With Ohio State’s Urban Meyer stepping aside this week after a successful but controversial seventh season leading the Buckeyes, college football’s top two coaches are undeniable.
They can be found Monday night in Santa Clara, California.
Alabama’s Nick Saban and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney head into the championship game of the College Football Playoff with nine combined playoff appearances and the past three national titles. Saban has won five of the past nine and already is being recognized as the greatest ever in his profession, while Swinney has shaped the Tigers into an annual threat to the Crimson Tide, breaking through for a 35-31 victory in the championship game of the 2016 season.
“I think everybody here at Alabama, because Dabo was a player here and a coach here, has a tremendous amount of respect for him,” Saban said this week. “He’s really a personal friend who I personally have a tremendous amount of respect for. They’ve done just as good a job as anybody in the country when it comes to what they’ve been able to accomplish over the last decade in terms of consistency and performance each and every year.
“They do a great job in recruiting. They do a great job of developing players. It’s just a really, really good program.”