If there was ever any doubt that Nick Saban will go down as the greatest ever to prowl a college sideline, it was totally erased with the championship that pulled him even with Bear Bryant.
Alabama roared back from a 13-0 halftime deficit to beat Georgia 26-23 in overtime Monday night in Atlanta to give Saban his sixth national title.
He’s won plenty of rings with better players than everyone else. But this time, it was all about the coach.
He has won five titles in nine years at Alabama, which tells you the caliber of coach he is. But to have the guts to play a true freshman at quarterback — who hadn’t played any meaningful snaps all year — in the title game only cements his place as one of the greats to coach in any sport.
In a totally un-Saban-like move, he switched quarterbacks at halftime of the national championship game, a desperate ploy you don’t expect from a methodical veteran coach.
Tua Tagovailoa, a left-handed freshman from Hawaii, took the field at the start of the third quarter with Alabama trailing by 13 and doing absolutely nothing on offense. The Tide had accounted for just four first downs and 97 yards with two-year starter Jalen Hurts taking the snaps, but it was a bold decision nonetheless by the wily ol’ coach.
After all, this was the biggest game of the season, and Hurts was the one who led Alabama there for the second year in a row. He’s a proven winner, having lost only two out of 28 games coming into Monday night, and it certainly would’ve been the safe bet to stick with him a little longer.
But Saban — who refuses to let the game pass him by even as coaches young enough to be his sons keep attempting to take him down (including former assistant Kirby Smart, who now coaches Georgia) — switched to Tagovailoa without hesitation.
As this was happening several coaches and analysts who were providing commentary on the SEC Network said Saban made the move too early, that Tagovailoa wasn’t prepared for this moment.
Well, they were wrong. That’s why Saban was coaching in the game, and they were left to talk about it.
It might go down as the greatest decision in a career filled with them.
Tagovailoa completed 14 of 24 passes for 166 yards and three touchdowns, the last of them a 41-yard strike in overtime to DeVonta Smith that gave Alabama a 26-23 victory over Georgia on Monday night.
“We’ve had this in our mind that, if we were struggling offensively, that we would give Tua an opportunity, even in the last game,” Saban said. “No disrespect to Jalen, but … I thought Tua would give us a better chance and a spark, which he certainly did.”
Alabama did not have it’s most talented team Monday, but Saban proved why he’s the best coach ever in the history of the game by going to a weapon that very few had considered or game-planned for.
