This was brought up on the Texas boards via SEC boards. It's not the first time there have been whispers about Saban's bad business deals in Ala.
1. What do you mean by this? More money for him personally? UT as a university and athletic program may have more money, but it's not like they're going to make him a $20mm man. If UT goes to $8mm, Bama matches or exceeds it. If you mean money for facilities, well, have you seen the waterfall in Bama's lockerroom? Money is no issue at Bama when it comes to football. 2. Recruiting of today isn't recruiting of old. Head coaches don't hop in their cars and drive around for thousands of miles. A lot of recruiting is done on twitter for goodness sake. If you do go visit a player, you hop in a booster's private jet. Bama's current recruiting is better than Texas' has ever been, and it's just not the burden it once was. 3. The SEC is clearly the most difficult conference, but it's not like they aren't able to reap some benefits. The guy was able to get a rematch against a team that had already beaten them in the MNC game! Not a chance in hell that happens in any other conference. I still maintain it was harder last season to go through the Big 12 undefeated than the SEC. Anyway, I thought we were talking about results when discussing "better." Success in college football is defined by national championships. The only way he can do better is if he thinks he can come to Texas and win 4 championships in a row rather than 4 in 5 years / 3 in 4 years.
His championships at Alabama are in the past. "Better" is about what might happen the next 5-6 years at each place. The chances of winning 3 in 4 years in the future at either UT or Alabama is very unlikely. Also, national championships are indeed the ultimate success in college football, but definitely not the only measure of it.
More money for him personally and more resources for his program. Yes, because Saban is there (the bolded). Recruiting hasn't changed from the standpoint of wanting as much talent in your own backyard as possible. You are right, there are advantages to being in the SEC. But fielding a dominant program in the Big 12 is a easier path to the title. We are discussing a hypothetical situation of a man leaving one school for another. How can we talk results for something hypothetical? And with the amount of resources that UT has and the talent in this state alone, it wouldn't surprise me if he won 3 in 4 years once he got the program up and running. Because UT can offer every single thing that Bama can and then some, as far as a program goes. But I still don't think he is leaving.
I think the big advantage in the SEC is that he likely gets a mulligan. Saban's never had an undefeated season in any of his national title years, and 1 loss in the SEC is far more likely to get them into a 4-team playoff than 1 loss in the Big12. Plus, he hates spread offenses, which is what the Big12 is full of. His defenses don't tend to fare all that well against them, relatively-speaking.
i know almost losing a national title game to garrett gilbert should probably count as a loss, but i'm pretty sure alabama was undefeated that year. but he has managed to lose one game the other years. saban has 3 1-loss seasons where he won a title. mack brown has 2 1-loss seasons where he didn't even win his division, much less the conference, much less the national title. hell, one time he actually lost the division to a 1-loss team he beat, a practically unheard of and possibly unduplicated occurrence. i know he's had trouble with sumlin's spread obviously, but what other games has he faced them in and struggled? did utah run a spread in that bcs game a few years back? i can't think of many spread offenses in the sec but i guess he also lost to auburn to break up his national title streak.
I'm guessing we'll agree to disagree, but I still wanted to respond. The point I'm making about money is that there are vastly diminishing returns. It doesn't matter that UT has more money. Alabama has been and will be willing to spend whatever it takes to field a winning program. Just because the university has the funds to pay Saban $20mm doesn't mean they will. Just because UT could afford to gold plate the floor of the locker room doesn't mean they will. At some point, there's a sort of cap on how much a football program can spend. All of the blue blood programs (Texas, ND, Bama, etc...) have more money than this cap. As it stands, Bama's facilities are probably the best in the nation (maybe 2nd to Oregon). On recruiting, how can his recruiting get better? He already pulls the #1 class almost every year, and there's no end in sight to that. The whole SE US is talent-rich, so his backyard already has tons of talent. I don't think it matters a ton that his backyard extends through state lines. The point I'm making when comparing success is that he's already in a place where he is in the title run every single season. So how can you beat that? If he wins 3 of the next 4 at Texas, that just matches what he's already done (and could do again) at Bama. How is that an upgrade? I think a point being ignored in all of this Saban talk is program cleanliness. I'm not naive enough to believe that UT doesn't have its skeletons, but I do believe they pale in comparison to what goes on at the major SEC programs. I don't think Saban could get away with some of his tactics at Texas.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Had chance to visit w/Steve Patterson today. Smart, engaging man who loves Texas! Glad to have him on board <a href="http://t.co/eLywwwgNPw">pic.twitter.com/eLywwwgNPw</a></p>— Mack Brown (@UT_MackBrown) <a href="https://twitter.com/UT_MackBrown/statuses/398568512089636864">November 7, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
