🏈 Nick Saban's success at beating No. 1-ranked teams unmatched

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Nick Saban's success at beating No. 1-ranked teams unmatched Alabama Maven

Saban has seven wins against No. 1 teams and counting ...

Nick Saban's 7-2 record against teams ranked No. 1 in The Associated Press poll is remarkable for numerous reasons, including that he's won five straight.

Nick Saban teams vs. No. 1

Season, Matchup, Outcome
1996 Michigan State at (1) Nebraska, L 55-14
1998 Michigan State at (1) Ohio State, W 28-14
2009 (2) Alabama vs. (1) Florida, SEC Championship Game, W 32-13
2011 (1) LSU at (2) Alabama, L 9-6 OT
2011 (2) Alabama vs. (1) LSU, BCS Championship Game, W 21-0
2012 (2) Alabama vs. (1) Notre Dame, BCS Championship Game, W 42-14
2014 (1) Mississippi State at (4) Alabama, W 25-20
2015 (2) Alabama vs. (1) Clemson, CFP Championship Game, W 45-40
2017 (4) Alabama vs. (1) Clemson, CFP Semifinal: Sugar Bowl, W 24-6
Not only are the seven wins the most in college football history, are are almost twice as many as anyone else.

Most wins against No. 1 teams
Nick Saban 7
Joe Paterno 4
Lou Holtz 4
Jimmy Johnson 4
Jack Mollenkopf 4
Paul W. “Bear” Bryant 3
Dennis Erickson 3
Urban Meyer 3
Bo Schembechler 3
Barry Switzer 3

Jack Mollenkopf was at Purdue from 1956-69, and went 84-39-9. All but two of his teams were ranked at some point of the season, with the 1968 Boilermakers No. 1 in the preseason poll. However, his best finish was No. 7 in 1966, when Purdue went 8-2 and defeated Southern California in the Rose Bowl.

Of those coaches with three-plus wins, only one has a better record than Saban against top-ranked opponents:

Jimmy Johnson 4-1 80.0 percentage
Nick Saban 7-2 77.8
Lou Holtz 4-2 66.7
Jack Mollenkopf 4-2 66.7
Urban Meyer 3-2, 60.0
Barry Switzer 3-2-2 57.1
Paul W. “Bear” Bryant 3-3 50.0
Dennis Erickson 3-3 50.0
Bo Schembechler 3-5-1 38.9
Joe Paterno 4-8 33.3

Of note: Bud Wilkinson is one of the few with a winning record against No. 1 teams, at 2-1, but his Sooners were 5-9 against opponents ranked in the top five. Meanwhile, USC’s John Robinson was 2-0 against No. 1 teams. Some others of note include , Gus Malzahn 2-2, Woody Hayes 2-3, John McKay 2-3, Bob Stoops 2-3, Mack Brown 2-4, Steve Spurrier 2-4, Ara Parseghian 2-5, Frank Broyles 2-6, Bobby Bowden 1-5, Tom Osborne 1-5, Les Miles 1-5, Frank Beamer 0-6, Jim Tressel 1-1 and Frank Leahy 0-1-1. Pete Carroll never faced a No. 1 team.

Granted, you can’t face the team atop the poll when its your team, but on the flip side Alabama’s record when ranked No. 1 (BCS standings, otherwise Associated Press) under Saban is 55-7 (88.7 winning percentage) through 2017. He's won more games coaching as the No. 1 team at one school than any other coach in college football history as Bowden and Hayes are tied for second with 40.

 

[sean]

what about all the times in practice? or the A-Day game? the number 1 team went up against the number 1 team all those times, too.

of course those are wins AND losses, lol. so i guess those would be a push?

 

[TerryP]

Of note: Bud Wilkinson is one of the few with a winning record against No. 1 teams, at 2-1, but his Sooners were 5-9 against opponents ranked in the top five.

The number of teams Bud's teams won against during his streak is something else that's rarely mentioned--so, so many of them had losing records.

