Okay, so I got thinking about those big-name college football coaches, you know? The ones everyone talks about. Specifically, Urban Meyer and Nick Saban kept popping into my head. Two absolute legends of the game. It made me wonder, how did they actually do when their teams played against each other? Seemed like a straightforward question, but I realized I didn’t actually know the score off the top of my head.
Digging In
So, I decided to look it up. Fired up the old computer, got online. My first step was just throwing “Urban Meyer record vs Nick Saban” into the search bar. Simple enough, right? You get a bunch of articles, stats pages, forum discussions back. Had to sift through a bit, make sure I was looking at games where they were actually the head coaches facing off, not just games involving their schools when one wasn’t there or something.
Found pretty quickly they didn’t actually coach against each other a ton of times, which surprised me a little given how dominant they both were for so long. But the games they did play were usually huge.
The Matchups I Found
Alright, pulling up the info, here’s what I pieced together from different spots online. It seems like the main clashes happened when Meyer was at Florida and then Ohio State, and Saban was at Alabama.
Here’s the breakdown I found:
- 2008 SEC Championship: Florida (Meyer) vs Alabama (Saban). I recall this one vaguely. Turns out Meyer’s Gators got the win here.
- 2009 SEC Championship: Alabama (Saban) vs Florida (Meyer). The very next year, they met again. This time, Saban’s Crimson Tide took the victory. Felt like a payback game.
- 2014 Sugar Bowl (CFP Semifinal): Ohio State (Meyer) vs Alabama (Saban). This was a big one, part of the first College Football Playoff. Meyer’s Buckeyes pulled off what many considered an upset.
- 2020 National Championship Game: Alabama (Saban) vs Ohio State (Meyer wasn’t coaching OSU then, Ryan Day was. Okay, wait.)
Ah, hold on. I almost messed that last one up. See? Gotta pay attention. That 2020 game wasn’t Meyer vs Saban. Meyer had left Ohio State by then. Ryan Day was the coach for OSU. So that one doesn’t count for their head-to-head record.
Let me re-check. Okay, searching specifically for “Meyer coached games vs Saban coached games”. Yeah, it looks like there was another regular-season game I missed earlier.
- 2010 Regular Season: Alabama (Saban) vs Florida (Meyer). Saban’s team won this one pretty convincingly, based on what I read.
The Final Tally
So, after digging around and correcting myself, here’s the tally I ended up with for games where Urban Meyer was the head coach on one sideline and Nick Saban was the head coach on the other:
- 2008 SEC Champ: Meyer wins
- 2009 SEC Champ: Saban wins
- 2010 Regular Season: Saban wins
- 2014 Sugar Bowl: Meyer wins
Okay, so counting those up… looks like Meyer got two wins, and Saban got two wins. It finished 2-2.
Honestly, kind of interesting. For all the talk, their head-to-head record ended up perfectly even. Four massive games, split right down the middle. Glad I took the time to actually look that up and get it straight in my head. It’s easy to just assume based on who won the last big matchup or whatever, but the actual record tells the full story. Pretty cool stuff.
