Will Nick Saban’s age ever stop him from being one of the most dominant recruiters in college football? Will he face the same struggles fellow future Hall of Famer Steve Spurrier did?

The answer is a resounding no.

Spurrier mentioned when he resigned mid-season this past year at South Carolina (at age 70) that he was a “recruiting liability” at his age and that the Gamecocks needed someone younger (they hired 44-year-old Will Muschamp) to “win recruiting battles” and get the talent level back up in Columbia.

While it is true Spurrier’s age did impact South Carolina’s recruiting, the Gamecocks and Spurrier were done in much more by the lack of a plan in recruiting and poor staff hires (i.e. guys who were not good recruiters at all). Plus, South Carolina is a much harder sell with only one SEC East championship than Alabama is with four recent national championships and the rich history and tradition that that program has.

Alabama sells itself, regardless of the age of the 64-year old Saban. Plus, the Crimson Tide has an extremely competent coaching staff full of great recruiters and Saban, unlike Spurrier, demands staff accountability in recruiting and is heavily involved in all aspects of his program.

Don’t get me wrong, Spurrier is a Hall of Fame coach, but he’s a Sinatra-esque type that did it “his way.” He was fortunate at South Carolina during the middle part of his tenure that he had some of the best recruiters in program history — including recruiting coordinator Shane Beamer, Jay Graham, Brad Lawing, Ellis Johnson and G.A. Mangus to help land the elite talent from within the Palmetto State like Marcus Lattimore, Alshon Jeffery, Stephon Gilmore and Jadeveon Clowney.

Of those mentioned, all but Mangus were gone by the end of his South Carolina tenure and they weren’t replaced with equal or superior recruiters.

That never happens with Saban.

Case-in-point: Kirby Smart left to take the head coaching job at Georgia and Saban re-hired Jeremy Pruitt, one of the best recruiters and defensive coordinators in the country, to replace him. That type of thing happens on an annual basis in Tuscaloosa.

At Florida, Spurrier always had elite talent given the program’s location. The Gators simply got their share of the best prospects in the talent-rich Sunshine State (though top-to-bottom they may not have been as talented as Florida State or later on, Miami, in terms of future NFL players), but that, along with landing and developing great quarterbacks and cherry picking some stars here and there from other states, was certainly enough. The program was on auto-pilot in a lot of ways when Spurrier left for the NFL after coaching the 2001 team (some will say the best top to bottom talent-wise he had there) to a 10-2 season.

You can’t put South Carolina on auto-pilot and expect to win.

Contrast that with Saban at LSU when he bolted for the NFL after 2004. New head coach Les Miles won big right away and ended up winning the 2007 national championship with several of Saban’s recruits (mixed with some of his own). Saban left an amazing foundation in place in Baton Rouge, one that should stand the test of time regardless of the head coach. And with the Tigers you are talking about a program that was in the wilderness bad during the latter part of the 1980s and the entire decade of the 1990s.

And if Saban left Alabama tomorrow, the next coach of the Crimson Tide would have the  structure and foundation in place to win a national title in their first year.

That type of thing is what will continue to get blue-chip recruits flocking to Tuscaloosa. Saban’s age simply will be irrelevant provided the Tide continues to have the type of success that they are now — and there are no signs that it will not continue.

So while some on the surface may want to compare Saban to Spurrier (and if you are talking about best coaches in SEC history, then it’s fair to do so), there really is no comparison when you are talking about recruiting and program management.

And for that reason, expect the Tide to roll on endlessly as long as Saban is around regardless of his age.