re: When we got Saban from Michigan State what stood out about him?

obviously the glasses

His height

Nick Saban has already left ... in 1999



Nina Mandell like
December 12, 2013 10:21 am ET
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(AP Photo/Bill Haber)

In 1999, Nick Saban left Michigan State for a job at LSU. 14 years later, we take a look back at the steps leading to his departure in today’s installment of Throwback Thursday.

The call came around 7:30 on the night before Thanksgiving, as Gil Brandt, a former Vice President of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys who had been tapped to help out with the Louisiana State search process, sat in his backyard on a pleasant late fall night.

Nick Saban, the Michigan State coach who was smarting from a Bowl Game that went to Michigan over his Spartans and a slow-to-come bonus but at least according to Brandt not searching for a new gig at the time, almost immediately said he would be interested.

“He said ‘look, I think I’ve done a pretty good job here at Michigan State,” Brandt, who now works for NFL Media, remembered in a conversation with For The Win. “I’ve beaten Ohio State, I’ve beaten Penn State, I’ve beaten Michigan and sometimes it’s time to move on.”

According to Brandt, who said he has known Saban from when he was a graduate assistant at Ohio State, then asked if he’d be interested in the LSU position, which was open after Gerry DiNardo was fired earlier that month.

“He said, ‘yes I’m prepared to say I’m interested in the job’, without asking what it paid,” Brandt said. “Without asking anything about money, about years (on the contract).”

(AP)
(AP)

The offer came during a time of frustration for Saban. In his view, his team had been passed over by the Orange Bowl in favor of Michigan (“We have financial responsibilities, and we look at a team and a matchup that’s best for us,” then Orange Bowl executive director Keith Tribble told reporters at the time. “We look at lots of factors, from tradition to records, ranking, TV exposure, fan enthusiasm and overall what a team can do for our game.”) and he reportedly was frustrated at MSU’s slow movement on his bonus.

From a Sports Illustrated article at the time:

One of the coach’s friends says that Saban wanted to hear, “We love what you’re doing. We don’t want to see you go.” No such affectionate words came.
Saban and his wife Terry flew down less than two days after Brandt called and together, the duo was impressive. Terry Saban, Brandt said, immediately hit it off with then-LSU president Mark Emmert’s wife as her husband impressed LSU officials and trustees. “Whenever you talk to Nick you can’t be anything but impressed,” Brandt said. “He’s very smart — he can talk about politics and banking and the Louisiana Purchase and everything. He’s just a guy that he’s never unprepared I would imagine that in a matter of 24 hours he probably did a thorough search as you could do (on LSU).”

By the time Saban left to go back to Michigan on Saturday, the deal was all but done.

Meanwhile, back in East Lansing, Mich. reports had been leaking out that Saban had been in talks with LSU. But without Twitter and the 24 hour news cycle, Michigan State officials led by trustee Joel Ferguson, according to the Wall Street Journal, were surprised to find Nick Saban at home without his wife. Saban, according to that report, denied that he had taken the job and said only that LSU had reached out to him.

“Joel said, ‘Nick where’s Terry?'” said Clarence Underwood, the former MSU athletic director, according to the WSJ. “He said she was at the store. But then he asked again: “Nick, is Terry in Baton Rouge?’ And he said, ‘Yes, she’s there now.'”

Remembers Brandt, who said it was likely Terry Saban was househunting: “I imagine she just stayed and I think if I remember correctly they bought a piece of property from an oil company that was in bankruptcy and they got a 20 acre plot of land that was one of the great bargains of all time.”

(AP)
(AP)

The deal was made official the next week. Saban reportedly got $6 million over 5 years, a raise from the $700,000 he’d made the previous year at MSU and an entry into the more than a million dollar a year coaching club. But seemingly more importantly, he escaped the shadow of sharing a state with Michigan.”At Michigan State, we were never Number 1 [in the state],” Saban told reporters after accepting the job. “That was always Michigan. It was always, ‘UM this and that.’

“If I’d gone to Ohio it would have been Ohio State. Indiana, it is Purdue. Chicago, it’s every other school in the Big Ten. Wherever you go you’re looking at someone else when you’re recruiting, trying to catch up, trying to convince someone you’re up there.”

After Saban took the job, Bobby Williams was elevated to the head coach position for the Spartans’ Bowl Game, a move that was met with a “standing ovation” by players. And as the Sabans headed down to LSU, MSU basketball coach Tom Izzo stopped by with some words of encouragement for the big game.

“Who’s kidding who? The players play the game,” Izzo told them, according to the AP. “It’s you players who will make the difference.”

Saban told reporters that talking to the players was the hardest part of the move.

“I couldn’t talk to the players without getting pretty emotional this morning,” Saban said at the time, according to the Associated Press. “My gratitude to them is overwhelming.”

He was another Arnsparger. One of his Cleveland defenses ranked as the second best ever at the time. NFL people raved about him.

He was considered ab outstanding recruiter.

He seemed no-nonsense and businesslike. We were cautiously optimistic.

Nothing

His background

If someone today had his background they would not be considered a "home run hire."