The Wall Street Journal - 19.08.2019

A16| Monday, August 19, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

ready have an eye on leaving.

“I actually look for people who

have goals and aspirations, who are

hard workers and very committed

to what they do,” said Saban, who

has won five national champion-

ships and six SEC titles in the last

decade. “So people sometimes favor

hiring guys that have been in this

program.”

Former defensive coordinator

Kirby Smart, now head coach at the

University of Georgia, has said it’s a

“great honor” that so many of Ala-

bama’s assistants get poached by

other programs. Prior to the 2018

season, Saban called the trend

“wonderful.”

But this wonderful trend does

create headaches. At SEC Media

Days in July, Saban indicated that

his staff’s career aspirations got in

the way of the team’s preparation

ahead of the 2019 championship

game, in which Clemson steam-

rolled Alabama 44-16.

“We had a lot of guys who

wanted to be head coaches at dif-

ferent places,” he told reporters. “It

seems like we had a lot of distrac-

tions at the end of the year.”

The Bama brain drain in the

wake of that loss is particularly

acute on the offensive side of the

ous year’s game film. For instance,

Saban hired Kiffin to help the pro-

gram embrace the run-pass-option,

or RPO—an offensive scheme the

head coach dissed repeatedly until

Auburn and Ohio State used it to

beat the Tide in the final two games

of the 2014 season.

“A misconception about him is

that it’s just his way or the highway

with everything,” said Kiffin. “He

does want to change when it’s time

to change.”

The problem with the turnover is

not the changes it brings, but its ac-

celerating pace. In Saban’s first five

seasons as head coach, 12 assistants

left; 14 have left in the last two sea-

sons alone.

When filling the vacancies on his

staff this off-season, Saban sought

candidates familiar with his

vaunted “Process.” The offensive

coordinator job went to Steve Sarki-

sian, an analyst during the 2016

season who ran the Tide’s offense

for one game after Kiffin’s depar-

ture. Notably, Sarkisian’s contract

includes a $500,000 financial incen-

tive to stay until signing day in Feb-

ruary 2022.

Saban also brought back former

linebackers coach Sal Sunseri and

asked Major Applewhite—his first

offensive coordinator and quarter-

backs coach at Alabama in 2007,

and recently fired University of

Houston head coach—to join the

Tide as an analyst. And longtime

running backs coach Burton Burns

remains at the university, having

become assistant athletic director

of football in February 2018.

Just two members of the Ala-

bama staff have been there as long

as Saban: athletic trainer Jeff Allen

and strength coach Scott Cochran,

whose 2019 salary of $595,

makes him one of the highest paid

strength coaches in the nation. Ac-

cording to Kiffin, the pair play a

crucial “good cop” role to balance

their hard-driving boss.

Saban, Allen and Cochran repre-

sent the single thread of consis-

tency in Tuscaloosa over the past 12

seasons. Together they’ve devel-

oped what Saban calls a “system,” a

catch-all term for Alabama’s prac-

tice habits on the field and in the

weight room.

“On offense, defense and special

teams, [it’s] how we do things, how

we practice, how we do off-season

programs, how we do strength and

conditioning,” he said. “That

doesn’t change just because the

coach changes.”

