📡 Just A Minute: A lot of People Looked Bad With Scott Cochran's Move, but not Nick Saban- SI

[Bama News]

Just A Minute: A lot of People Looked Bad With Scott Cochran's Move, but not Nick Saban

Despite doomsday reactions, Alabama and Nick Saban came out on top following Scott Cochran's career change

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Normally I hate the phrase, “What a difference a week makes” because it’s cliché.

But in this case it’s certainly true, and no, I’m not talking about the presidential election.

Last week, Alabama football was being verbally flayed both locally and nationally, with some of the headlines and pronouncements as follows:

“Tide dynasty over?”

“Georgia poached Nick Saban’s most prized coach away from Alabama”

“Biggest hit ever to Saban’s staff”

“Foundation-shaking move in the SEC”

“Stealing Scott Cochran an act of war.”

Remember, this was regarding the departure of the strength and conditioning coach, not even one of the 10 official spots on the coaching staff.

As noted here last week, Cochran’s leaving for Georgia was widely being hailed as a fleecing by Kirby Smart, and another sign that Saban’s best days are behind him.

Only those same critics seemed to forget that Cochran has never been a football coach before, and it turned out he had to take a pay cut in order to try and advance his career in a different direction.

There’s nothing wrong with one challenging themselves and putting their money where their mouth is. Kudos and good luck to Cochran.

Of course, Saban went out and then landed the sports performance tandem that just about every college and pro team in the world would covet, David Ballou and Dr. Matt Rhea, from Indiana.

The two will spearhead Alabama’s new Sports Science Center, which is under construction. It’s been described as being a cutting-edge facility designed to help athletes recover and prevent injury.

With the move, Saban showed that he’s still Nick Saban, and everyone else in college football is still looking up to him.

Meanwhile, Smart continues to look like he has Crimson Tide envy.

When he left after the 2015 season, Smart took with him Alabama’s recruiting boards, although that’s honestly not unusual. He brought along the likes of Mel Tucker, Glenn Schumann and Kevin Sherrer for his coaching staff. Smart installed his own version of the process and it helped vault the Bulldogs to the top of the SEC East and to the national championship game.

Along the way he’s been accused of being a copycat.

“I don’t think (Saban’s system) comes with an easy copycat or footprint,” Smart told DawgNation last year, “because it has worked sometimes, and it hasn’t worked sometimes with people that have left Nick’s (coaching) tree.”

Yet Cochran’s addition won’t help shed that reputation.

Schumann is still with the Bulldogs and defensive coordinator Dan Lanning spent the 2015 season as Alabama's graduate assistant with the outside linebackers.

So what did we learn from this?

The Crimson Tide and Saban are still at the forefront of college football;

The sensationalism surrounding the game has never been stronger;

And one can still hear jokes in Tuscaloosa that if something’s gone missing a good place to search for it might be Athens, Ga.

 

[tider79]

Roll Tide.....CNS wins again

 

[OldPlayer]

A lot of people are criticizing Cochran and his "failures." It seems like this always occurs when a coach leaves Alabama for whatever reason. Cochran, Enos, Gattis, Daboll, McElwain, etc. were all crucified when they left for their lack of something. It seems that people forget that coaching is a progressive role. An assistant coach wants to be a coordinator. A coordinator wants to be a head coach. A small school coach wants to coach at a bigger school. Cochran brought Alabama into a new level. Now Saban is taking Alabama to a higher level. Let's thank Cochran for his contribution and move forward with the new guys.

 

[94 Grad]

A lot of people are criticizing Cochran and his "failures." It seems like this always occurs when a coach leaves Alabama for whatever reason. Cochran, Enos, Gattis, Daboll, McElwain, etc. were all crucified when they left for their lack of something. It seems that people forget that coaching is a progressive role. An assistant coach wants to be a coordinator. A coordinator wants to be a head coach. A small school coach wants to coach at a bigger school. Cochran brought Alabama into a new level. Now Saban is taking Alabama to a higher level. Let's thank Cochran for his contribution and move forward with the new guys.

I think it's a great move for Cochran and I'm glad for him to have that opportunity, not so much a good move for uGA; although, . time will tell the final story on this.

In the end, I think it actually works out much better for Bama... so it's a win (UA), win (Cochran), Lose (uGA) in my mind.

 

[JoseyWalesTheOutlaw]

Best of luck to Scott and his family. It appears Scott was tired of his own "Yeah Yeah Yeah" deal. The less you say about the situation on either side probably means the less crow you have to eat down the road. Both Scott and Bama could be winners in this deal.