Alabama Football: There’s zero debate, Nick Saban is the GOAT

After winning his sixth national title with Alabama football and seventh all-time, Nick Saban proved on Monday night that he’s the GOAT.

For years, college football fans referred to Nick Saban as the best coach in the country. It was an easy statement to make because he won wherever he coached and usually did so on the biggest stage — we aren’t counting the NFL here.

Saban won a national title with LSU in 2003 and then decided to make an NFL jump before coming back to coach Alabama and won titles in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2017.

On Monday night, he won his seventh national title as a college football head coach. No, that’s not a typo; since his first national championship with LSU in 2003, he’s won six more. In the past 16 seasons, Saban has hoisted the national title trophy nearly 50 percent of the time — that’s an insane number. That’s the most comparable number to John Wooden’s 10 college basketball titles with UCLA.

In fact, Saban’s seven national titles put him officially ahead of Bear Bryant who had six championships with Alabama from his first in 1961 to 1979.

Before Saban took over at Alabama, Bryant was widely considered the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) college football coach. Now, that’s Saban’s title and it likely will be for quite some time.

In a different era where competition is stronger, athletes are more impressive and conferences are tougher to win, Saban has dominated. He won at Toledo, he won at Michigan State, he won at LSU and now he’s still winning at Alabama.

Saban is the GOAT and anyone who doubted him and the Tide after they missed the playoff last year, calling Clemson the new Alabama, looks ridiculous right now.

Not only did Saban become the No. 1 national title-winning coach in college football history, he also has the 12th-best winning percentage among coaches with at least 200 career wins. Although he’s just 35th all-time in total wins as a head coach, he doesn’t look close to winding down and it wouldn’t be all that surprising to see him crack the top 10 — maybe even the top five — before it’s all said and done. Saban is just a winner and he wins on the biggest stage consistently.

Saban doesn’t just win national title games, he dominates them.

• 2010 — won (vs. Texas) 37-21
• 2012 — won (vs. LSU) 21-0
• 2013 — won (vs. Notre Dame) 42-13
• 2016 — won (vs. Clemson) 45-40
• 2018 — won (vs. Georgia) 26-23
• 2021 — won (vs. Ohio State) 52-24

Obviously there were a couple of close games that led to some fans saying “the field is closing in on Alabama” which has been muttered since 2013.

We’ve also heard, “Only two national titles since 2013? Saban is washed.”

Blasphemy.

Monday night’s thrashing of a good Ohio State team just proved that Saban still has it, Alabama is still a dynasty and neither is going away any time soon.

Folks, it’s official: Saban is the GOAT.