Early on the morning after last
season’s Orange Bowl, Alabama
coach Nick Saban assembled his
staff to dissect the Tide’s 45-34 win
over Oklahoma in the College Foot-
ball Playoff semifinal. The victory
was not even 12 hours old, but Sa-
ban was obsessing over the Tide’s
mistakes.
His criticism was aimed at co-of-
fensive coordinator Michael Lock-
sley. Alabama was already up 28-
early in the second quarter when
Locksley took a risk and called an
ill-fated play that led to fourth-and-
long, forcing the Tide to punt. It
was a decision that merited one of
Saban’s notorious “ass-chewings”
the next day.
“We punt one time and he’s call-
ing it out,” said Locksley. “You’re
not getting a bunch of pats on the
back or ‘great jobs.’ ” Locksley
doesn’t have to worry about Saban’s
tongue-lashings anymore. Days be-
fore that game, he had accepted a
job as the head coach of the Univer-
sity of Maryland.
He’s not the only one who beat a
path out of Tuscaloosa when he
could. For the second year in a row,
seven of Saban’s deputies from the
previous season’s staff, including
both the offensive and defensive co-
ordinators, left Alabama for coach-
ing jobs elsewhere. The result is
that not one assistant from his 2017
staff—which coached the team to a
national championship—remains in
an on-the-field role.
The unprecedented exodus raises
a question: Is there something
about Nick Saban’s management
style that prompts his lieutenants
toleave,nomatterhowmanyna-
tional titles the Tide win?
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask
my former assistants,” Saban said
in an interview with The Wall
Street Journal. “I don’t try to work
our guys to death.”
Those coaches do not really want
to talk about it. Of the 15 assistant
coaches that have left the program
since 2015, nine declined to com-
ment. Four others did not respond
to multiple requests for comment.
The churn creates a constant
management challenge for one of
the nation’s top coaches in any
sport. Assistant coaches play im-
portant roles in college football, de-
vising strategies, calling plays and
running practices and meetings, un-
der the oversight of the head coach.
Like a CEO forced to explain why
so many division heads have left
the company, Saban sees the defec-
tions as a sign of his program’s suc-
cess. “I think if you look at most of
the coming and going, it’s people
getting better jobs,” he said.
Indeed, of the 38 assistants to
leave Alabama since 2007, most
have gone on to higher profile roles
in college football or jumped to the
NFL. Saban suggests that’s partly
because he hires people who al-

BYLAINEHIGGINS

Nick Saban Keeps Losing Assistants

Rivals continue poaching from Alabama’s staff. The churn creates a constant management challenge for the Tide.

Weather
Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.

City Hi LoW Hi LoW City Hi Lo W Hi Lo W

Today Tomorrow Today Tomorrow

City Hi LoW Hi LoW

Anchorage 65 53 s 65 51 pc
Atlanta 93 72 pc 91 71 t
Austin 99 76 s 98 74 s
Baltimore 96 76 t 94 74 t
Boise 95 62 s 98 63 pc
Boston 9074pc 8571t
Burlington 88 65 t 86 67 s
Charlotte 93 72 s 91 71 t
Chicago 83 68 pc 86 72 t
Cleveland 85 69 t 86 71 t
Dallas 100 79 s 99 80 s
Denver 96 66 s 94 63 pc
Detroit 86 68 pc 87 72 pc
Honolulu 89 74 s 91 78 pc
Houston 95 79 t 95 78 pc
Indianapolis 88 72 t 90 73 pc
Kansas City 90 75 pc 96 74 pc
Las Vegas 105 80 s 107 82 s
Little Rock 96 76 pc 97 75 s
Los Angeles 81 62 pc 84 62 s
Miami 90 80 sh 90 79 t
Milwaukee 79 64 s 83 68 pc
Minneapolis 81 66 s 84 57 pc
Nashville 97 76 s 95 73 pc
New Orleans 89 75 t 90 76 t
New York City 89 77 pc 90 75 t
Oklahoma City 101 74 s 100 75 s

