Saban and pushing the envelope

Several years ago, I was sitting in Billy Napier's office not long after Dabo Swinney became Clemson's head coach.

A big part of Swinney's grand plan was expanding the support staff in the football office. At the time a big part of this meant adding a number of positions under the title "quality control" and "player development," and I wondered what this was all about.

Napier, then the offensive coordinator, reached up onto a shelf in the McFadden Building and grabbed an Alabama media guide. He thumbed to the pages featuring the football staff directory and started pointing out all sorts of mug shots featuring an assortment of unconventional titles such as "director of player personnel," "associate athletics director for football," "director of player development," "assistant director of player personnel," "football operations coordinator," and so on.

This was (and is) called pushing the envelope with NCAA rules. Residing on the cutting edge in big-time college athletics often means residing on the fine line between rule-abiding and rule-breaking, and Saban has been a pioneer in the art of getting around rules on staff limits.

The NCAA allows nine full-time, on-field coaches per staff, but that hasn't kept staffs from becoming virtual armies of various personnel. A few years ago coaches tried to add a bunch of positions to the strength and conditioning staff because those are the folks who are permitted to supervise players during offseason (and supposedly voluntary) workouts. I'm not certain of this, but at last check the NCAA had imposed some limits on the number of "quality control" positions on strength staffs.

This hasn't kept Saban from continuing to add positions. And the titles get more creative with each series of additions. Check out an excerpt from this story:

Alabama coach Nick Saban's support staff has expanded to nine "analysts." That's up from six in 2011, three in 2010 and none before then.

Five of the analysts work with the offense: Kevin Garner, Jules Montinar, Jeff Norrid, Kelvin Sigler and Jody Wright. Norrid is back for a third year. Wright was the offensive graduate assistant two years ago and an offensive analyst last year. Sigler is the former head coach at Blount High School near Mobile.

Three analysts will work with the defense: Dean Altobelli, Russ Callaway and Wesley Neighbors. Altobelli and Callaway also were defensive analysts last year. Callaway is the son of former UAB head coach Neil Callaway, a former Alabama lineman and linebacker. Neighbors, a walk-on defensive back at Alabama (2008-10), is the son and grandson of former Alabama stars.

John Wozniak, most recently the running backs coach and co-special teams coordinator at UAB, is Alabama's new special teams analyst.

Serving on Saban's support staff can pay dividends.

Alabama wide receivers coach Mike Groh served as the Tide's offensive graduate assistant in 2009.

Dan O'Brien, the son of North Carolina State head coach Tom O'Brien, was an Alabama defensive analyst in 2008 and then served two seasons as a defensive graduate assistant. He now is an assistant coach at Elon University.

Derrick Ansley was Alabama's defensive graduate assistant the past two seasons. He now coaches the cornerbacks at Tennessee.

Billy Napier, formerly an offensive coordinator at Clemson, was one of Alabama's three offensive analysts last season and now is the quarterback coach at Colorado State, where former Alabama offensive coordinator Jim McElwain is the new head coach.

If you're Saban and you basically have a blank check after winning two BCS titles in three years, it's a no-brainer to create as many positions as possible. Because, theoretically at least, it means more eyes and more efficiency and fewer things to fall through the cracks.

It's quite clear that this has been one of the most recent frontiers in college football's arms race, and I wonder if it will end up being one of the battlegrounds between the so-called "power" programs and the NCAA.

Swinney was saying recently that the NCAA can only impose so many equalizers such as practice hours per week, scholarship caps and such. But after a certain point, the logic goes, the NCAA is treading into some perilous territory when it tries to tell a $70-million program it can't spend that money to improve itself in football because it's not fair to a program that only makes $10 million a year and can't keep up.

It's hard to escape the feeling that we're headed to a point where the NCAA allows the moneymakers to spend the money they make, primarily out of a fear that the moneymakers will tell the NCAA to buzz off.

When that day comes, we'll be able to end the charade of coming up with all these obscure titles. Saban and everyone else will be able to hire people and call them what they are: Coaches.

LW