College football coach Nick Saban is an Alabama treasure, and worth every dollar he’s paid

Nick Saban does not exist for your benefit. He is a monomaniacal football coach plying his trade during an era of excessive and endless hype.

He will do the TV interviews and contrived photo-ops because he knows he has to. But there is always a look of forlorn resignation on his face. He gives the general public what he has to, no more, no less. What Saban does do, though, is coach football better than anyone in America not named Bill Belichik. And while Belichik has scripted his legend in the corporate behemoth known as the NFL, Saban has chosen to forge his professional legacy in the equally corporate world of collegiate sports.

The head coach at the University of Alabama for the past nine years, in that time Saban has won four national championships. Before that he was at Louisiana State University where he also won a national championship giving him five in total.

It’s a remarkable number considering there are 128 schools competing in Division 1.

Belichik has won four NFL championships by being better than 31 other teams, while Saban has won five by besting 127 other schools.

Maybe Saban is actually the greatest football coach in America. He is most certainly in the conversation, particularly after his latest masterpiece this week in the National Championship game against Clemson.

Down 24-21 entering the fourth quarter, Alabama tied the game with an early field goal before preparing to kick off again. The game was a riveting affair and everything a national championship tilt should be before Saban took over. An onside kick totally shocked Clemson and two plays later Alabama scored with a 51-yard touchdown pass quickly followed by a 92-yard kick-off return. In the span of three minutes, Alabama scored 17 points. Clemson, undefeated and ranked number one in the country, were game but in the end fell 45-40.