If Saban stays in the NFL, is Urban Meyer the GOAT of cfb?

Saban could have been in college and Meyer would still be the GOAT in terms of hardware - had he just managed the beast he created a bit better. That 2009 roster is the best roster, on paper, in the history of CFB. However, with the exception of the FSU game, I thought that team played down to the competition all year. Bama prepared for them for an entire year and in Atlanta it showed as UF had lost focus, had an asinine party the week of the game sending Carlos Dunlap to jail for DUI and missing that game. Bama didn't have a single player that could block him. The first play of that game, you could tell that one team was prepared and the other was lost. If UF wins that game, beats Texas, has 3 of 4, it's over for everyone else in CFB. Now, if Saban is in the NFL, UF could have been drunk on the field and won the SEC that year, and probably beaten Texas while hung over. That roster was incredible. The problem was that those players knew how good they were.

And then Meyer had the highest rated recruiting class in history, to that point, coming in the next year. He had Cam Newton waiting behind Tebow at one point. His offense, with the surrounding talent, and Cam at QB would have been scary and made up for the loss of Percy Harvin. I think Tebow should have won the Heisman in 2008, especially after beating Bama in Atlanta with an injured Harvin being on the sideline. He could have legit won 3x Heismans, then Cam following behind. Meyer had the dynasty of dynasties in front of him, and then it all imploded.

The best pure coach in CFB history is Spurrier. The smartest man in CFB history, with regard to program building and organizational dynamics, is Meyer. The best coach in CFB history at sustaining excellence is Saban. Saban was able to keep things going better than anyone and it took a complete upending of the nature of CFB to send him packing. Had NIL not come around, Bama probably gets 3 more titles with Saban, perhaps more. He handled the job better than anyone. However, not even Saban had it set up like Meyer did, heading into the 2009 season.

Urban’s style was too intense for him to have the longevity necessary to be the best coach of all time.

[quote]Meyer had the dynasty of dynasties in front of him, and then it all imploded[/quote

You’re ignoring the dynasty of all dynasties Saban constructed at the same time.

The undefeated team he had at Utah gets in a CFP and maybe wins it. Meyer had a rock solid team there.

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He gets 3 Natties in 4 years at Florida right off the bat

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He only won 2

No. Les Miles woulda been


How many seasons from 2005-2015 went down to LSU/Bama?

It wasn't Saban that broke Meyer, it was Meyer who broke Meyer. In many different ways, they are the same. But in one key area they are absolutely 100% different: how they handle adversity after a loss. When Alabama would lose a game under Saban, he would roll into Sunday to watch game film to see where it all went wrong and how he could make his players play better. When Florida or Ohio State would lose a game under Meyer, the latter would be so worked up and upset he couldn't hardly function. He didn't handle failure or adversity well at all.

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because he lost to Saban’s Bama for the third

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So in your scenario, without Saban, Alabama is not a contender for anything during Meyers tenure? No other coach would have been hired to run the bama program. No other SEC team could have beaten FLA in the SEC championship game? You’re just granting them titles. I guess he would be the goat if you just assume he wins a bunch more titles.

How many titles does Miles have in this era if we are pretending Alabama doesn’t exist?

Bama exists but without Saban I would think they probably don’t beat defending champ Tebow’s Florida and win the Natty in 2009. You can speculate on this alternate reality yourself. That is the question

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That 2009 roster is the best roster, on paper, in the history of CFB.

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Ehh, I don’t know about that.