Nick Saban shares perfect Tom Osborne story on College GameDay before Week 2
By Sydney Hunte
Published:
Nick Saban said on Saturday’s College GameDay that he can empathize with longtime friend Bill Belichick after North Carolina slumped to a 48-14 loss to TCU in his collegiate debut. And it was legendary Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne who helped put things in perspective after Saban suffered a heavy Week 1 loss of his own after taking over a new team.
After going 9-2 in his lone season at Toledo, Saban joined the Cleveland Browns to serve as Belichick’s defensive coordinator. After 4 seasons, he was named head coach at Michigan State.
His first game as the Spartans’ head coach was on Sept. 9, 1995, against a 2nd-ranked Nebraska team that won a national championship the previous season. The Spartans ended up losing that game 50-10, but Saban recounted an interaction with Osborne afterwards.
“I’m on the sidelines saying, ‘We may never win a game here. We’re horrible.’ I mean, we couldn’t tackle anybody. I mean, it was awful. So I know exactly how Bill feels,” Nick Saban said. “When I went out and shook hands with Tom Osborne after the game, he put his arm around me and he says, ‘You’re not as bad as you think.'”
Osborne ended up being right.
“We went on to go [6-5-1] and went to a bowl game with that team because we weren’t as bad as we thought,” Saban recalled.
After going 6-6, 7-5, and 6-6 over his next 3 seasons, Saban and the Spartans had a breakthrough in 1999, going 9-2 and claiming a Citrus Bowl berth. The rest is history.
Sydney is an Atlanta-based journalist who has covered everything from SEC and ACC football to MLS, the U.S. men's national soccer team and professional tennis. His work has appeared on such platforms as SB Nation, Cox Media Group and FanSided.
