Diverse staff fits Saban’s template

TUSCALOOSA | To the casual observer and critic, it might appear that being an assistant coach on a Nick Saban staff is a lot like being the defense against the dark arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

For those not fans of Harry Potter books and movies, that means they don’t last.

Whether the reputation is deserved or not, University of Alabama football has entered a new period reflective of its coach, who has described himself as no-nonsense and process-oriented, and comes across like a hard-nosed CEO.

Saban has repeatedly credited Don James and George Perles as mentors who influenced his systematic approach, but similar to someone who has taken over a new company he has a certain way of doing things and a specific, and proven, formula for hiring the new Crimson Tide hierarchy

“One thing you’re looking for in a staff is balance," Saban said last week, and even without announcing each person’s roles (which possibly may not happen until after recruiting is completed), it’s obvious he already has it.

In many ways, the new staff is similar to what Saban had previously pieced together, and each new coach could have a one-word nickname as telling as his eventual titles:

The Master: Kevin Steele, former executive head coach and linebackers coach at Florida State, and named the 2 005 National Recruiter of the Year by Rivals.com. In describing him, Saban used words like “fantastic" and “terrific."

The Veteran: Joe Pendry, who has told recruits that he’s the offensive coordinator. Pendry has nearly 20 years of NFL experience, most recently as the offensive coordinator of the Houston Texas under Dom Capers.

“I’ve always liked to have, I’m going to refer to it as an old hand on staff," Saban said.

The Prodigy: Last season, Major Applewhite coached a spread attack at Rice, which scored the most points (350) and amassed the third-most yards (4,486) in school history.

The Ace: Burton Burns, former running backs coach at Clemson. When Alabama will be looking to sign a prize recruit out of Louisiana, he’ll be the closer.

The Post: Kirby Smart coached defensive backs for Saban at LSU and with the Miami Dolphins, and is one the coach can lean on since he’s familiar with the system.

The Salesman: Lance Thompson worked with Saban before as a recruiting coordinator at LSU and served as the Crimson Tide’s defensive line coach during the 1999 SEC Championship season.

“He’s a good coach, but he’s an outstanding recruiter," Saban said.

The Muscle: Bo Davis has been both a defensive line coach and an assistant strength and conditioning coach for Saban. Davis was an All-SEC defensive lineman for LSU in the early 1990s.

The Specialist: Ron Middleton spent the last two seasons as the tight ends and assistant special teams coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Previously, he coached running backs and special teams at Ole Miss (1999-2003) and tutored 2003 Lou Groza Award winner place kicker Jonathan Nichols.

The Rock: Steve Marshall was out of football last season after two years with the Houston Texans. In 2004, he oversaw the offensive tackles, and the following year was the offensive-line coach. Marshall has also served as an offensive coordinator at North Carolina, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech.

The Base: Todd Alles, who spent the past two years as a program assistant for operations and recruiting at Ohio State, will be the new director of football operations.

“Todd Alles was a [graduate assistant] for me at Ohio State [1980-1981]," Saban said. “I still feel like I’m the youngest guy on the staff but I look at guys who were my [graduate assistants] GAs and they look like they’ve matured quite a bit since that time. I’ve known Todd for a long time."

Although Saban traditionally expects a lot of his staff, he also has a reputation for surrounding himself with top assistants and paying them well.

With the Miami Dolphins, Saban had 19 regular assistants, two more than the NFL average, and four GA-type coaches. Combined, they had the second-highest staff payroll in the league, trailing only the Washington Redskins.

Meanwhile, on the college level, LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher was one of the highest paid assistant coaches in the country, reportedly making $450,000 a year, (significantly more that what he’ll earn this year at Florida State).

That’s also probably why, in part, that of all the criticism coming out of Miami about Saban leaving for Alabama, none came from the assistant coaches. Not only did they know it’s part of the business side of football nowadays (and may not have wanted to burn a bridge), but many had been through it before with Saban.

Dolphins coaches who were also Saban assistants in college included Charlie Baggett, Davis, Smart, Derek Dooley, Bobby Williams, James Coley, Glen Pires and Travis Jones.

