Not to drop a hint, but ...

... or maybe early July.

Either way, watch this space.

NFL.com names Nick Saban college football's best coach

I love indirect book plugs.

Bryan Fisher of NFL.com put together his list of the best college football coaches and not surprisingly it was topped by Nick Saban.

He wrote: "Not much needs to be said about Saban, who rightfully earns the title of the highest-paid coach in college thanks to his 79-15 record over the past seven years with the Crimson Tide. He has four national titles to his name, and although he had a rocky first year in Tuscaloosa and a few questionable losses, he's turned Alabama into an NFL factory that has been to BCS games five of the last six seasons."

His list:
1. Nick Saban, Alabama
2. Chris Petersen, Washington
3. Urban Meyer, Ohio State
4. David Shaw, Stanford
5. Bill Snyder, Kansas State
6. Art Briles, Baylor
7. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
8. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
9. Gary Patterson, TCU
10. David Cutcliffe, Duke
11. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
12. Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M
13. Jimbo Fisher, Florida State
14. Mike Riley, Oregon State

The final version of the book cover ...

At last, here it is.

The final changes were to add Tony Barnhart's name (huge thanks to him for doing the foreword), and to take Joe Paterno's name off the list of coaches with their names scratched off. I pushed for that because Nick Saban had a ton of respect for him and Paterno's name was right at eye level (see older version to right). Besides, history will have a role to play regarding his legacy.

There were some other things we talked about, like if we changed any names the ones added should be from the south or west, and that's pretty much how Steve Spurrier was added. The back cover has a nice picture of Saban holding a crystal football, and my bio.

Jeff Fedotin, who had the difficult task of editing the book, told me he thinks the cover looks awesome. I couldn't agree more.

We should all start seeing it in stores in about two months.

I don't think I've been the subject of an Associated Press story before ...

Walsh wins top ASWA writing award

TROY, ALA. — Christopher Walsh received the Alabama Sports Writers Association's highest writing award at the association's 43rd annual convention Sunday.

Walsh, who won two awards at this year's convention for his work with 247Sports, won the Herby Kirby Award for his story "Their place in history: A look at Alabama's, Nick Saban's and AJ McCarron's place in college football lore." The story also won Best Enterprise Story.

The award was 247Sports' first overall Herby Kirby Award and the second for Walsh.

The Herby Kirby Award is given in memory of longtime Birmingham Post-Herald sports writer Herby Kirby, who died in the press box after covering Notre Dame's 24-23 national football championship win over Alabama in the 1973 Sugar Bowl.


... Credit John Zenor from the Associated Press for that story. 

First off, I'm honored, humbled and truly thrilled. I want to thank everyone not only in the ASWA, but also BamaOnline and 247Sports. 

In order to be up for the Herby Kirby one has to place first in a category (best football story, investigative piece, etc.). I finished second to Mike Szvetitz of The Opelika-Auburn News in column writing, a category I couldn't enter last year because online was considered a separate division. 

So this was the first time an online submission/site won the HK, and I'm pretty sure I'm the first multiple winner from different news organizations (which is kind of fitting since Saban was the first coach in the modern era to win national championships with two different schools). 

One thing I was sad about at the banquet was when legendary Huntsville Times journalist John Pruett asked for previous winners of the Herby Kirby to be recognized, only two other people in the room stood. So I want to dedicate this to the other former winners and all of my other colleagues over the years who are no longer in the industry. You are missed my friends. 

P.S. A special shout-out to my former associates at the Tuscaloosa News. After cleaning house at the recent Associated Press Sports Editors awards the staff took home a convention-high seven honors to cap an outstanding year. Congrats. 

We can already project a winner in one of the races ...

The polls have been posted for about 24 hours, and in the all-time category it's all Paul W. "Bear" Bryant, with 73.7 percent of the vote. Bobby Bowden is second with 6 percent, Tom Osborne is second at 5.9, and "other" is fourth.

The more interesting results are in the active category, and here's the link:

Through June 3, 1,462 votes so far:
Jimbo Fisher 27.6 percent
Gus Malzahn 18.6
Steve Spurrier 17.5
Urban Meyer 16.0
Les Miles 8.6
Bob Stoops 6.6
Other 5.1

VERY interesting reader polls

Ok, I'm really curious to see how this goes.

