Tuesdays with Gorney: New book offers key insight into big-time coaches
The Price: What It Takes to Win in College Football’s Era of Chaos is the new book by Armen Keteyian and John Talty and it offers a tremendous amount of insight into today’s college football landscape.
In today’s Tuesdays With Gorney, Rivals national recruiting director Adam Gorney shares 10 takeaways from the book and offers insights on some of the book’s top storylines.
FISHER INCENSED AT SABAN BECAUSE OF WHAT HE KNEW ABOUT THE LSU DAYS?
The first chapter starts with the now infamous war of words between then-Alabama coach Nick Saban and then-Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher after Saban said the Aggies “bought” their entire 2022 recruiting class.
That statement enraged Fisher, who called a press conference the next day against the wishes of his bosses, to fire back at Saban where the Texas A&M coach went scorched earth in an attack on the Alabama coach.
Fisher called Saban a narcissist and in part implored the media to dig into Saban’s past and you can find out “anything.”
Where this gets most interesting is Saban’s days at LSU when Fisher was his offensive coordinator. A quote from former LSU player Elice Parker lays it out pretty clearly that even if Saban told his coaches they’d be fired if they were caught cheating, that – wink, wink – the coaching staff had no control over the boosters.
Parker talks about a “nice game handshake” and that everyone knew the deal when the star players would be driving around in a new SUV.
According to the book, Saban said: “If any of you are ever caught cheating, you’re immediately fired. But, of course, we can’t control what the boosters do.”
SMART ALMOST TOOK THE SOUTH CAROLINA JOB
If Georgia never fired Mark Richt after back-to-back 10-win seasons, as the Bulldogs were winning but weren’t quite elite, there is a good likelihood that South Carolina would have hired Kirby Smart.
After learning all the ropes under Saban for more than a decade, most of it at Alabama, Smart was ready to strike out on his own and as coach Steve Spurrier was winding down in Columbia, Smart was South Carolina’s target. At the same time, Georgia AD Greg McGarity saw an opening, moved on from Richt and hired Smart.
It was a phenomenally insightful move albeit risky since Smart had no head coaching experience but he learned the playbook from Saban and was ready to run his own program with many Saban insights into how things should be done.
SMART USES CRAFTY MOVE TO WIN IN RECRUITING
One of the most interesting stories in the book – and one that speaks to Smart’s craftiness, cunning and intelligence – is one that cannot be totally proven but one that Saban and Alabama’s staff reportedly believed to be true.
Smart coached the defense in Alabama’s national title run before taking the Georgia job but once he left for Athens, as the story goes, Smart told multiple recruits where they stood on Alabama’s board, if they were at the top of it, and parsed out negative comments about each one to basically tell them not to play for the Crimson Tide and to come to Georgia with him.
That tactic seemed to enrage Saban to no end (as did anything that seemed to give an opponent a sliver of an advantage) but if it happened it was a brilliant move by Smart in the cutthroat nature of SEC recruiting.
AUBURN TRIED TO POACH TAULIA TAGOVAILOA
The father of Tua and Taulia Tagovailoa, Galu, does not come off particularly positive in the book. Unbeknownst to many, Tua Tagovailoa is a natural righty but his father forced him to throw lefty as a youngster to have another lefty in the house. Shortsighted, since NFL teams (especially when Tagovailoa was in the draft process) weren’t thrilled with lefty QBs.
Galu Tagovailoa also seemed to be chasing the biggest NIL deals for his son Taulia, Maryland’s quarterback, heading into the 2023 season and Auburn was reportedly making a serious push. The Tigers ended up with Michigan State’s Payton Thorne (one can determine his results) but Tagovailoa was the target.
Auburn’s pursuit was so strong that Tua had to step in and basically tell the family that they’re an Alabama family and there was no way Taulia was going to play on The Plains. Taulia Tagovailoa stayed at Maryland with an NIL bump but opted not to play in Maryland’s bowl game against Auburn, a 31-13 Terrapins win.
JIMBO FISHER SEEMS LIKE A HANDFUL
In the chapter, The Rise and Fall of Jimbo Fisher, the stories coming out are not exactly flattering.
UAB tried to hire him as coach in 2006 but passed on it because reportedly the decision-makers preferred he team up with Saban in Tuscaloosa to make Alabama a title contender again. Considering their time at LSU, which was rocky, Fisher passed and joined Bobby Bowden’s staff at Florida State.
A few years later, it’s reported the “hard-charging” Fisher didn’t want to wait around much longer for Bowden to retire and the sense was that Bowden was pushed out before he wanted to retire. Fisher took the job, won a national title and seemed to think he was now the smartest person in college football, which led to his downfall.
Fisher became obsessed with what others had: better facilities, Saban’s use of a helicopter in recruiting – “I want a damn helicopter,” Fisher reportedly told FSU president John Thrasher – and so much more mixed with a seemingly limitless ego.
Fisher’s takes on recruiting were also intriguing. He closely followed the recruiting rankings because as a Florida State staffer told ESPN, “He wants to be known as the baddest (expletive) in the world.” He also reportedly didn’t like recruiting Texas players and felt they were too soft compared to getting Florida kids.
Other than the public (and private) feuds with Saban, Fisher also had another nemesis: Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin. Not by name, but Fisher called Kiffin a “clown act” after comments made about a luxury tax around Texas A&M’s 2022 class. In turn, Kiffin told people in private that Fisher was a clown and a “total fraud.”
