Patience is a Virtue, SEC Fans

by Chris Paschal

Being patient is hard. I’m a very impatient person. You should see me try to do simple tasks that require a touch of patience, like constructing an IKEA desk or putting on a fitted sheet. I went weeks in college where I literally slept on nothing but the mattress pad. Some of y’all may think I’m exaggerating. I’m not. And it’s not that I have a bad of temper. If I’m mad, it’s because something really ticked me off. Unless it’s a detailed task like filing a tax returns. Then I can be enraged by somebody breathing the wrong way.

Of course, there are obvious moments in life where we have to be patient. Sometimes these moments are serious, like turning onto a busy road or filling out a college application. Other moments, like shaving or putting together a puzzle, aren’t that serious at all, but nevertheless require patience if they are to be done correctly.

I’m now going to talk about one of those very serious topics that requires the utmost patience – SEC Football.

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote, “patience is better than pride.” 

So, if patience is better than pride, why is it so hard to be patient in our obsession with winning SEC football? We all have tasted that sweet nectar when it comes to SEC football. That feeling of standing on top of the college football mountain. I’m not necessarily talking about SEC titles or national championships. I’m talking about Ole Miss fans finally seeing their Rebels beat top-ranked Alabama on a gorgeous afternoon in Oxford, Mississippi, snapping a ten-year losing streak to the Crimson Tide. I’m talking about Gamecock fans watching the boys from the Palmetto State beating the Florida Gators in the Swamp for the first time in program history in 2010, which clinched South Carolina’s first SEC East title. I’m talking about Mississippi State fans being able to turn on the TV in 2014 to see their beloved Bulldogs ranked as the top team in the country according to the newest College Football Playoff rankings.

We all have experienced some form of success in SEC football, (yes, even you, Vanderbilt fans.) We have all been able to beat our chests a little bit and have pride in our team. But those feelings are few and fleeting when you share a conference with the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Image from USA Today.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying Alabama carries the conference. In fact, the SEC does it better than any other conference. The SEC has the best players, crushing every other conference in recruiting rankings and NFL draft picks. The SEC has the biggest stadiums, with ten stadiums on the list of the 25 largest stadiums in college football, more than any other conference. The SEC has the best TV deal – CBS in primetime is pretty dang good. The SEC has won the most national championships in the poll era (since 1936), including ten since 2003. Further, there is a lot of money in SEC football. According to the most recent Forbes rankings, ten SEC programs finished in the top 25 for most valuable programs in college football. The ACC had one. The South Carolina Gamecocks, historically one of the weakest programs in the SEC and the inferior program in its own (small) state, finished ahead of the PAC-12’s University of Southern California, the Big Ten’s Nebraska Cornhuskers, and the ACC’s Clemson Tigers. South Carolina hasn’t won a single SEC title and Clemson is in the midst of its greatest run in program history, yet South Carolina’s football program is more valuable, according to Forbes.

South Carolina is still more valuable than Clemson according to Forbes. Images from AP Images.

There is just something about the SEC that makes its fans want to win and win now. That’s what makes it so hard when it doesn’t happen, or at least doesn’t happen on the scale that we all want it to happen. Take Georgia, for example. The Dawgs had one of their best seasons in program history last year. They beat Notre Dame in South Bend, they won the SEC title in Atlanta, and they beat the Heisman Trophy winner–led Oklahoma Sooners in an epic Rose Bowl. Yet even after accomplishing all of those things and much more, the Bulldogs watched the Alabama Crimson Tide storm the field as their team hoisted up yet another national championship trophy.

After one of the most successful seasons in UGA history, fans still ended up disappointed. Image from USA Today.

LSU was counted down and out before the season even started. In my LSU season preview, I called it “the schedule from hell.” Yet despite all of that, the Bayou Bengals found themselves ranked as the third-best team in the country when the first College Football Playoff rankings came out. Four days later, LSU was smacked in the mouth by Alabama, losing 29-0 in Tiger Stadium, dashing any hopes of making it to the SEC title game or the College Football Playoff.