“When you’ve been in the business as long as I have, you know that there are always possibilities," said Capers, the special assistant to the head coach. “Anytime you hear things like this, there are chances of it happening. You didn’t know what the percentages of the chances were, but you knew it was there. It ended up happening."

Capers also indicated that Saban had been up-front with his staff once discussions with Alabama got serious, even though the final notification was over the phone.

“I think this is a decision he probably struggled with tremendously," Capers said. “Anytime there’s a decision of this magnitude, I think you have to put an awful lot of thought into it. I think he certainly did."

When Saban was hired at Michigan State in 1995, his original staff included Baggett, Jim Bollman, Dean Pees, Gary Tranquill, Greg Colby, Mark Dantonio, Pires, Pat Shurmur and Williams.

When Saban left in 1999, only Dantonio and Williams remained from that original staff, and Williams took over as head coach for three seasons before eventually re-joining Saban at both LSU and Miami.

At LSU (200-04), Saban’s initial staff featured Dooley, Phil Elmassian, Fisher, Michael Haywood, Stan Hixon, Pete Jenkins, Sam Nader, Sal Sunseri, Rick Trickett and Mel Tucker.

Only Dooley, Fisher, Nadar were still there in 2004.

Although in part due to Saban’s departures, during his 10 combined years at Michigan State and LSU he had nine assistant coaches who only lasted one season.

While on face value it appears that Saban’s staffs have lacked any sort of cohesion or continuity, he plans for attrition, in part because people naturally get hired away from successful programs.

One of his methods for keeping as much stability as possible is to hire young staff assistants who can eventually be promoted -- like Applewhite.

“You need to have a combination of guys with experience and guys who have room to grow and develop as coaches and use the older experienced guys to help you do that," Saban told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel in 2005. “That’s the philosophy I used to develop our staff."

One example is Dantonio, who spent six seasons (1995-2000) as secondary coach at Michigan State, five under Saban and one under Williams, and was promoted to associate head coach in 2000.

This past season, Dantonio made his biggest mark as a head coach when Cincinnati (8-5) gave No. 7 Rutgers its first loss, one week after the Scarlet Knights dramatically upset Louisville to put themselves in the driver’s seat for a spot for the Bowl Championship Series.

Last month, Dantonio was named Michigan State’s 24th head football coach.

Another Saban success story was Will Muschamp, who in 2001 left Valdosta State for LSU, spent a year coaching linebackers before moving up to defensive coordinator. He followed Saban to the Dolphins to be the assistant head coach in charge of defense, but subsequently left to become the defensive coordinator and secondary coach at Auburn.

“The issue, sometimes is, with a lot of guys, particularly assistant coaches, is do you want to stay in the NFL, or do you want to come to college?" Saban said. “Even though it’s the same game, the job itself is very different in terms of the skill set and the things that you have to do."

One factor Saban openly talks about is he doesn’t want someone on his staff if it isn’t beneficial both ways.

When Dave Wannstedt resigned from the Dolphins during the 2004 season, Saban’s friend Jim Bates served as interim coach and finished the season 3-4, including a 29-28 upset of New England in a Monday Night Football game.

Although Bates was hoping to land a head coaching job, and interviewed for the Cleveland opening that went to Pa-triots defensive coordinator Romeo Crennell, many thought Bates was a natural fit to stay with the Dolphins and Saban since the two were on Bill Belichick’s staff together in Cleveland in the early 1990s.

Only they didn’t, and reportedly came to a mutual decision that it was not in the best interest of the Dolphins or Bates to return to his defensive coordinator position.

Bates instead went to the Green Bay Packers, but after being bypassed for the head coaching job when Mike Sherman was fired left after one season. Last month, Bates landed in Denver as the assistant head coach/defense.

Who knows, maybe he, or other former Saban associates might move to Tuscaloosa in the years ahead. For now, just about everything is in place, with the details to follow, especially on offense.

“I do want a specific kind of offense," Saban said. “I think we have an offensive philosophy that in no way is conservative, number one, because I think you have to make the defensive team defend the field horizontally and vertically in terms of whatever your attack is. Now there are a lot of different attacks that can do that, but I think that’s most important. I think having balance on offense is very important."

Reach Christopher Walsh at Christo-pher.walsh@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0196.