Tale of the Coaching Tape: Nick Saban vs. Ara Parseghian

Comparing the Alabama coach's numbers to the all-time greats on the 150th anniversary of college football

Courtesy Notre Dame

Ara Parseghian is directly cut from the “If you can’t beat them, join them” philosophy, only with college football coaches the word “join” needs to be replaced by “hire.” 

While best known for his successful years at Notre Dame he first was a player and coach at Miami of Ohio, as a running back/defensive back in 1946-47 for Sid Gillman and spent a year as an assistant coach under the direction of Woody Hayes. After he took over in 1951, Miami went 39-6-1 over the next five seasons, with three of the losses coming the first year, and the 1955 finished No. 15 in the final Associated Press poll.

Miami had already become a successful launching point for coaches (including Paul Brown, Weeb Ewbank, George Little and Paul Dietzel), but to the surprise of some the school to come calling for Parseghian was Northwestern. The Wildcats had made a Rose Bowl trip at the end of the 1948 season, but was coming off a winless 1955 schedule. After taking the job he too had a winless season in 1957, yet five years later had Northwestern ranked No. 1 during the 1962 season.

Led by quarterback Tom Myers and receiver Paul Flatley, the Wildcats got off to a 6-0 start and spent two weeks atop the Associated Press poll until it was knocked off its pedestal by both No. 8 Wisconsin and Michigan State. However, Northwestern defeated Notre Dame four straight times, including 35-6 in 1962, which more than got the Fighting Irish’s attention. 

Consequently, after five straight sub-.500 seasons including records of 2-8 in 1960 and 2-7 in 1963, it hired Parseghian in 1964 to turn the tables.

In addition to winning nine straight games against his former team, which went 17-41-1 during its first six seasons without him, Parseghian led Notre Dame to a 95-17-4 record over 11 seasons.

Under his direction (and with Heisman Trophy winner John Huarte), the Fighting Irish was poised to win the national championship his first season in South Bend, 1964, only to blow a 17-0 lead in the season finale at Southern California. 

Instead, he would have to wait two more years, when Notre Dame went 9-0-1 and won an extremely controversial title over undefeated Alabama – the two-time reigning champion. The tie came against Michigan State in what was billed the “Game of the Century,” only to result in a 10-10 finish when Parseghian decided to have his players not go for the win after getting the ball back at their own 30 with 1:24 to play.

“We’d fought hard to come back and tie it up,” he explained later. “After all that, I didn’t want to risk giving it to them cheap. They get reckless and it could cost them the game. I wasn’t going to do a jackass thing like that at that point.”

Alabama and Notre Dame were both undefeated when they met in a No. 1 vs. No. 2 showdown in the Sugar Bowl at the end of the 1973 season, and the Fighting Irish pulled out a dramatic 24-23 victory. With the coaches’ poll holding its final voting before the bowls, the last time it did so, Alabama could claim a split title, but Notre Dame was the clear consensus champion.

Although Parseghian resigned in 1974 for health reasons after 11 years at Notre Dame, he got involved in the fight against Niemann-Pick Type C, a genetic, pediatric, neurodegenerative disorder responsible for the build-up of cholesterol in cells that results in eventual damage to the nervous system. Three of his grandchildren, Michael, Marcia, and Christa Parseghian, were diagnosed with NP-C in 1994, and all died by 2005.

The coach passed away in 2017. He was 94.

“I think Ara Parseghian probably was as classy a coach and as classy a human being, not only relative to what he did as a coach but all that he's done since he's not been coaching in terms of raising funds and money for research and fighting disease and different things that have affected his family,” Nick Saban said. “I just think he's one of the all-time classy coaches who has ever had success. A lot of things that he did and the way he represented the program are things that we would like to be sort of remembered for as well.”

Nick Saban vs. Ara Parseghian

(Statistics through 2018 season)

Category Saban; Parseghian

Seasons 23 ; 24

Consensus national titles 6 ; 2

Top five finishes 9 ; 7

Top 25 finishes 16 ; 11

Overall record 232–62–1; 170-58-6

Percentage 78.5 ; 73.9

Losing seasons 0 ; 2

CFP/Bowl record 14-10 ; 3-2

Percentage 58.3 ; 60.0

Conference titles 9 ; 2

Conference record 138-42-1; 41-33-2

Consensus All-Americans 41 ; 23

First-round draft picks 34 ; 14

Record against ranked teams 82-40 ; 21-30-4

Percentage 67.20 ; 41.82

Record against top 10 teams 42-21 ; 16-23-3

Percentage 66.67 ; 41.67

Ratios/percentages

National title seasons One every 3.8 seasons; 12

Consensus All-Americans 1.78 every season; .96

First-round draft picks 1.48 every season; .58

Average wins vs. ranked teams 3.57 each season; 1.11

Wins over top-10 teams per year 1.82 every season; .84

Some of the information in this report was also used in the book "Nick Saban vs. College Football."