Of Urban and Nick

The date was January 2, 1978. The Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans was the site. The teams: Ohio State, led by the legendary Woody Hayes, and Alabama, under the guidance of the fabled Paul “Bear” Bryant. And the result – not a pretty one for those in scarlet and grey, as the Crimson Tide ran all over the Buckeye defense using the wishbone formation that Bryant had installed to revitalize the program six years earlier on their way to a 35-6 victory.¹

On New Years Day 2015, 36 years and 364 days after that beatdown, those same two teams will meet again in the Big Easy. While it’s now known as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the building is the same as well. The Sugar Bowl name is as well, although this time it carries added significance as the second semifinal of the inaugural College Football Playoff.

And, while Woody and the Bear have both long since passed away, the men roaming the sidelines have built their own impressive legacies. Between them, Urban Meyer and Nick Saban have claimed 6 of the last 11 BCS Championships — two for Meyer in his time at Florida (including the 2006 title the Gators won by defeating the Buckeyes in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl) and four for Saban (one at LSU and three in Tuscaloosa). A list of their other accomplishments could run several pages. Saban and Bryant are the only two coaches to win SEC titles at two different schools. Meyer was the first coach to lead a team from a non-automatic qualifying conference to a BCS game when his 2004 Utah team beat Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl to clinch an undefeated season. Saban has dominated college football over the last four seasons and is rightfully the first name to come to mind when thinking about the most important coaches in the sport. But, by almost any measure, Meyer is the second name on that list.

Both are a throwback to the days of Hayes and Bryant — when coaches were an institution in and of themselves. There aren’t many other active college coaches that can lay claim to such cachet. The days when names like Paterno and Bowden carried just as much weight as the names of the schools they coached at is largely a thing of the past. And, as the two titans of college coaching, Meyer and Saban have molded their programs in their image.

Saban’s Crimson Tide teams reflect his no-nonsense style. In the era of spread offenses and 60-59 shootouts, Alabama is a reminder that defense wins championships – three of the last five of the BCS era to be exact. The running game has traditionally been the focus of the offense, and Saban offenses have produced the impressive string of running backs to prove it – Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, and now T.J. Yeldon and Derrick Henry.

However, this season’s introduction of the much-maligned Lane Kiffin as offensive coordinator has added a vertical element to the Alabama attack that has been missing since Julio Jones’s time on campus. The development of the passing game helped to make Amari Cooper a Heisman finalist and the most feared wideout in the nation. While Saban may still appear ornery whenever his coordinator dares to call for a deep ball, its effectiveness has forced the head coach to embrace the new system, much as Bryant did when he adopted the wishbone in 1971.

Meyer, on the other hand, has never made an attempt to appease traditionalists. At 50, he seems young, lively, and excitable when compared to the stoic, straightforward intensity of the 63 year-old Saban. Since his first head coaching job at Bowling Green, Meyer has run an adaptable up-tempo spread offense that stresses speed and space. Throughout his career at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida, and now in Columbus, Meyer has adjusted the run-pass balance of his offense to fit the skills of his players. The last two years, with the dynamic Braxton Miller in the backfield, Meyer and Tom Herman² have emphasized the run. J.T. Barrett, though no slouch of a runner himself, is not the home run threat that Miller is, so the Buckeyes threw the ball more. While five quarters of Cardale Jones (a good portion of them constituting garbage time against Wisconsin) is too small a sample to say for certain how the offense will look against the Crimson Tide. However, one thing is certain. Meyer is unafraid to adapt his offense, and he will use whatever system gives the Buckeyes the best chance on New Years Day.

Just as the Sugar Bowl won’t mark the first time these two programs have crossed paths, it also won’t serve as an introduction for the two coaches. Saban and Meyer have faced each other three times previously, all coming as SEC foes. Meyer and Florida struck the first blow in the 2008 SEC Championship Game. A 31-20 victory by the number two Gators over the top-ranked Crimson Tide gave them a berth in the BCS Championship Game, where they would defeat Oklahoma to win their second national title in three years. But Saban got his revenge just a year later when number two Alabama knocked off number one Florida, 32-13, to win the SEC and punch their own ticket to the BCS title game (they beat Texas to take the crystal football). Saban took the upper hand the next season when the Tide handed the Gators a 31-6 regular season loss in Meyer’s final year in Gainesville.

Next Thursday, Meyer can run his record against Saban to 2-2. But, with a berth in the national championship game hanging in the balance, you can be sure that this game means much more than just evening the score against an old rival.

1. For a more thorough account of that game, read Rob Oiler’s piece for The Columbus Dispatch. [↩]
2. Herman of course recently took the head coaching job at Houston but will stick around to coach the Buckeyes’ playoff game or games. While Ohio State fans should certainly wish him nothing but the best with the Cougars, it is outstanding that he will finish out the season after he played such an important role in getting the team to this point. [↩]