The Alabama football head coach has been sacked due to a misunderstanding, which is unbelievable news for the brave fans.
The Alabama football head coach was fired due to a misunderstanding, which is shocking news for the brave fans.
It’s the day before New Year’s Eve in Memphis, Tennessee, and nobody at Ohio State wants what’s about to happen. The team that tied for the Big Ten championship and was placed 15th in the AP Poll somehow ended up in the 1981 Liberty Bowl. The matchup against unranked Navy isn’t exciting. The weather is not particularly pleasant: 30 degrees before kickoff, with rain on the way. The coaching staff can see in some of the players’ eyes that they do not want to be there, that they are fighting to find their footing, slipping on the turf, and that they are proud.
A lengthy season is going to become longer. Ohio State is expected to easily defeat the Navy, but that does not happen. The Buckeyes’ struggling young secondary reaches a new low, allowing an offense that averaged less than 50 passing yards per game during the regular season to amass 240 yards and two scores through the air. A blocked punt and three fumbles spare the Buckeyes from humiliation. Final score: Ohio State 31, Navy 28.
Coach Earle Bruce is already seething at his team’s shoddy play as he exits the field when he notices his defensive coordinator, Dennis Fryzel, speaking to reporters. Steve Szabo, the defensive line coach, later described it as the final straw. Bruce goes into the locker room, throwing objects and screaming, “That’s it!” It is over! It’s finished!”
Around 2 a.m., the squad returns to Columbus. Only the coaches are called back into the office at 8 a.m. for a meeting. Thirty seconds in, Bruce announces that the entire defensive staff is out. Everyone is stunned. After all, linebackers coach Bob Tucker stated, “We’d just won a bowl game” and finished 9-3.
Nick Saban was just dismissed for the first time in his career. He’s now a 30-year-old unemployed defensive backs coach. He has a tireless work ethic, a head for intricate coverage, and an eye for assessing talent, but he has nowhere to put it.
It won’t be this way for long. The best college football coach of his generation will never be fired again.
* * *
Nick Saban was already on his fourth coaching stop when he came to Ohio State in 1980. Defensive coordinator Dennis Fryzel, an old buddy from Syracuse, and offensive coordinator Glen Mason, whom he had met on the recruiting path, had convinced coach Earle Bruce to hire him. He was bright, they told Bruce, and an amazing recruiter—the ideal candidate to succeed Pete Carroll, who had recently left to become defensive coordinator at North Carolina State.
Mason continues to be impressed by Saban’s cutting-edge approach. Cover 2 was the fad, and Saban was implementing numerous looks inside the defense that gave Mason fits. It was not a blitz, despite appearances. Cover 2 would transform into Cover 3 in the blink of an eye. What Mason admired most was Saban’s ability to identify talent. He would turn on the old 60mm film and say, “Nick, take a look at this guy and tell me what you think.” Saban would study the footage, and Mason would always take his advice. “And he was always right,” Mason explained. “To be quite honest with you, it was things I didn’t think of, didn’t see, or didn’t evaluate.”
Although Ohio State finished 9-3 in 1980 and allowed a respectable 162 passing yards per game, the ground was shifting. The Big Ten’s middle and bottom divisions were evolving into a passing league. During a 49-42 victory over Illinois, the Buckeyes surrendered 621 yards passing.
Furthermore, the secondary was scheduled to begin its rebuilding process the following season. According to the team’s own media guide, the defensive backfield is “totally new.” The position was “further clouded” by the loss of one of its most experienced returns, Rod Gorley, who underwent knee surgery, the report said. In Week 3, the defense gave up 280 passing yards and two scores to a quarterback named John Elway. The following week, Florida State threw for 299 yards and two touchdowns in its first loss of the season, by nine points.
Tucker stated that the secondary personnel did not meet the changing defensive needs. A staff meeting late last year culminated in what Tucker described as a “misunderstanding” between Saban and Bruce on recruiting strategies.
