Rose Bowl: Will we ever see Nick Saban vs. Jim Harbaugh again?

PASADENA, Calif. — Nick Saban would never say what Jim Harbaugh said Saturday.

Harbaugh had just sat down at his podium for Saturday’s Rose Bowl media day, and the first question out of the chute was about what Michigan coaches and players had learned from their previous two trips to the College Football Playoff semifinals. As Harbaugh often does, he avoided actually answering the question. (Which would have required digging up painful losses to Georgia and TCU.)

“Our team was very definite on this is where they wanted to be,” Harbaugh said. “This was one of their goals — the goal. It’s what we hoped for, what we worked for, and exactly where we want to be, and now we’re just ready to have at it.”

Saban never would identify any particular outcome as a goal, because he believes human nature causes people to relax once they think they’ve reached a goal. He built an entire mental framework around his team that shuns result-oriented thinking. The Process — Saban is as good at branding as he is at coaching — demands focus only on dominating the next task at hand. There is no end goal. But dominate enough tasks at hand and confetti falls.

This example isn’t provided to recommend one method of coaching over the other. It’s to point out how two dramatically different methods of thought presented by two dramatically different men can put their teams in the same stadium on the same day with the stakes so high.

This is the kind of matchup the College Football Playoff is supposed to give us. A clash of styles. A clash of regions. A clash of history. A clash of icons.

For Harbaugh and Saban, this might be the only time we get to see them compete against one another on this stage. (We saw them once in a Citrus Bowl, but that wasn’t any fun.) Or it might be the dawn of a classic rivalry. The circumstances suggest the former is far more likely than the latter, so we probably should savor it.

Harbaugh has a contract extension from Michigan waiting, but he has tried to return to the NFL twice in the past two offseasons. Some enticing jobs have opened and will open. Plus, he’s the focus of two NCAA investigations that could result in discipline even more severe than the six games he missed this season.

Saban is 72. He has groused publicly as college football has changed more in the past three years than it did in the previous 50. A system of rules that allowed him to build a prohibitive personnel advantage has been dismantled, and he’ll now play in a conference where Georgia, LSU, Texas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M and others can build teams of similar talent depending on how well they evaluate. 

Could this season be the last at this level for one — or for both?

Saban isn’t heading back to the NFL. When he’s done at Alabama, he’s done. The question is when. SEC rivals hope that day comes soon because they’re sick of losing to the greatest of all time. And maybe that’s why they’ve watched Saban smile more, watched him seem to savor victories more, and whispered that he might be soaking in one final run. Maybe an eighth national title (one at LSU, seven at Alabama if he can win this year) would be enough. And Saban could leave figuring out what happens to the sport in a time of dramatic upheaval to the young folks.

For the 60-year-old Harbaugh, the circumstances are different. Even before the NCAA issues, the NFL still loomed. Perhaps Saban’s NFL story would have gone differently had his Dolphins acquired quarterback Drew Brees as intended, but he finished with an average record as an NFL head coach. Harbaugh’s San Francisco 49ers tenure was splendid by any measure. He went 44-19-1 in four seasons. He reached the NFC title game three times. He reached the Super Bowl once, losing to brother John’s Baltimore Ravens in a game that featured a 34-minute blackout. Down five, the 49ers drove the ball to the Ravens’ 7-yard line before they failed on fourth down. John Harbaugh hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. Jim Harbaugh was that close.

That has to burn. 

Plus, there is the other stuff. The first NCAA investigation into Harbaugh is a nothingburger — which happens to be about a burger — that matters only to the truest of the true believers in college sports. During the pandemic, Harbaugh met with recruits who had driven to Ann Arbor at a time when official and unofficial visits weren’t allowed. Harbaugh told NCAA investigators he didn’t recall the event. When presented with a receipt, he still said he didn’t recall. This got him slapped with a charge of providing misleading information. This would be a violation of the same bylaw that got Ohio State coach Jim Tressel forced out in 2011. But the difference between now and then is that Ohio State never would have pushed out Tressel for lying to investigators now. And Michigan has had Harbaugh’s back in this case. The school tried to negotiate a plea deal that included a four-game suspension, but the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions rejected the deal. Presumably, the three-game suspension Michigan self-imposed on Harbaugh at the start of this season won’t be enough to resolve the matter. So there’s that.

And then there’s L’Affaire Connor Stalions. 

