The GOAT Nick Saban sees only one question mark regarding Texas personnel

Sports addicts love a good GOAT debate. We see it across all sports. Sometimes we see it regarding a team but more often regarding an individual. The term GOAT has infiltrated our culture to the point the acronym is now used as a term of endearment for athletes who are very good but nowhere close to GOAT status. 

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Despite the pervasiveness of these debates, one conversation that simply doesn’t exist is Greatest Of All Time college coach. It’s Nick Saban.

Winning titles at two different schools was very impressive, but what impressed me most, is how he won while adapting his style of play to suit the trends of the game. He did this while experiencing heavy staff turnover. In fact, he often used staff turnover to his benefit to tweak and modernize his program and schemes. Despite his success doing things one way, he was always quick to adapt and do things another way.  

Along with his personal success, he sprouted an extremely impressive coaching tree, one that includes Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian. On a television segment on Tuesday, Saban shared his thoughts on what makes Sark’s offense so difficult to stop (On3+). 

On Wednesday, while providing commentary at SEC Media Day, he discussed what the Texas team is lacking personnel-wise this season. 

One question mark regarding personnel

“They have a lot of components in place that you need to navigate the kind of season that you’re going to play in the SEC. First of all, they got a really strong roster. They have lots of depth at most positions. Probably the only question on their team, about players is, who’s going to be the other corner? That’s the only question you would have on their whole team.”

That quote is interesting for a few reasons

1. Saban not only knows Sark well, he knows this Texas team after having prepared for the Longhorns entering last season. His opinion is credible.

2. Notice he doesn’t mention defensive tackle or safety. The issues at D-tackle are something we’ve downplayed at Inside Texas for a while. A little inside info on that front, the staff feels confident in the group it has assembled and even felt that way before adding Bill Norton and Jermayne Lole. (Recruiting the position is a whole other matter)

3. Notice how he says the ‘other’ cornerback spot. Without saying it, he’s offering Malik Muhammad high praise. Saban knows Muhammad extremely well after heavily recruiting the sophomore from Dallas. In Saban’s eyes, Muhammad and Cormani McClain were the only true cover corners in the 2023 class. 

Saban continues with team strengths

“Their offensive line is really good. He [Sark] talked about their receiver room that has quality players. You know [CJ] Baxter and these running backs they got are really, really good. When you look at this team, and he plays the backup quarterback for almost the whole spring game and he throws for like 350 or whatever he threw for. They’ve got a lot of good players; they’ve got the right mindset. If they can hold up and do what they need to do on defense, they’ve got a great offensive team, I think they’ve got enough good players on defense. They got some transfers.” 

Back to the question at cornerback 

“It’s only going to be that one question because corners do put the limitation on what you can do on defense. If you don’t have good corners you can’t play a lot of man to man. You gotta play soft sometimes, you can’t get off the field on third down because you can’t play man to man. You give up big plays because you’re not good at the corner position. If that thing [second cornerback] comes through, that’s why I picked these guys to be one of the best teams in the league. Probably them and Georgia are the two best teams I saw this spring.” 

What about the ‘other’ corner?

As Inside Texas has reported in offseason insider articles, the battle at field corner is between Gavin Holmes and Jay’Vion Cole. Holmes transferred to Texas from Wake Forest before the 2023 season. Cole found his way to Texas from San Jose State this offseason. 

Holmes’ spring was good enough the staff didn’t make a big effort to retain last year’s starter, Terrance Brooks. He’s a twitchy cover corner. This spring Holmes was processing faster and showed more physicality. Cole also possesses the necessary cover skills but is new to the program and still learning the playbook.

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August insider reports will tell us a lot about the direction of the position for this season. 

Keep in mind, with Jaylon Guilbeau coming into his own at Star, the staff could also play Jahdae Barron at corner. 

Maybe there’s no single answer for Saban’s lone personnel question regarding Texas, but Texas cornerbacks coach Terry Joseph has plenty of potential answers.