Not everybody is made for TV. Lord knows I’ve heard the tired old joke that I have a face made for radio. Not saying it is not true, just saying I’ve heard the joke enough, you can quit saying it. Two absolute football legends are out of football now and one would be terrific on TV, the other I’m not sold on. Nick Saban, winner of seven college football national championships, announced his retirement one week ago. The next day, New England and Bill Belichick announced they were parting ways. That’s 13 total college and NFL championships walking out the door in less than 24 hours.
Saban and Belichick have much more in common than they have in differences. The two coached together in the NFL and share many of the same philosophies, especially defensively. They are defensive geniuses and both forced their opponents to bend to them rather than bending to their opponents. That’s how you win six Super Bowls and seven national championships. That’s what they have in common. Where they differ greatly is how they conducted themselves in front of the camera.
Belichick often walked the sidelines wearing clothing that looked like the same exact thing my dad wore to mow the lawn when I was a kid. Simply put, he did not care what you thought of his look. Saban was just the opposite. The Alabama coach was operating in a world where image is everything. Opposing coaches were constantly using Saban’s age against him in recruiting, he had to do everything he could to look younger and more buttoned up on the sideline. Would Saban have preferred to wear a hoodie with sleeves destroyed by dull scissors? Perhaps he did, but that was not an option.
One of the other differences between Belichick and Saban was their approach with the media. Neither seemed thrilled to have to deal with the media but they channeled that displeasure very differently. For Belichick, the weekly news conferences were often full of emotionless and dismissive short answers. Saban was never once that way. For all of his 17 years, Saban news conferences were almost can’t miss. You can trust me, I was here in Alabama for all of them. They were full of explosions, deep thoughts and life advice but never short answers. Saban always delivered, sometimes at the expense of the person asking the question, but it delivered.
This is why I think Saban would be perfect for television and Belichick would not. Both have a brain that would make the viewer much smarter when it comes to football but Saban has shown he is willing to drop the iron curtain and show it more. This has been evident in his handful of postseason appearances on the College GameDay set. He’s shown a chemistry with the hosts and an ability to convert complicated football parlance into a language the everyday football fan can understand.
It is clear Pat McAfee’s future on the GameDay set is very much uncertain and Lee Corso’s is very much limited. The show will need an injection in the very near future and I think Saban could be that. His addition would actually work well with Corso. Knowing what I know of Saban, I think he would be highly hesitant to participate in any segment in which he is predicting winners of games. Saban has too many colleagues and former assistants still active in the game to be very comfortable doing that. This actually solves a problem for ESPN, there’s no reason Saban couldn’t handle the first two and a half hours on set then turn things over to Corso for the most popular thing he does on the show.
Certainly, Belichick could do the same type of job with one of the NFL studio shows. One issue with him is that it does not appear he has fully scratched the coaching itch. While it would feel highly unlikely Saban ever coaches in college again, Belichick is still a hot commodity in the NFL. With that said, I just could not see him having the same success as Saban if he chose to trade the cutoff sleeves for the thousand dollar suits.
One thing that has not marked the careers of Saban and Belichick is failure. Certainly, both have lost games and jobs but both are considered the best at what they did. Maybe it is time for Saban to dust off the suit coats and get in front of the camera. For Belichick, maybe not. That’s ok, the mustard colored suit coat may only be five years away.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.
