the genius of nick saban

imho, what really separates nick from everyone else is that he was the first to figure out that you needed every advantage you could get for your program, and he demanded it when he took the job at LSU and then Mark Emmert, the president of the university, gave it to him. nick got upgrades for all the facilities, support staff, etc etc etc. yes, he's a good coach, but there are coaches who are as good or better, but they are behind the curve in what Nick has going. Alabama certainly did the same thing for Nick, and this really gave him an advantage in recruiting. once you get the winning going, it feeds on itself. every year we hear of something alabama does for their players that is legal that gives them a recruiting advantage, and you wonder, what in the hell isn't our administration doing this? take player discipline - we lose great players for marijuana tests. this is a nothing violation. handle it internally with proper discipline and move on. just one example.

other programs have caught on, but they are starting from behind, and it's very hard to get an AD and administration to back you 100 per cent, even though a lot of them say they do.

Coach O figured it out, and now we have an AD in place who is going to give our football team every legal advantage he can, but it's hard to play catch up. Swinney and Clemson figured it out. A & M figured it out. there are schools that are trying BUT Nick's not going to be knocked out until he loses 2 during the season. He will still have good to great teams if and when that happens, but it won't be the same dominance. Of course, it may not happen, and he'll ride the wave until he retires.

this is a pivotal year for the SEC west. if we can keep alabama out of the playoffs this year, it will be huge. if not, it may be another 5 years because the recruiting will not be slowed down.

JMO anyway.