For a Bleacher Report story I did about how Nick Saban is still the best big-game coach in college football (how easily some people forget the national championship games, you know?) I did two reader polls that I think are going to be very interesting.

If you could pick an active coach to match up against Saban in a title game, who would it be?
If you could pick any coach in college football history to face Saban in a title game, who would it be?

I know people are going to complain about not including more coaches in the voting, but someone needs to do a computer simulation of Saban's best team against Paul W. "Bear" Bryant's.

Here's the link. I'll post the results here in a few days.

Yes, Nick Saban does slow down ... a little

We've reached that point of the year when what I call the "Annual Nick Saban World Tour" is about to come to an end, as the coach has next week's SEC Meetings in Destin, Fla., followed by his Nick's Kids Charity Golf Tournament on June 5th before sort of disappearing from the public landscape for a while.

Yes, Nick Saban does take vacations. Miss Terry makes sure of that.

So far the highlights have been Saban making a $50,000 donation to the V Foundation for cancer research at the Dick Vitale Gala, and telling a Nashville reporter to "kiss my ass" when asked about a former West Virginia player saying he was offered a car to attend Alabama before he was hired. It's hard to tell which one of those Alabama fans were prouder about.

Anyway, two things of note:

1) After seeing Saban yesterday at this year's final Crimson Caravan event (and yes, he looks ready for a vacation), I wrote this column about how he's hoping for change when it comes to the growing number of underclassmen in the NFL Draft http://ow.ly/x6JlG.

2) The book is in the final stages of production, with a deadline of June 6th for completion. Then it's off to the printer.

Updating Saban's impressive draft numbers

One of the problems to writing a football book that uses a lot of statistics about an active coach is knowing where to draw the line. Otherwise, you'll never stop updating the numbers. 

For Nick Saban vs. College Football, the decision was made to stop before the 2014 NFL Draft, which makes things a little statistically unbalanced (you'll see what I mean when it comes out), but we needed to get the thing to the printer. 

So, here's update some things I researched myself, and used in a recent Bleacher Report article to preview the draft:  

1) Saban now has the most first-round draft picks by an active coach. It was previously Mack Brown, who has stepped down at Texas. With two this year, Saban is up to 21.

2) Saban has the highest career average of first-round selections by any active coach. It was Les Miles with a career average of 1.17, compared to Saban’s 1.12 (which doesn't include at least six LSU players credit to Miles who Saban recruited). 

After Odell Beckham was first-round selection, Miles has 15 in 14 years, for a 1.07 average. But with his two picks this year Saban's career average is up to 1.17.

3) Saban has had the most first-round selections of any Alabama coach. He's had 16 with the Crimson Tide while Paul W. “Bear” Bryant had 14.

4) Saban's average of 2.3 first-round draft picks at Alabama is unparalleled in college football history. 

5) Saban moved into the top five for all-time first-round selections. At his current pace at Alabama, he'll catch Joe Paterno's 33 during the 2018 draft.

Nick Saban vs. College Football is due out in August. 

Great minds think alike.

How's this for an indirect tie-in for the book?

Every year Matt Hayes of The Sporting News (we like him, he's a good guy), ranks all the coaches in college football, and for the fourth straight year he has Nick Saban at No. 1, while bumping Steve Spurrier up to second.

As ESPN's Chris Low (another good guy) put it, "I can't say that I would disagree with him."

Here are his top 10 with the link to the story:

1. Nick Saban, Alabama
2. Steve Spurrier, South Carolina
3. Urban Meyer, Ohio State
4. Bob Stoops, Oklahoma
5. Brian Kelly, Notre Dame
6. Chris Petersen, Washington
7. David Shaw, Stanford
8. Les Miles, LSU
9. Mark Dantonio, Michigan State
10. Jimbo Fisher, Florida State

BTW, the photo is of Saban's plaque in the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, which I recently visited in Birmingham. Link

Finally!

I'm happy to announce the book proofs for Nick Saban vs. College Football are finished and have been returned to my publisher for final changes.

Funny, after going through all that the last thing I want to do is look at anything that has to do with this project, yet in about two months I'll be very eager to see the final product. Go figure.

One quick note, were were thinking about having a last-second update to include everything from the upcoming NFL Draft, but decided against it. I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.

Time to celebrate ...