College Football Frenemies: The Side of Rivalries You Never Hear About
Every year, often the week of the national title game, the American Football Coaches Association hosts its annual convention at a major city around the country.
It’s an opportunity to hear coaches from all levels detail their philosophies, discuss organizational details, diagram plays and break down film. Mostly, though, it’s a chance for coaches to network their way into jobs or catch up at the bar with an old friend.
Although he is by no means a regular at the convention nowadays, two years ago Nick Saban was a featured speaker and regaled an overflow crowd with tales of his past. This came a week after one of his own proteges, Jimbo Fisher, had won the national title at Florida State.
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A day after Saban took the stage in Indianapolis back in 2014, another former assistant did the same in Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio.
While he can at times appear gruff, the 64-year-old soon-to-be dean of FBS coaching still maintains plenty of friendly relationships with his peers in both college and the NFL. That’s especially true for many who once worked for him over the years and occupy a branch on Saban’s sometimes complicated coaching tree.
As he aims to bring yet another national title to Tuscaloosa this season, Saban may have to take a unique path to hoisting another trophy by handing losses to coaches he once called colleagues. In fact, the Crimson Tide’s path to Glendale, Arizona, is littered with people who could best be termed "frenemies" of the team’s head coach.
This Saturday against No. 2 Alabama’s bitter rival, unranked Auburn, Saban will face off against three coaches who were once on his staff in some capacity: defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, linebackers coach Lance Thompson and co-offensive coordinator Dameyune Craig.
Few give the Tigers much of a chance to pull off an upset for the ages, but the coaches’ intimate knowledge of Saban’s much-discussed “process” that he uses to run his program will surely pay some dividends on the field even if it does not change the result on the scoreboard at Jordan-Hare Stadium this week.
“Any time you play against somebody you worked with, it gives you an idea of what they like to do and what their thoughts are on how they like to play,” Saban said. “Obviously them being with you, they know some of the things that you like to do. I think you do take that into consideration, but I’m not sure you can change what you do that dramatically.”
The following Saturday, Dec. 5, in the SEC title game, Alabama could face a Florida team with plenty of connections to Saban. Head coach Jim McElwain and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier each helped win a national title for the Tide as offensive coordinators. Gators defensive coordinator Geoff Collins was the director of player personnel in Saban’s first season in Tuscaloosa. Defensive line coach Chris Rumph has two rings thanks to his tenure at Alabama.
Speaking of McElwain, his rivalry-week game will pit him against another former Saban offensive coordinator in Gainesville on Saturday. That’s nothing new for many Gators fans and Seminoles lovers, given how they are already familiar with Fisher’s relation to the previous Florida coach (if you haven’t heard, Fisher shares a beach house with Muschamp).
“I have a lot of respect for Jim McElwain. We're not personal close friends, but I know him, and I think he's an outstanding guy. I've communicated with him in the past, and we have a lot of common friends and everything,” said Fisher. “I hate to say it, I know you've got friends on the other side, but if I was playing my brother, I would still compete. I still have a lot of respect for him, but it's a rivalry game. It's important.”
Perhaps even stranger than those two meeting may be the path that lies ahead for their former boss if Alabama advances from Atlanta: a date with Dantonio and Michigan State in a potential College Football Playoff semifinal pairing. While Dantonio also has connections to Earle Bruce and Jim Tressel among others, it was Saban who first brought him on board in East Lansing in the mid-1990s.
While not every coach, including several of the ones listed above, would get much more than a handshake on game day from Saban or a quick exchange of pleasantries outside of football, the sometimes-incestuous nature of coaching relationships means one doesn’t have to travel far to bump into somebody you either worked with or worked for.
That’s especially true for somebody who has been in the game as long as Saban.
Fellow West Virginia native Rich Rodriguez knows all too well what it’s like to know his counterpart on the other sideline. He first came across Todd Graham when each reached the 1993 NAIA championship (Graham won and is 3-1 against Rodriguez in his current role at Arizona State) and then later hired him at West Virginia. Now the two are among the highest-paid public employees in the state of Arizona and go head-to-head each season.
