Any way to get Nick Saban to lighten up? I didn’t think so

I don’t hate Alabama football. I save my hate for Duke basketball. But I don’t much like Alabama football, either.

It’s not because the Crimson Tide are better than everybody else and have been for a while. That might be annoying, but it’s often like this in college sports. Somebody puts together a dynasty, whether it’s UCLA’s basketball program under John Wooden or Oklahoma’s football program under Barry Switzer, and everybody goes in permanent jealousy mode. Great players congregate at top programs because they want to win and because they want professional teams to notice them. You don’t hear about a five-star recruit saying he wants to put Georgia State or Kent State football on the map.

So Alabama, which will play Clemson in the national championship game Monday, has a collection of defensive players that looks more like a college All-American team than a college team. No problem. It’s the way of the world.

What bothers me, though, is our national tendency to hand college coaches most of the credit for the excellence of players. In this case, what bothers me is the Crimson Tide’s Nick Saban. I’m sure he’s a wonderful coach. I’m also sure that Alabama’s second string, given the chance to play every Saturday, would have been ranked in the top 25 this season – and quite possibly in the top 10.

A cult often forms around successful coaches, and this being football, that means Saban is celebrated for his obsessive attention to detail, his single-mindedness and his glumness. In other words, he’s like every other coach who worships at the altar of Bill Belichick, a bundle of joy if there ever was one.

One coach has called Saban “the devil himself,’’ and another has referred to him as “Nicky Satan.’’ That sounds a little over the top, but if an exorcism would give Saban a hint of a sense of humor, I say break out the crucifix and the holy water.

We’ve been experiencing pushback against the taskmaster style of leadership. The latest rage is for coaches to look like they are sideline cheerleaders, fun guys who want everyone to know (especially potential recruits!) that playing for them is akin to a ride down a waterslide. Nobody gets a peek at how those coaches act behind the joyful splashing, though the guess here is, once a football coach, always a football coach.

Saban, on the other hand, clings to his dour life raft, either somberly coaching up his players or maniacally screaming at them. He gets points for authenticity, though I’m not sure you’d want your son’s self-esteem tied to his emotional unavailability.

Players come to Alabama to win national championships. Before Saban arrived in Tuscaloosa in 2007, they went elsewhere because Alabama hadn’t won one since 1992. He had won a national title at LSU, then became the head coach with the Dolphins and struggled. He took the Alabama job, the top recruits started rolling in and now he’s on the cusp of a fifth national title with the Crimson Tide. Oh, and the top-rated high school player in the country, running back Najee Harris, reportedly will enroll early at Alabama in the next few weeks.

Do coaches create good players, or is it the other way around? I’d say it almost always starts with good players. But no matter how talented Alabama’s players are, you can bet that on Monday night, TV broadcasters will make Saban out to be a master tactician and a maker of men. And Saban will pace the sidelines with a look on his face that would suggest he agrees.

Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski is a very good basketball coach, but he has won five national championships because, year after year, his team is loaded with McDonald’s All-Americans. That includes serial opponent tripper Grayson Allen, whose “indefinite’’ suspension for his most recent incident lasted all of one game. Why did it last only one game? Because Coach K’s disciplinary patience ran out after a loss to Virginia Tech.

Coaches need players.

One coach seems to stand above this generalization: Belichick. Yes, he has Tom Brady, perhaps the best quarterback of all time, and I suppose every conversation about the coach could begin and end with that fact. But Belichick’s teams never seem bothered by injuries. A player falls, another steps in and the Patriots keep winning. Even when Brady blew out his knee in the 2008 season opener, New England went 11-5. I can think of certain local NFL team that reacts to injuries as if they’re the bubonic plague.

Saban and Cubs manager Joe Maddon both talk about “the process.’’ One man spreads joy. The other seems to want to extinguish it. Winning is fun, but some winning is more fun than others.