Alabama, Georgia set to face off for national title

ATLANTA » Nick Saban’s greatest rival, his most persistent foe, is human nature. So far, Saban is winning that matchup.

Alabama’s coach has his Crimson Tide back in the College Football Playoff national championship game for the third straight season. Alabama has won four national titles since Saban took over in 2007, and played for another. Only once since 2008 has Alabama lost more than a single regular-season game.

There has never been anything quite like this Crimson Tide dynasty in college football.

Alabama has been the sport’s equivalent to the NFL’s Patriots during Saban’s time, fitting since he once worked for New England coach Bill Belichick, the winner of a record five Super Bowls.

Add a BCS championship Saban won while the head coach at LSU, and his five poll-era national championships leave him one short of a record held by the man who coached Alabama’s first dynasty, Paul “Bear” Bryant. Saban can match the Bear on Jan. 8 when No. 4 Alabama faces No. 3 Georgia in an all-Southeastern Conference national championship game that President Trump is expected to attend.

Relentlessly driven and motivated by competition for competition’s sake, Saban has engineered a complacency-proof program in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Whether it is lunchtime basketball with the assistant coaches or what has become Alabama’s annual appearance in the national title game, the 66-year-old Saban only knows one approach.

“Well, I think that I’m always looking for the next challenge,” he said Jan. 7. “I don’t know if it’s the way I was raised or whatever, that you’re kind of only as good as your last play, as your last game.”

Saban’s latest challenge comes from a former protege. Georgia coach Kirby Smart spent nine seasons with Saban at Alabama, the last eight as defensive coordinator, before taking over as head coach at his alma mater in 2016. The two shared the stage Sunday with the tall, gold championship trophy for a final news conference before Monday night’s game. Smart was part of those basketball games for years, usually on Saban’s team because they hated to lose.

Smart, 42, has taken Saban’s “process” to Athens, Georgia, a title hungry town that has not celebrated a Bulldogs’ championship since Herschel Walker was a freshman in 1980.