Nick Saban: I've had teams good enough to win 8 titles
Yes, Alabama coach Nick Saban plays the "what if?" game when it comes to national championships his team could have won.
In an interview set to air Sunday morning on ESPN's Outside the Lines, Saban said he felt he's had teams good enough to win eight national titles during his coaching career.
"We haven’t finished the season the last two seasons like we’d like,” Saban said. “People talk about you’ve won four national championships. Well I feel like we’ve had good enough teams to to win eight. So I feel like we’ve failed four times. I feel like I’ve failed four times. So is that being too difficult, I don’t know. But I just know that we’ve had other teams that have had the talent and we weren’t able to do it.”
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Three of Saban's titles have come at Alabama in the 2009, 2011 and 2012 seasons. He also won a BCS Championship at LSU in 2003.
Two of those four failures – if you want to use that word similar to the way Saban does – have happened in the last two years. The Crimson Tide lost a chance at the SEC Championship (and BCS Championship Game) against Auburn in 2013 thanks to Chris Davis' missed field goal return and the memories of losing to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl in the 2015 College Football Playoff semifinals are still fresh too.
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The other two likely come from three seasons. Alabama went 10-3 in 2010 and was 12-2 in 2008. The 2008 team entered the SEC Championship Game 12-0. His 2001 LSU team also finished 10-3.
While Saban's words are certainly noteworthy, they shouldn't be surprising in the slightest. Many of those who know him talk about his drive and work ethic. And we all know that coaches don't like to lose
While Saban knows he could have had eight championships, he's not counting eight championships. And that's a good thing, given what we know the way that title accounting can work in the state of Alabama.
Could he have a team good enough in 2015 good enough to be counted as either a fifth champion or a fifth could-be title winner? While Alabama does have some questions to answer, there's a solid chance it does. We'll have a good idea when the Tide takes the field Saturday night against Wisconsin.
For more Alabama news, visit TideSports.com.
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
