Review by Booklist Review
Nick Saban's 10-year record as head football coach at Alabama is a mind-boggling 119-19, with four national championships. He recruits very well and demands that his players be fundamentally sound. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, that's the formula virtually all major college football coaches use, but Saban and the Crimson Tide beat everyone nearly every year. Savage, an assistant coach with Saban when both were working for Bill Belichick on the 1991 Cleveland Browns, is uniquely able to dissect Saban's approach. The pair have remained fast friends, and Savage is now the color analyst for Alabama games on the school's radio network. The text offers revealing details about Saban's practice routine, game preparation, sideline strategy, film study, and, of course, recruiting style. No lead on a potential recruit, Savage testifies, is ever ignored, noting that when Saban was head coach at Louisiana State, he failed to follow up on a tip about a quarterback who turned out to be Ben Roethlisberger. Never again, Saban vowed. College-football wonks won't be able to resist this remarkable inside look at the game's gold-standard program.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Between 2008 and 2016, University of Alabama's Nick Saban-one of college football's winningest coaches-led his team to four national championships. This "textbook on Saban's way of doing business at Alabama"-when recruiting, for example, he looks for players with the "bubble," a large rear end that allows for more powerful tackling and blocking-focuses on Alabama's evolution from a team that had had four coaches in five years before Saban arrived. Savage practically canonizes Saban. Savage was general manager of the NFL's Cleveland Browns when Saban was that team's defensive coordinator and is now an analyst for the Crimson Tide Radio Network, working with Saban on a regular basis and emailing the coach scouting reports on upcoming opponents (a role Savage mentions repeatedly). Savage, writing with Glier (How the SEC Became Goliath), tells the story from an insider's perspective, including details on the recruiting process, skills development, practice sessions, and notable coaching decisions-including the living room chats where Saban encourages prospects to "make a 40-year decision, not a four-year decision," to the backstory of the Tide's famous onside kick against Clemson in the 2015 National Championship Game. Although loaded with roster lists and stats that Alabaman fans will devour, the book at times veers toward a catalogue of Savage's own accomplishments. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review by Library Journal Review
Savage, an announcer for the University of Alabama's radio broadcasts, has known coach Nick Saban for over 25 years, since first working under Saban and Bill Belichick with the Cleveland Browns in 1991 and eventually serving as general manager of the Browns before returning to his native Alabama in 2009 to join the Crimson Tide Sports Network. In this volume, written with journalist Glier, Savage primarily details how Saban leads the top-ranked Crimson Tide team, also reflecting on Belichick's similar success with the New England Patriots in Boston. The apt title evokes the unrelenting pressure that both men bring to bear in the operation of their players. In separate chapters, the authors focus on personnel evaluation, recruiting, the importance of practice, teaching and coaching, the evolution of defensive style and defenders' body types, the opening of the offensive attack, and Saban's connection to his players and the state of Alabama at large. Since this is also a memoir of Savage's lengthy career, he offers film study tips and some of his own scouting reports that he delivers to Saban weekly. VERDICT A distinctly original approach to understanding not only Saban's Crimson Tide team but Belichick's coaching mind-set as well. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A football lifer gives insight into how the Alabama Crimson Tide continue to be the most dominant force in college football.Savage has had a long career in football, serving in nearly every capacity in the sport. A small college quarterback, he has served as an assistant coach and scout in both college and professional football. He was the general manager of the Cleveland Browns and is now a radio color analyst for the Crimson Tide Sports Network. In several of these capacities, he has worked with or for Nick Saban, the Alabama head coach who has won five national championshipsfour of those since arriving in Tuscaloosa in 2007. Thus Savage has had a front-seat view of Saban's nearly unimaginable run of success with the Crimson Tide. Furthermore, in providing scouting reports to Saban and his staff on every opponent since he took over his radio gig, the author has contributed to Alabama's run of dominance. In this book, written with sports journalist Glier (How the SEC Became Goliath: The Making of College Football's Most Dominant Conference, 2012, etc.), Savage provides his "textbook on Saban's way of doing business at Alabama." Because he has worked as both a coach and in personnel, the author is equally adept at switching among tactics, strategy on the field, and player evaluation. He effectively conveys the complexities of football for an audience of football junkies and casual fans alike. Fans of college football generally and Alabama in particular will especially value the book. However, Savage falls short in two areas: there is a lot of repetition not only of concepts, but of pet phrases and ideas, and the author too frequently reiterates Saban's greatness as a coach and Alabama's success as a program under him (both of which are self-evident at this point). There are many good reasons why Saban's Alabama teams have won four national championships in the past decade, and Savage effectively reveals how and why. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