Those are just a few recent examples of a reoccurring trend in this conference since the late Mal Moore was able to convince Nick Saban to board that plane in Miami and head to Tuscaloosa in 2007. Nick Saban’s “Process” is different from anything else in college football. Bear Bryant’s practices in Junction, Texas were infamous for how tough, strenuous, and championship-worthy they were. General Robert Neyland was known for his “Seven Maxims of Football,” in which he was able to proselytize his young players in the ways of discipline and hardnosed football. Saban is different. He has won, no matter what was trendy in college football at the moment. Eighty years from now, when Saban is long gone and kids think of him as one of the old-timey greats, some sports writer is going to write these words, “He beat teams when power and counter concepts were popular. He beat teams when insides and outside zone concepts were popular. He beat teams when hurry-up tempo offenses were popular. He beat teams when run-pass options were popular. He quite simply beat other teams.”

Nick Saban simply finds ways to win. Image from Getty Images.

Saban has been able to win despite what was “hot” at the moment, and despite the fact that other SEC teams are obsessed with trying to learn his secrets. Nick Saban has had his best assistants poached from him. Since Nick Saban entered the SEC at the turn of the century, Tennessee has hired two of his assistants as head coaches – Derek Dooley in 2010 and Jeremy Pruitt in 2017 – to try to catch the Tide. South Carolina hired Will Muschamp to try to catch the Tide. Florida hired Jim McElwain to try to catch the Tide. Texas A&M hired Jimbo Fisher to try to catch the Tide. Georgia hired Kirby Smart to try to catch the Tide. So far, nobody has been able to do it. In fact, not a single former assistant has ever beaten Nick Saban. Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, LSU, Texas A&M, and every other SEC program is trying to beat Nick Saban at his own game. And it isn’t working.

Gold from the @WAFB archives.

Check out Nick Saban, Jimbo Fisher, Will Muschamp and Derek Dooley all coaching at the same #LSU spring football practice in 2003. pic.twitter.com/mpRSHgM7rX

— Jacques Doucet (@JacquesDoucet) October 8, 2018

One of the reasons it isn’t working is because he is literally insane. He outworks, out-recruits, and outsmarts other head coaches. But most importantly, he does it his way. Eating two Little Debbie Creme Pies is just as much a part of his success as how he runs his meetings. Eating a crappy salad every day for lunch is just as much a part of his success as how he recruits defensive linemen. You can’t do a better version of Nick Saban than Nick Saban because he has spent years mastering and fine-tuning it. One of the best books about big-time college football is The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big Time College Football. Two full chapters are devoted to Nick Saban. He runs his program better than most executives run their businesses. He literally cannot be beaten.

You can’t beat Nick Saban at his own game. Image from Online Athens.

That’s why I am saying patience is the only way to get through this era, SEC fans. Something dawned on me this past Saturday when I watched Nick Saban and Alabama calmly and efficiently dismantle the athletic and talented LSU Tigers. I realized that programs need to stop trying to find an answer for Saban and the Crimson Tide, and instead should try to find a way to fill the void when Saban hangs up the whistle and retires from the game. Nobody is beating him. He still has the passion, he still has the fire. He is still out-recruiting his younger counterparts. Further, he has the best quarterback in college football on his roster, and that quarterback is only a sophomore. Saban still has this Crimson Tide program humming.

So, in the meantime, don’t be too prideful, SEC fans. You’re not going to beat Bama. As my mother always says, “patience is a virtue.” Be patient and allow your respective programs to build the best program they can. Allow them to recruit. Allow them to establish a culture within the program. One of these days, Nick Saban isn’t going to be the head coach of Alabama, and while the Crimson Tide will find a fine coach and remain one of the better programs in college football, the Tide won’t be the oppressive feudal lord they have been acting like for over a decade now. Be patient and remember that while Saban whips your team’s butt yet again, the only opponent he won’t be able to beat is time. Eventually he will hang it up. Just hope and pray he decides he wants to spend more time with his grandchildren sooner rather than later.