“Of course, every high school coach in America has another Jack Tatum—a strong safety, a hitter,” Tucker went on to say. “So you have eight Jack Tatums and you’re on the ropes. Nick’s message was, ‘Let’s get some Tim Andersons—some more pass defenders—because this is changing.’
“I understood what Nick was saying, and I’m not sure the head coach did.”
Furthermore, Saban pushed for more complicated defenses, and Bruce was not keen to play ball.
Meanwhile, there was building tension between Bruce and Fryzel. The two were close friends yet had very different personalities. Where Bruce was more formal, Szabo said Fryzel went by the “seat of his pants.” Tucker explained that Fryzel was becoming the program’s second voice, which irritated Bruce.
“I’m trying to say this diplomatically,” Mason explained, describing the situation as out of control. “There was a working relationship problem with Denny and Earle.”
According to Szabo, “Nick was thrown in the mix because he outwardly was more loyal to Denny.”
As the season progressed, Tucker recalls the press “blasting us.” Then the leaks began, with stuff appearing in the press that should have remained in staff meetings, Szabo recounted. Bruce’s answer was to prevent assistants from communicating with the media.
Fryzel violated the embargo at the wrong moment, following the Liberty Bowl. All three former assistants interviewed for this story agreed that Bruce was acting emotionally when he went into the locker room that night and fired the defensive staff the next morning.
“It was collateral damage,” Mason explained. “It wasn’t because the secondary wasn’t playing well, [Saban] wasn’t recruiting well, or he wasn’t doing his job well.”
Saban said nothing when it happened. He did not throw anything or pout.
Later that day, Bruce volunteered to keep Tucker. Tucker said he respected it when Saban urged him, “You must stay. “You have a family.”
Saban instantly moved on. He was satisfied, according to Szabo.
The two attended a coaches’ convention less than two weeks later. Saban already had a job lined up at Navy, working alongside Belichick’s father.
* * *
Seven national championships later, Saban is perhaps the best college football coach of his generation.
And if you believe he has forgotten about his departure from Ohio State, think again. When asked what he learned from the whole event, Saban first stated that the entire staff, not just him, was let go.
“It was a little bit of a crazy deal,” he told me, “but I look back more on the mistakes that I made rather than blaming somebody else.”
Saban may be a grandfather now, with some grey around his ears, but he remembers everything. He recalls appearing on Bruce’s television show after they beat Michigan. He recalls the game and the three freshmen and one sophomore who started in the secondary. He happily recalls shutting down Michigan’s All-America receiver with three passes for 17 yards. (Anthony Carter had four catches for 52 yards, which is close enough.)
A month later, he recalls being fired.
“What it made me realize is that you have to work to please the person that you’re working for,” he said. “I really look back at all of the things that I did and the mistakes that I made, and even sometimes, if you’re right, it’s not worth it to be right.”
Fryzel has since died, and Bruce is retired and recovering well from a stroke he suffered last year.
Tucker, Szabo, and Mason have all stopped coaching.
All of them could tell Saban had what it takes to be a head coach years ago, but no one could have predicted he’d do it.
“Who wouldn’t be surprised?” Mason stated. “He achieved not only success but legendary achievement. I’m not sure how, although I’ve worked with a lot of terrific coaches, you can say, ‘Oh, I knew he’d win a championship at LSU and several ones at Alabama.’ It’s the ideal storm. You take a guy who is at the forefront of recruiting and coaching and works really hard and place him at a school that can achieve those things. Nonetheless, his success is remarkable.”
Tucker laughed as he reflected on how Pete Carroll led to Nick Saban, who then led to Dom Capers at Ohio State.
It’s funny how it works. Carroll has won championships in both college and the pros. Capers was a Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator for the Packers. Saban has won seven college national titles. However, they were all dismissed at some point in their lives.
“I tell people, ‘Look at those guys,'” Tucker explained. “And here I am practicing chipping on the green while the club is closed.”