The accusations that Michigan staffer Stalions ran what amounts to an in-person scouting network designed to steal signals from future Michigan opponents made for one of the wildest, most entertaining stories of any college football season. But given the way the NCAA allows any malfeasance by a lower level staffer to be tethered like an anchor to the head coach, it means Harbaugh could face even more discipline than the three-game suspension the Big Ten handed down minutes before Michigan’s plane touched down in State College, Pa., on the eve of the game at Penn State.

So even though Michigan seems prepared to back Harbaugh, it may not be worth the trouble for Harbaugh.

“Like Moses, I’m going to die leaning on my staff,” Harbaugh said Saturday. “I couldn’t have a better staff to lean on.” That’s the other piece of this. Offensive coordinator Sherrone Moore filled in so capably for Harbaugh during that second three-game suspension that it might have answered any questions Harbaugh could have had about the hands in which he’d leave the program. Moore is ready to be a head coach now.

The past few months also served to galvanize Michigan’s team. A group that already played well together rallied around their coach and one another. The bond showed in the moments after guard Zak Zinter broke his leg against Ohio State. Players hugged. They shed tears. On the very next play, an offensive line playing without its leader blew open a hole for a 22-yard Blake Corum touchdown run.

“You know it when you’re on a real ball team,” Harbaugh said. “That’s what our team is. Bo Schembechler talked many times about it. When I was a kid I heard it. I heard it when I played at Michigan. The team. The team. The team. In so many ways, this team is THE team.”

If THE team could win a national title, it might be the perfect time to chase that Super Bowl. But what if it doesn’t? What if it wins Monday and loses next week? Or what if Alabama wins? Would Harbaugh want to try again in the era of the 12-team playoff?

For Saban, losing Monday or losing next week wouldn’t affect a legacy built by dominating college football in this young century. He is universally regarded as the best college football coach of all time, and it would take an epic run for someone to knock Saban from that perch. The question is how long he wants to keep doing this, and that question has come up more frequently as Saban’s personality has seemingly softened of late. Is he becoming more introspective? Is he enjoying this while it lasts? Or does he just truly enjoy coaching this particular group of players?

That last question might be the correct one. Despite predictions that the age of unfettered transfers and name, image and likeness rules would produce more me-first players, this Alabama team seems to defy the stereotype. It’s still one of Saban’s typical collections of mega-recruits with bright NFL futures, but this group seems more fun and more coachable than previous iterations. Saban has said it reminds him of the 2015 team, another player-led group that went through some early quarterback-related growing pains and wound up winning a national title.

Alabama defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, who returned to Tuscaloosa this year and who has worked with Saban at various points in his career, explained that any perceived change in Saban’s personality probably has more to do with what Saban believes this group of players needs to see and hear on a daily basis. “He has an uncanny ability to know what each team needs, each group of guys need, each side of the ball needs,” Steele said. “He’s just got a gift there.”

While working for Sports Illustrated, I asked Saban in 2017 about how he might decide when he’s won enough. His answer suggested that there would be no long goodbye like Bobby Bowden, the former Florida State coach who is one of the few whose name belongs in the same sentence as Saban’s. “My greatest fear professionally is that we might lose the next game,” Saban said in 2017. “It’s not because of the fans. It’s not because of the expectations. I want to do the best job I can to help our players have the best opportunity to do that. I hate the feeling you have when you lose, but I also hate the feeling that you have when you didn’t do a good job for your players.”

Here comes the really telling part.

“When I get to where I don’t feel that way anymore,” Saban said, ”I would rather call it quits than to be satisfied watching it go down.”

So if you’re placing odds on which of the Rose Bowl coaches is more likely to be in the same place next season — probably in the CFP again — it’s Saban. Because Alabama isn’t going down. He just signed another top-two recruiting class. The joy of coaching this group seems to have re-energized him. He may win a national title this season, or he might not. But he doesn’t think in result-oriented terms. He wonders if the pieces remain in place to keep working The Process.

Steele was asked Friday if this season could be a walk-off for Saban. He smiled, knowing that question is as much wishful thinking from rivals as genuine curiosity about Saban’s future.

“It’s always going to be out there,” Steele said. “I will tell you this: Nobody knows that answer except him.”

So I followed up with another question for Steele. What the hell would Saban do all day if he didn’t coach the Crimson Tide?

“That’s a good question,” Steele said with a laugh.

Until someone can answer it, it’s probably safe to assume that the The Process will continue unabated.