Saban's Lies Pre-Dated By Rogers' Whoppers

The denials came, fervent and repeated. The college coach wanted the ink stained wretches and TV talking heads to know that he was no way, no how, leaving his current position to take another, at a university in the southwest. Then one day, just 24 hours after the last denial, the news was broken: college coach was leaving, to that opportunity in the desert.

A few years later, the same college coach, tanned now but perhaps restless again, issued more of the same denials. And the same boobs that report such things bought it again, though there were some more skeptics than before.

NO! I am NOT leaving the desert to enter the NFL as a head coach.

The denials were being spewed, right up until the time the press conference was being announced that the NFL team had found its new coach. Then the denying coach hopped a plane and went from the heat of the desert to the cold of a Michigan winter.

This was Darryl Rogers, back in the 1980's. First he said he wasn't leaving MSU for Arizona State. Then he did anyway. Next, he said he wasn't leaving Arizona State for the Detroit Lions. Then he did anyway. In neither case did our teams come out ahead on the deal.

I couldn't help but think of Rogers and his false denials -- the second of which was uttered even as the presser was being arranged to announce his hiring by the Lions -- as the latest Nick Saban drama played out.


Saban explains himself to Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga


Here I thought we'd heard the last of Saban rumors for awhile when he accepted the job as Miami Dolphins head coach, before the 2005 season. Well, hoped was more like it.

Saban is a fine coach, but I'm tired of him. Tired of him being rumored for every stinking NFL job when he was in college. Tired of him being rumored, once he left for the NFL, for every stinking college job. Football's Larry Brown.

Now he's gone again, off to Alabama, despite those same indignant, repeated denials -- similar to those issued by Rogers (who wasn't near the coach that Saban is) -- uttered, once again, almost right up to the moment he penned his signature on the Crimson Tide contract.

Nick Saban, like Darryl Rogers 20+ years before him, lied. To everyone. Forget the media, because who doesn't lie to us? He lied to his players, his owner, and who knows who else. He signed an eight-year contract, but what does that matter, really? Saban had three years left on his Dolphins contract, after all. So how long before Saban is, once again, bantied about as being the perfect choice for another NFL team?

I'm already bracing myself.

Maybe Saban left the Dolphins because he feels that, deep down, he's a college coach, not an NFL coach. Fine. But he didn't even feed us the standard non-denial/denial, which if he had, wouldn't make him look like such the false prophet that he appears to be this morning.

No, I'm not leaving! No way! No how!

Until I sign my next contract, at the next locale, that is.