SABAN HAS TOPSY-TURVY RELATIONSHIP WITH KIFFIN
My take from this book is that Saban respected Kiffin’s play-calling ability and ingenuity and had a short fuse for all the other extra-curriculars. Like when Kiffin called agent Jimmy Sexton, who represented both Kiffin and Saban, and Kiffin told Sexton he’s going to get a phone call from Saban because Kiffin told Saban in a meeting he, “didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Saban has denied saying this but according to the book, Saban called Kiffin a “son of a bitch” and a “narcissistic prick.”
An earlier story from Sexton was that on a Saturday morning in November 2015, Kiffin called Sexton about a job opening – on a day that Alabama had a game.
“I was screaming at him,” Sexton said.
Saban eventually fired Kiffin right before the 2017 national championship game against Clemson where Steve Sarkisian replaced Kiffin as the offensive coordinator.
MICHIGAN SEEMED TO HAVE ENOUGH OF HARBAUGH
Whatever one wants to believe about JIm Harbaugh’s knowledge of the Connor Stalions story, the obfuscation surrounding that episode and his previous recruiting violation of meeting recruits during the COVID shutdown are compelling in this book.
Not only did Harbaugh tell NCAA investigators he didn’t recall any of those meetings during COVID, his lawyer Tom Mars told investigators in part that Harbaugh was 59 years old and been “bumped in the head a lot.” Then-grad assistant Grant Newsome, now Michigan’s offensive line coach, also said he didn’t “recall” those meetings but after retaining counsel did have a “vague” recollection.
Later, when Harbaugh was going through the Stalions turmoil, Michigan vice president and general counsel Timothy Lynch and Mars had some very stern back-and-forths and the icy relationship between the school and Harbaugh became very apparent.
Prior to playing Alabama at the Rose Bowl en route to Michigan’s national title, Harbaugh met with some San Diego friends to gripe about Michigan AD Warde Manuel and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti not supporting him enough and apparently Petitti stood up Harbaugh during a scheduled meeting in Ann Arbor.
The writing was very much on the wall: His time at Michigan was up.
DID MARYLAND BOTCH NOT CHOOSING JAMES FRANKLIN?
Following a 9-4 season in 2010, first-year Maryland athletics director Kevin Anderson fired Ralph Friedgen and it was written into then-assistant coach James Franklin’s contract that he was to become the head coach by 2012.
Anderson reportedly told Franklin to look for opportunities elsewhere. That’s what Franklin did and led Vanderbilt to back-to-back nine-win seasons before getting the Penn State job. The Commodores have not had a winning season since and prior to Franklin’s arrival had one winning season dating back to 1982.
Maryland opted instead for UConn’s Randy Edsall, who took the Huskies to an improbable Fiesta Bowl game, but who went 22-34 as the Terrapins’ coach before returning to UConn.
THE RECRUITMENT OF SAYIN
Notre Dame was the early front-runner for the five-star quarterback from Carlsbad, Calif., as Julian Sayin always bonded with then-offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. But I was told the cold weather and some other factors swayed Sayin off the Irish and to the SEC where Georgia, LSU and Alabama became the main players.
According to the book, Georgia had the early lead but an aggressive NIL agent (the Sayin family cut ties with that group) turned the Bulldogs’ staff off a little bit plus they were in the market for fellow five-star Dylan Raiola, who committed to Georgia before flipping to Nebraska where he’s a legacy.
It came down to Alabama and LSU and while the family loved Tigers coach Brian Kelly, Saban poured it on thick. He and Sayin had a heart-to-heart at Saban’s home which Sayin called “awesome.” Sayin liked then-offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien, who said Sayin was at the top of their board.
So Sayin committed to Alabama. Only to find out after being on campus for a short time that Saban decided to retire during a team meeting. O’Brien was off to be Boston College’s coach.
And then something curious happened: New coach Kalen DeBoer seemed to not really know who Sayin was. Whether it was a strategy since Jalen Milroe was coming back and then Ty Simpson and Dylan Lonergan (who Saban liked a lot) were coming back plus DeBoer wanted to bring Washington transfer Austin Mack with him, no one knows.
But DeBoer made the star quarterback wait 90 minutes outside of his office and then asked Sayin to spell his name. Five letters. S-A-Y-I-N.
The five-star quarterback ended up transferring to Ohio State.
THE SEARCH TO REPLACE SABAN
The coaching carousel once Saban announced his retirement was amazing.
Oregon’s Dan Lanning was a top target and even though there were some reports he was in Tuscaloosa, Lanning told the authors he was in Eugene watching a Jason Bourne movie with his family. Texas’ Steve Sarkisian was of serious interest but he just took the Longhorns to the playoff and had a great situation in Austin.
That left Kiffin, DeBoer and Florida State’s Mike Norvell. Kiffin wanted the Alabama job (seemingly any other SEC job it seemed) as he was a serious candidate for Auburn the year before and his name has already been floated if the Florida job opens. But Kiffin (whether it was a hard no from Saban is unknown) never got any traction.
According to the book, Florida State was so worried that Norvell would leave for Alabama that some decision-makers had reached out to Kiffin to say he was the top target if Norvell left. FSU ponied up big bucks for Norvell to stay and he decided to stick with the Seminoles.
That left DeBoer, who went 25-3 in two seasons at Washington and took the Huskies to the national title game by beating Sarkisian, as the pick.