Omaha 85 77 pc 92 71 t

Orlando 90 75 pc 89 74 t

Philadelphia 94 78 t 94 76 t

Phoenix 110 86 s 113 88 s

Pittsburgh 87 67 pc 85 68 t

Portland, Maine 83 67 t 83 64 s

Portland, Ore. 81 58 pc 86 59 pc

Sacramento 85 58 s 89 58 s

St. Louis 90 77 t 93 75 pc

Salt Lake City 97 69 s 96 69 s

San Francisco 74 62 pc 75 60 pc

Santa Fe 91 59 s 87 58 t

Seattle 76 57 pc 81 60 c

Sioux Falls 83 70 pc 87 59 pc

Wash., D.C. 97 79 t 96 76 t

Amsterdam 68 55 pc 67 53 pc

Athens 89 74 s 89 73 s

Baghdad 112 82 s 114 84 s

Bangkok 94 80 t 90 79 t

Beijing 89 70 pc 80 68 t

Berlin 76 56 pc 76 57 c

Brussels 68 52 pc 68 49 pc

Buenos Aires 48 36 c 52 39 c

Dubai 109 91 s 108 91 s

Dublin 63 47 pc 63 53 sh

Edinburgh 63 51 pc 64 53 sh

Frankfurt 76 54 pc 72 54 c

Geneva 75 60 t 66 57 r

Havana 90 69 t 91 73 pc

Hong Kong 88 78 sh 88 80 t

Istanbul 82 70 pc 82 72 pc

Jakarta 91 74 pc 91 75 s

Jerusalem 84 64 s 83 64 s

Johannesburg 74 44 s 71 44 s

London 70 52 pc 71 55 pc

Madrid 91 69 pc 87 63 s

Manila 89 79 t 90 80 t

Melbourne 53 46 sh 59 50 sh

Mexico City 75 53 t 75 54 pc

Milan 88 70 pc 88 69 c

Moscow 72 57 c 79 62 s

Mumbai 87 80 sh 87 79 sh

Paris 73 56 pc 73 53 pc

Rio de Janeiro 78 68 c 74 67 sh

Riyadh 109 76 s 111 77 s

Rome 84 63 s 86 68 s

San Juan 88 80 t 88 79 t

Seoul 88 68 pc 91 75 s

Shanghai 88 77 sh 90 77 pc

Singapore 90 80 c 91 81 pc

Sydney 61 46 s 66 50 s

Taipei City 89 78 t 91 79 t

Tokyo 91 77 t 90 78 t

Toronto 8358pc 8163s

Vancouver 73 55 pc 74 59 c

Warsaw 87 62 t 80 61 c

Zurich 72 59 t 63 55 r

Today Tomorrow

U.S. Forecasts

International

City Hi Lo W Hi Lo W

s...sunny; pc... partly cloudy; c...cloudy; sh...showers;
t...t’storms; r...rain; sf...snow flurries; sn...snow; i...ice
Today Tomorrow

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Washington D.C.

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DOWN TO EARTH| By Jakob Weisblat

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1 Rural storage

structure

5 Sign with scales

10 Treats for

swelling, perhaps

14 Notion

15 Bay or bight

16 Jersey color for a

San Jose Shark

17 Came to an end

19 Gymnast Korbut

20 Dinosaur

character in

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of

22 TV’s DeGeneres

23 They rank below

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24 Spread gossip

27 Checked off

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30 Opaque, as an

explanation

35 Big name in skin

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40 Auditory organ

41 The Parthenon

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69 “Yeah, sure!”

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TheWSJDailyCrossword |Edited by Mike Shenk

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Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles.

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9 Lawyer: Abbr.

10 “Shoulda

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36 Service

organization with

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38 Fashion initials

41 Smell strongly

like

43 “Do ___ Disturb”

44 Hoover product,

for short

46 “For ___ a jolly

good...”

48 Office notes

49 Dangling part in

the throat

50 Venetian

thoroughfare

51 Hand over

52 Irish author

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55 Smoothly

charming

56 Discreet

rendezvous

60 251, in old Rome

62 LAX regulator

63 Binary digit

Previous Puzzle’s Solution

The contest answer is WARREN HARDING. The

first name of each theme entry is the first name of

a U.S. president: Woodrow WILSON, Chester

ARTHUR, Ronald REAGAN, Theodore ROOSEVELT,

Dwight EISENHOWER and Richard NIXON. The

first letters of their surnames spell WARREN,

leading to the contest answer.

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VASHA HUNT/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Is there something about Nick Saban’s management style that prompts his lieutenantsto leave, no matter how many national titles the Crimson Tide win?

ball this year: not one offensive as-

sistant on the 2018 coaching staff is

returning this season.

“That’s unheard of,” said Lane

Kiffin, the Florida Atlantic head

coach who famously left his post as

the Tide’s offensive maestro one

week before the national champion-

ship game in 2017. Alabama went on

to lose to Clemson 35-31.

Before leaving Alabama, Kiffin

equated the passage of time in Tus-

caloosa to “dog years” where “three

years is like 21.” He clarified this

month: “My point was the educa-

tion that you get,” he said. “I wasn’t

saying I aged 21 years.”

According to Locksley, the re-

volving door at Alabama has some

upsides. It yields a “competitive

edge,” he said, by making it hard

for opponents to predict the Tide’s

game plan from analyzing the previ-

The Bama brain drain

is particularly acute on

the offensive side of

the ball this year.

SPORTS