Alabama Football: The tallest top in coaching trees belongs to Nick Saban

Alabama football coach Nick Saban does more than win championships and build players. He also has the tallest coaching tree in the game.

Alabama football coach Nick Saban has impacted so many lives during his career. A master list would be too long for discussion and still invariably incomplete. The list of players alone would be in the thousands.

One popular list is most often used to compare football coaches. It is a coach’s list of how many head coaches there are under their sphere of primary influence. The simplest version is measuring how many head coaches have been developed through the ‘coaching tree’ of a particular head coach.

Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant was long acknowledged for the size of his coaching tree. Not many of those guys are still coaching. More than a few have passed away. One still alive and coaching is Bruce Arians, now the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Comparing Bryant to today’s coaches is fruitless. Different eras are hard to compare and the Bryant era is long enough ago, many of today’s fans, even some Alabama football fans aren’t much interested.

Evaluating today’s coaches, two stand out. Oklahoma Sooners’ fans probably expect the pair to include Bob Stoops. Stoops does have the honor of grooming current head coaches, Mike Leach, Kevin Sumlin and Lincoln Riley. But the Stoops tree does not nearly stand as tall as the trees of Nick Saban and Urban Meyer. Yes, Urban is being counted as a current coach. He was not long ago and likely will be again soon.

Let’s look at Urban’s Tree (current head coaches only)

• Kyle Whittingham – Utah
• Gary Anderson – Utah State
• Ryan Day – Ohio State (Day’s background was also strongly influenced by Chip Kelly)
• Tom Herman – Texas
• Luke Fickell – Cincinnati
• Dan Mullen – Florida
• Charlie Strong – South Florida
• Steve Addazio – Boston College
• Chris Ash – Rutgers

Urban’s list is impressive. Other than Chris Ash, the other eight have been successful in varying degrees.

Nick Saban’s Tree (also just current head coaches)

In the Nick Saban tree, are four NFL coaches and 13 college coaches. Four of the 13 are SEC coaches and all but one coach FBS teams.

• Dan Quinn – Atlanta Falcons
• Jason Garrett – Dallas Cowboys
• Pat Shurmur – New York Giants
• Adam Gase – New York Jets
• Kirby Smart – Georgia
• Jeremy Pruitt – Tennessee
• Jimbo Fisher – Texas A&M
• Will Muschamp – South Carolina
• Marion Cristobal – Oregon
• Mark Dantonio – Michigan State
• Billy Napier – Louisiana
• Mike Locksley – Maryland
• Lane Kiffin – Florida Atlantic
• Geoff Collins – Georgia Tech
• Mel Tucker – Colorado
• Jim McElwain – Central Michigan
• Curt Cignetti – James Madison

Recently Terry Saban said, in describing her husband’s passion for his job, “Coaching is not his vocation. It’s his life.” Which means, among other things, the Nick Saban coaching tree will just keep growing.