The “Fake” Nick Saban Interview
UAT vs LSU would not be complete without the infamous ‘fake’ Saban/Finebaum interview, from my very close friend at nick sabans suitcase [link]
By Steve Reeves
Assistant City Editor, Birmingham News
January 19, 2007 3:30AM
TUSCALOOSA | Alabama head football coach Nick Saban continues his whirl-wind
courtship with the Crimson Tide faithful in person and on the air waves.
State-wide stable, Paul Finebaum ended his 13-year affiliation with WERC-AM this week with a three-hour call in show with Saban. Finebaum has agreed to a three-year contract with Citadel Broadcasting, which owns WJOX.
Finebaum’s last show on WERC, Saban presented a confident, personable style, punctuated with good-natured barbs at Auburn, Mississippi State, and saving his strongest lines for his former employer, LSU.
Finebaum’s show airs from 2-6 p.m. Monday through Friday and is also carried on about 20 other stations, mostly in Alabama, under the banner of the Paul Finebaum Radio Network.
Finebaum’s show was previously heard in Tuscaloosa on WTBC 1230AM, where it will still be aired. Officials with WTBC did not return a phone call Friday.
“I’m sure the SEC hasn’t changed much over the past two seasons. I mean Mississippi State is still funding scholarships by collecting pop bottles and aluminum cans along the highways,” said Saban, half jokingly Friday afternoon. “Auburn, our motto -’Where most coaches are fired’ – is still
in effect.”
“LSU was nothing before I arrived. Academically, athletically, physical plant, nothing. I made LSU. I was LSU. Their current success is solely due to my recruits. Coach Miles, while a fine man, does not fill my shoes, fit my desk, or cast a taller shadow. Our coaching staff is superior to anything in Baton Rouge. We will go into Louisiana an take each and every player we want. LSU will not, nor can not stop me. Mark my words.”
Finebaum point blank asked Saban if those comments mean LSU is a bigger foe than Auburn, a team that has dominated the Crimson Tide in recent years.
“No. Auburn is in-state. They are consistently the best team in the West,which speaks to the talent in Alabama. As talent I recruited graduates from LSU, after this season, they will return to the loweer depths of this league.”
When pressed about his initial comments about LSU “being special”, Saban rejoined, “It was special. I won a title there. But LSU fans focus is on the pre-game party aspect. Winning the party is paramount there. Seven-win football and winning baseball will keep them happy.”
Currently there is a controversy regarding Saban’s comments about the staff at LSU to previously committed Tiger recruits. In visiting Curtis star Joe McKnight, Nick Saban has created a stir while visiting LSU commitments Phelon Jones, a cornerback from McGill-Toolen High in Mobile, Ala., and Luther Davis, a defensive end from West Monroe.
According to both prospects, Saban took credit for LSU’s recent success as he signed most of the players involved in the Tigers’ 22-4 run since he left.
Neither player agreed to take a visit to Alabama, though, and refused to de-commit from LSU.
“Great guy, but he is a little bit overconfident,” Jones’ father Tony is quoted as saying at Tigerbait.com.
Saban also got a no from Davis in West Monroe.
“He (Saban) was kind of mad that we turned down the visit and turned down the scholarship,” Davis told Tigerbait.com. “He said that there is no way that the coaching staff at LSU can compare to the coaching staff we have at Alabama right now. He gave no credit to anyone.”
“I don’t think the LSU coaches are upset with Saban,” according to Mike Scarborough of Tigerbait.com. “It probably just makes them very motivated to out-recruit him. I think they also think it’s unbelievable some of the things he is saying about LSU.”
Associated Press reports were used in this report
Vote here
Good stuff, as usual.
Man, I hate that guy.
I love him.
I’m confused
Dude, you know that’s Saban in four years.
WILL SABAN DO BAMA LIKE HE DID THE DOLPHINS ??
Saban left Dolphins as a loser, weasel
BY DAN LE BATARD
dlebatard@MiamiHerald.com
The punctuation on the Nick Saban Dolphin Error is greasy and greedy. You know what he was as Dolphins coach? A failure. A loser. A gasbag. And one of the worst investments Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga has ever made. He was less of a success than Dave Wannstedt and more of a traitor than Ricky Williams. There has been very little in franchise history that came with more expectations and fewer results than this hypocrite who at the end avoided the hard questions one last time.
Talk like a warrior. Behave like a weasel.
Maybe Saban would be better off in college. Because, in the pros the last few days, he has looked like a complete and utter amateur.
He will be remembered in these parts as a quitter and a liar. He leaves the franchise in last place, with what used to be his good name somehow far lower than that. And for this he’ll get a $25 million raise and more job security in Alabama. Makes you wonder what USC’s Pete Carroll or Ohio State’s Jim Tressel are worth, doesn’t it?
Larry Coker, a decent man, gets fired for his one championship. Saban, a duplicitous one, gets the most lucrative job in college football.
Saban could have fixed his reputation today if he had that mental toughness he is always sermonizing about. We have the meandering spiel memorized by now. About ”competitive character” and ”overcoming adversity” and blah, blah, blah. You preach it, Nick. But you don’t live it. Not when it’s easier to run away and hide.
Miami, 6-10 against an easy schedule, was swept this year by younger teams in its division — the Jets and Bills. The team isn’t better than when Saban arrived, just older. What little winning Saban has done has been with players left for him by Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt. What’s the best decision Saban has made in two years? Can you name one?
So it makes sense that he would lack hope. But when his players are losing, he asks them to be proud and fight and overcome, even though what they do hurts a hell of a lot more than what he does. But now, reputation in tatters, integrity stained, he runs away from this fight — to be a dictator to kids who question less and have less power to challenge him. Of course he’d go. It’s a good deal easier. And a new crowd eager for a savior can hear his hot-air speeches about being a gladiator.
Saban made Huizenga look like a public fool with all his condescending talk of integrity recently, reprimanding reporters at every turn while his agent secretly kept taking slimy calls from Alabama in the shadows. What a raging fraud Saban sounds like today, every bit as counterfeit as Miami’s Super Bowl expectations.
Oh, a man, even one under contract, is allowed to change his mind and listen to other offers, especially those that double his salary. But what makes Saban’s behavior so unctuous recently is that he had the audacity to question the questioners with super-sized arrogance even while lying all along to his players and his boss. Huizenga has given this man everything he has wanted — given him more than any NFL owner anywhere has given any other coach. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than Saban leaving him to answer the hard questions today.
Makes you wonder, too: Huizenga went after Ricky Williams and his money with cutthroat zeal, and Williams is still paying him back. But Saban just broke a contract, too. There are no outs in Saban’s contract to go back to the minor leagues.
Remember how mad you were when Williams retired? Well, he wasn’t cheating on you. He wasn’t grabbing for more money. His body hurt from a beating, and he wanted to rest. What Saban has done is a more traitorous act — the most traitorous act in the history of the franchise. He’s leaving simply because he couldn’t handle a hard job on the sidelines of a game in which he asks others to be violent. He gave up, in other words. And filing it under ”family” now as a diluter, in search of understanding, rings hollow because you can’t believe anything the man says about this situation. You think he’d be leaving if he were 3-13?
Saban, infomercial sermonizer, talked a lot about loyalty and integrity and toughness.
But, in the end, these were not his guides.
They were only the kinds of things he demanded of others.
ROLL TIDE ROLL!