestigious Pac 12 schools were, and pretty much all fellow SEC schools not named Vandy and Florida were.

The recruiting battles that Saban did lose were more often than not were recruits that ended up at schools with supposedly more stringent admission standards for student athletes than Alabama. Not to even mention the number of starters and regular contributors that Alabama lost in the transfer portal to schools with supposedly much stricter academic standards for incoming student athletes.

I know it may be difficult for you to believe but Alabama football is a national brand with a national following. There are bigger national brands with bigger national followings (Notre Dame in particular...and perhaps Ohio State and Michigan strictly numbers wise from a national following standpoint due to their massive alumni bases)

Outside of Notre Dame, the Alabama football brand has a national (non-alumni) following on par with and just as prestigious if not more so than Ohio State, Michigan, Oklahoma, USC, and to a slightly lesser extent Texas.

A prestigious national college football brand coupled with a legendary head coach and recruiter who develops players into high round NFL draft picks and/or well rounded young men who in the vast majority of cases graduate on time.That combination naturally results in huge numbers of top recruits from all over the country wanting to be a part of said program. These are the same recruits coveted by every program including Alabama that in a lot of cases chose a different school than Alabama. When these recruits chose to go play at a so called academically rigorous school with stricter admission standards than Alabama they were in practically every case enthusiastically accepted and enrolled into that school.

In other words, Alabama football recruited and enrolled elite athletes from all over the country during Saban's tenure. Student athletes that more academically rigorous schools also offered scholarships to and also enthusiastically enrolled when they chose those schools thus rendering your "football factory" excuse null and void