“We’ve known each other for a long, long time but when you’re coaching in a rivalry, you don’t communicate as much as you normally would. We’ll see each other at Pac-12 meetings or a couple of other functions but, because he’s a rival, you just don’t converse,” Rodriguez remarked. “Todd’s done a great job wherever he’s been, but we don’t root for him because he’s our rival.”
While both would rather talk out of range of microphones and far from a camera, after last Saturday’s 52-37 victory in favor of the Sun Devils, both head coaches shared a warm embrace that went well beyond the usual postgame pleasantries.
Many of the two teams’ staff members did the same, seeing as most worked for one or the other head coach during stops at West Virginia, Pitt, Michigan, Tulsa or another place on the college football map.
The Territorial Cup rivalry is just as fierce on the field as other more famous college football games, and the bitterness between fanbases is right there among the nastiest in the country. Such intertwining relationships between Sun Devils coaches and their peers in Wildcats gear may be hard for some fans to fathom, even if they are held at arm's length most of the time. But it’s simply the reality in both Tucson and Tempe at the moment.
Neither Rodriguez nor Graham would openly root for the other, but beneath the surface, there’s respect for the other side. Add in the interesting dynamic of Rodriguez’s offensive pedigree against Graham’s penchant for aggressive defense, and you have one of the more polar-opposite pairs of coaching frenemies in the country.
The Grand Canyon State is not the only section of the Pac-12 to feature interesting head coaching relationships.
Salt Lake City native Gary Andersen has been tasked with rebuilding Oregon State but talks or texts often with close friend Kyle Whittingham, Utah’s head coach. The two coached together for a number of years and then later faced off against each other when Andersen was at Utah State earlier in his career. They met again on Halloween this year in a 27-12 victory for the Utes.
Andersen was no doubt back to being friendly this week as his Beavers prepare to face Oregon in the annual Civil War game. The Utes throttled the Ducks earlier this season, 62-20 in Eugene. And while a similar result may be unfathomable for 2-9 OSU, every little bit helps for a frenemy in need.
“Kyle and I haven’t really discussed that yet, but we did watch that game as a staff,” Andersen said Tuesday, before noting he faces a much tougher task than Whittingham with a healthy Vernon Adams in the lineup for Oregon. “There were a lot of things that went the way of the Utes that day.”
Speaking of the Ducks, fans probably conveniently forget that one of head coach Mark Helfrich’s best friends is none other than the head coach at bitter rival Washington, Chris Petersen. The pair first met when both were on Mike Bellotti’s staff in Eugene.
Now they’re on opposite sides of one of the Pacific Northwest’s most hostile rivalries.
“I have not talked to Pete this week. It just varies. Some guys you’ll talk to once or twice and rarely is it schematically related,” Helfrich said. “Sometimes it’s a global football issue or other times it’s just checking in on them, whether it’s a tough time or an injury situation. Not too often during the season do we get a chance to do more than that.”
Farther south, there will be no warm pregame embrace for Jim Mora, but for very different reasons. As his UCLA team battles crosstown rival USC with a trip to the Pac-12 title game on the line, missing from the opposite sideline will be Steve Sarkisian after USC dismissed him as head coach earlier this season
Mora grew close to Sarkisian when the latter was coaching at Washington. An NFL lifer and son of a longtime NFL head coach, Mora was a welcome visitor around the Huskies' facilities and credits Sarkisian immensely in getting him interested in the college game.
The Bruins head man will take to the field at the Coliseum on Saturday thinking about the former coach as Sarkisian sorts out his personal issues.
“I have not spoken with him, but we have exchanged some text messages,” Mora confirmed this week. “It’s really hard, he’s a friend. I think he’s a good man. You just don’t like to see people struggle. He’s in my thoughts a lot and I just hope for the best for him as he moves forward in life.”
With rivalry week in full effect for most of the country and bowl berths, conference titles and College Football Playoff spots all on the line, it’s easy to look at the upcoming slate of games and miss some subtleties.
But for many who will don a headset on Friday or Saturday and spend countless hours throughout the week dissecting game film, the opponent on the other sideline is only a true enemy for 60 minutes.
Bryan Fischer is a national football columnist at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer. Odds provided by Odds Shark. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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