quote:
Saban's 34-24-1 record at Michigan State represented mild success in the wake of NCAA sanctions, and culminated with a 9-2 regular season in 1999 and a Citrus Bowl (now Capital One Bowl) appearance that Saban didn't stick around to coach, jetting to future SEC riches in Baton Rouge, La., at LSU.

From Wiki:

quote:
Michigan State
Main article: Michigan State Spartans football

When Saban arrived in East Lansing, Michigan prior to the 1995 season, MSU had not had a winning season since 1990, and the team was sanctioned by the NCAA for recruiting violations committed under his predecessor and former mentor, George Perles.[20]

1995–1997 – Beginning in 1995, Saban moderately improved MSU's fortunes, taking the Spartans to minor bowl games (all of which they lost by double-digit margins) in each of his first three seasons. From 1995 to 1997, Michigan State finished 6–5–1, 6–6, and 7–5. In comparison, MSU had finished 5–6, 6–6 and 5–6 (prior to NCAA forfeits) in 1992–1994.

1998 – On November 7, 1998, the Spartans upset the No. 1 ranked Ohio State 28–24 at Ohio Stadium. However, even after the upset and an early-season rout of then-highly ranked Notre Dame the Spartans finished 6–6, including three last-minute losses featuring turnovers, defensive lapses, and special-teams misplays, and failed to earn a bowl invitation.

1999 – Saban led the Spartans to a 9–2 season that included wins over Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. However, the two losses were routs at the hands of Purdue and Wisconsin. Following the final regular-season game against Penn State, Saban abruptly resigned to accept the head coaching position with LSU. Saban's assistant head coach and successor, Bobby Williams, then coached MSU to a Citrus Bowl victory over Florida, giving the Spartans an overall record of 10–2 for the 1999 season. It would be the best season in terms of wins for the Spartans since 1965, and it would see the Spartans reach their highest ranking since the 1966 team.[21] Future NFL head coach Josh McDaniels served as a graduate assistant on Saban's 1999 coaching staff.

ETA: So prior to his 9-2 season in 1999, Nick Saban had been 25-22-1 and 0-3 with double digits losses in bowl games. Hindsight is fricking awesome for those who remember the Saban hiring as a slam dunk.

One could argue that even though their resume's before taking the LSU job were incredibly similar (and that's exactly what was said at the time by the way) the better argument would be that the LSU program that Saban left required the hiring of a coach with a better career record THAN EVEN SABAN HIMSELF HAD HAD BEFORE LANDING THE JOB, would it not?

In the case of Saban, we hired a guy that LOOKED like he had a bright future and it turned out we were right. We did the same with Miles. Given the record over the past 10 seasons, it's hard to argue that was a bad hire.

This post was edited on 11/26/14 at 11:05 am

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Posted by Geauxgurt

Member since Sep 2013

10508 posts

Posted on 11/26/14 at 12:20 pm to GeauxTigerTM

quote:
One could argue that even though their resume's before taking the LSU job were incredibly similar (and that's exactly what was said at the time by the way) the better argument would be that the LSU program that Saban left required the hiring of a coach with a better career record THAN EVEN SABAN HIMSELF HAD HAD BEFORE LANDING THE JOB, would it not?

So you are going to ignore the sanctions aspect of his initial years at MSU?