Nick Saban Can Beat You with His Process, or with Yours

I swear he smiled after it happened, after that horror-movie trope of an onside kick—don't let the killer back inside your house, Dabo!—after Alabama recovered the ball and stole away all the momentum from a Clemson team that had managed to so badly disrupt Nick Saban's sense of order in Monday night's college football national championship game that he swore openly and tossed headsets in the first three quarters. Hell, there's even documentary proof: here is the Alabama coach grinning without prompting, thereby violating the very dictum that he lay down to his players and his assistant coaches.

Why was Saban so very briefly, you know, like … what's the word … happy after the Crimson Tide recovered that kick during a 24-24 game in the fourth quarter? Because he knew that he'd pulled the wool over all our eyes. Because he'd built his legacy up to this point by doing exactly the opposite of what we'd just witnessed. Because he'd won four national championships by burying his head deep inside a conservative business plan known as The Process, and now he was going to win another title with the sort of playful gesture that felt like the very opposite of everything that surrounded The Process, all the rampant dullard-like seriousness with which we'd come to associate him. This play was the embodiment of a grin. Maybe even a middle finger. I imagine even Saban could see the irony in that.

It's not like there wasn't a Process behind this decision, because there is a Process in everything Saban does. After Alabama's 45-40 win over Clemson, Saban explained that Alabama "has someone assigned in the press box who's saying, 'Did they line up like we thought they would?'" Once Saban knew he had the spacing for a successful onside kick, he recognized the option was available. Even so, he had to pull the trigger. And he did. And it worked. Alabama scored the go-ahead touchdown on the next drive, and never trailed again.

That's five national titles for Saban, four in seven years, and this one certainly appeared to be the sweetest—he stopped short of saying this was his favorite team ever, but he didn't stop too short. I imagine he's also aware that this one puts him ahead of every other college football coach who ever lived with the exception of another Alabama coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant; I imagine he's also aware that those of us whose job it is to chronicle college football had spent a great deal of the past couple years presuming that the Alabama dynasty was perpetually on the verge of a gasping death. A loss to Oklahoma in the 2014 Sugar Bowl: What was wrong with the Crimson Tide? A loss to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinal the following season: Had Saban finally lost his supremacy to Urban Meyer? A loss to Ole Miss early in the 2015 season: Had the Southeastern Conference finally caught up to Saban's methods?

None of this proved to be true. There is no vanquishing Nick Saban short of throwing him a pile of NFL money, because, as with horror-movie tropes, he is apparently given to endless sequels. In some ways, he will always be laboring under the premise that he cannot ever get enough respect, because he will never be adored the way Bear Bryant was; the outside world sees him as someone who wrings all the joy out of what is generally America's most purely joyful sport. Saban's method of dealing with such things—with the notion, as he said after the game, that we often see his program as "all business"—is to burrow deeper into his Process.

If nothing else, then, give Clemson credit for forcing Saban's hand. The Tigers forced him into that onside kick when he realized he couldn't simply win this game by playing defense and slipping the ball into the breadbasket of his enormous Heisman-winning running back, Derrick Henry, down the stretch. Clemson was too good. He'd have to take action. He'd have to do something vaguely subversive to win this national championship. He couldn't merely coast on talent and game plan, as he'd done in every previous national title game he'd coached with the Crimson Tide.

Afterward, an ESPN reporter got Saban to smile about it all, but that smile felt a lot more like mugging for the camera—hell, it was even a little frightening. That one would never feel as real as the organic smile we got out of Saban after he pulled the long con on all us, from Clemson coach Dabo Swinney on down.

And so here we are, at the moment when we possibly declare Nick Saban the greatest college football coach of all time. Alabama came into this season facing one of the most difficult schedules in the country; they lost all room for error after that defeat to Ole Miss in the early season, and the Tide made it through. To be this successful in the modern age is staggering. Who knows how much longer this can last? Maybe one more year, maybe ten. Maybe it all falls apart on Wednesday, which is the day that Saban said he'll convene team meetings and begin the slow Process of building toward next season.

Is Saban enjoying this? I've spent the past seven years asking myself that question, and here's what I've determined: it doesn't really matter anymore. The enjoyment is not really the point. Sometimes, maybe a moment of enjoyment arises, like it did after that onside kick; sometimes I think Saban likes to surprise himself, just to keep the damned thing interesting. Maybe Alabama would have won this game without the onside kick, but maybe Saban enjoys throwing us a middle finger every so often, just to make sure we're still paying attention.