Not wise to place Smart bet

Surely one of these days Alabama Coach Nick Saban is going to lose to one of his former assistants, right?

Maybe the 16th time will be the charm.

Saban is 15-0 against opponents coached by his former assistants, including 3-0 this season with victories over Texas A&M and Jimbo Fisher 45-23, LouisianaLafayette and Billy Napier 56-14, and Jeremy Pruitt and Tennessee 58-21.

Georgia Coach Kirby Smart — who is 0-1 against Saban with a 26-23 overtime loss to Alabama in last year’s College Football Playoff title game — will try to become the first Saban assistant to beat him when the Bulldogs play the Crimson Tide on Saturday in the SEC Championship Game.

Logic dictates that coaches who know Saban and his system the best

— his former assistants — would have an edge against him, but it hasn’t worked that way. Smart is the only one of the bunch who has come close to beating Saban.

Excluding last year’s Alabama-Georgia game, Saban’s Tide have outscored his former assistants in the other 14 games by a combined 590-157 — an average victory margin of 30.9 points.

“Well, I think that all those things are circumstantial,” Saban said on Sunday’s SEC teleconference when asked why he has dominated his former assistants. “Obviously, Georgia’s got one of the best teams in the country, and Kirby’s built that there and improved that circumstance.

“A lot of guys that we’ve played against in the past that are our assistants, they were rebuilding programs that were down and hadn’t had an opportunity to build them up.

“So it’s not always been a level playing field, but we certainly have a lot of respect for Georgia and what they’ve done and what they’re capable of.”

Along with Smart (0-1), Fisher (0-2), Pruitt (0-1) and Napier (0-1), other former Saban assistants who haven’t been able to beat him at Alabama are Derek Dooley (0-3), Jim McElwain (0-3), Will Muschamp (0-2) and Mark Dantonio (0-2).

Fisher is the only other former assistant along with Smart to play Saban’s Tide within 17 points. Alabama beat Florida State 24-7 to open last season when Fisher coached the Seminoles.