 

[JoseyWalesTheOutlaw]

The more things change the more they appear to be the same...............well

The issue isn't simply: Does football diminish education? There are a lot of places besides Tuscaloosa where it is more popular to install AstroTurf than bookshelves. In fact, a great deal of it is just that The Bear makes a game so respectable, perhaps even too much so. Surely it is revealing how many of the Tide fans dress—overdress—for the games. To kill. To the nines. The large numbers of preppie fashion plates in an Alabama football crowd make it look like something out of O'Hara rather than Faulkner. It's just another way to dress up the game, too, make it more legitimate.
By now The Bear and football in Alabama are one and the same. He is football incarnate, which will make it very difficult whenever he must depart. Oh, sure, whoever succeeds him might well keep the victories coming, might keep filling the stadiums (the Tide has a spare in Birmingham) and traveling to the bowls. But it will never be so fine again. The Bear is exalted and he, in return, makes it possible for the people in Alabama to take football more to heart than others can. So when The Bear goes, it will not just be that one more link to the past will be broken, that a little more of that curious Southern combination of eternal knighthood and childhood will fade. It will be harder for football ever to mean so much again in Alabama. Not even winning will be quite the same.

Frank DeFord

://www.si.com/vault/1981/11/23/826147/i-do-love-the-football-bear-bryant-says-that-unequivocally-after-43-years-of-coaching-and-314-wins-trying-staggs-record-which-he-can-break-against-auburn

 

[CmnRef]

Great find deserves it’s own thread

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Always have to wonder...
What would Bud Wilkerson have accomplished if he would have stayed in coaching
Now you young ones will scoff
But BW and his Sooners were unbelievable
They beat all they played.
And CF was so different in the 50s then it is now.

 

[TerryP]

Now you young ones will scoff
But BW and his Sooners were unbelievable
They beat all they played.
And CF was so different in the 50s then it is now.

I'm not scoffing at their win streak. I am saying it has to be taken into context.

IE: Look at '55 when they beat one team with a winning record. 10-0 in '54 when their best win was against a seven win Kansas State or seven win Colorado. Colorado with a loss to a six win team and a loss to a four win team. In '56 they played one team with a winning record. '57 a tad better but they're still beating six win teams.

Context. Winning a lot of games stands on its own merits until you look at the wins coming against teams that weren't winning teams.

 

[TUSKtimes]

Frankly, Bud Wilkerson was just smarter than everyone else in the 50s. That to me is the real advantage coach Bryant and Saban had and have over their opponents year by year. He ran a split T offensive system and ran his version of the hurry up even way back then to gas his opponents. He was also known as an innovator on defense employing a 5-2 scheme when everyone else was playing 7 man lines. He only wanted smart players, mostly because he had zero tolerance for mistakes. And again folks, that kinda sounds like some Alabama coaches we know. He had a ton of All-Americans through the 50s and even back then Texas was a recruiting wonderland of talent. The 47 games winning streak was amazing, but he also went 12 years without losing a game to a conference opponent. Crazy stat as well. Craziest of all he retired at 47 years old, a time most guys are just getting started. Had he stayed in coaching he would have been the guy coach Bryant was chasing as the all-time wins leader in college football.

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Frankly, Bud Wilkerson was just smarter than everyone else in the 50s. That to me is the real advantage coach Bryant and Saban had and have over their opponents year by year. He ran a split T offensive system and ran his version of the hurry up even way back then to gas his opponents. He was also known as an innovator on defense employing a 5-2 scheme when everyone else was playing 7 man lines. He only wanted smart players, mostly because he had zero tolerance for mistakes. And again folks, that kinda sounds like some Alabama coaches we know. He had a ton of All-Americans through the 50s and even back then Texas was a recruiting wonderland of talent. The 47 games winning streak was amazing, but he also went 12 years without losing a game to a conference opponent. Crazy stat as well. Craziest of all he retired at 47 years old, a time most guys are just getting started. Had he stayed in coaching he would have been the guy coach Bryant was chasing as the all-time wins leader in college football.

I know @TerryP what u saying but still
Remarkable what he did
Different era. You summed it up Tusk