ATLANTA — There’s praise and there are compliments, but when it comes to the University of Alabama’s Nick Saban his friend Gary Pinkel did nothing short of laud his friend on Friday afternoon.

Speaking to reporters during a press conference at the Georgia Dome, site of Saturday’s SEC Championship Game (4 p.m. ET, CBS), he essentially called him the best coach if his time.

“Bear Bryant, Woody Hayes, a lot of the coaches, great, great coaches, Don James who I worked for, most of those guys had 95, 105, 115 scholarships at least a portion of their career,” the Missouri coach said. “I don’t know that anybody has done as consistent a job at coaching with 85 scholarships as Nick Saban has. I’m not telling you this because he’s my friend, but because I have great respect.

“To win at the level he’s won, year after year after year, you don’t see anybody doing it like that with his consistency. He’s a great football coach, a good friend. Sometimes I don’t think he gets the credit he’s due.”

Saban has won four national championships, and is 8-1 in games with either a conference or national title on the line.

Pinkel and Saban’s friendship goes back to when they were players at Kent State, and he followed him as the head coach at Toledo in 1991.

The Missouri coach made a point to remind everyone at the press conference that Saban was a year older (to which Saban had no comeback).

“I remember being in the library at Kent State University,” Pinkel said. “We were probably both 21, 22 years old, done playing, talking about coaching college football, how we thought it would be really cool to do that, (get) paid to coach football. Are you kidding me? Him telling me about, ‘You got to find a good coach.’ He kind of talked to some people about it. Got to ride that coach, get a good coach, you’re not bouncing around coach to coach to coach.

“I vividly remember that discussion I had with him. To think that we’d be sitting next to each other at an event like this…”