ATLANTA – Everybody starts somewhere. But what are the odds the opposing coaches for today’s Southeastern Conference championship football game between Alabama and Missouri would have started in the same college program as both players and graduate assistants?
Moreover, what are the odds that 40 years later, the widow of their head coach at Kent State, Don James, would still call Bama’s Nick Saban and Mizzou’s Gary Pinkel “her boys”?
Added Pinkel during the SEC’s coaches luncheon at the Hyatt Regency on Friday: “Just make sure you know Nick’s a year older than I am.”
Countered Saban: “Coach (James) always liked Gary best.”
Because he spent the prime of his career at the University of Washington, the genius of James isn’t necessarily on the lips of most of us down here in the Deep South. Never mind that he won 69 percent of his games (178-76-3) at Kent State and Washington, as well as the 1991 national championship with the Huskies.