On Nick Saban's coaching tree, and the CFP it sprouted | Goodbread

Nick Saban must be feeling like a proud papa these days, so excuse him if he's beaming a bit when ESPN begins airing pregame coverage of the College Football Playoff semifinals. Well-settled into family life in retirement, the legendary Alabama football coach has another family, of sorts, about to engage in the most high profile of family squabbles: all four head coaches involved in CFP semifinals once worked for Saban in some capacity.

As branches on the Saban tree, however, some are stronger than others.

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Indiana coach Curt Cignetti was Alabama's wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator for Saban's first four seasons in Tuscaloosa, while Ole Miss coach Pete Golding spent five years in Tuscaloosa as a defensive coordinator from 2018-2022. Miami's Mario Cristobal was Alabama's offensive line coach under Saban from 2013-2016. Then there's Oregon coach Dan Lanning, whose Saban connection is the most tenuous — a graduate assistant role for one year, albeit a national championship year in 2015.

Heck, even the coach who was supposed to be leading Ole Miss through the playoff, Lane Kiffin, was a Saban assistant, too. And lest anyone forget, the most successful and prominent branch off the Saban tree of all, Kirby Smart, reached a CFP quarterfinal and lost to Golding's Rebels.

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It can't be easy for Saban to have a rooting interest in college football's version of the Final Four.

It should come as little surprise that a championship is in the offing among the 18 FBS head coaches who worked under Saban, but it is quite remarkable that with four teams remaining, one is already guaranteed. Of course, it won't be the first time. Smart has won a pair of them at Georgia, and Jimbo Fisher, a Sabanite from his LSU days, won a national title at Florida State. Somebody else — and the prediction here is Oregon's Lanning — will join Smart and Fisher at the top of the treehouse.

Beyond this season, Steve Sarkisian at Texas and Kiffin at LSU would have to be considered the primary threats to expand the club of national championship coaches with experience in a Saban program. Sarkisian has already reached the doorstep, having lost in the CFP semifinals in back-to-back years (2023, 2024). Kiffin, of course, reached the doorstep this year, knocked, and ran away.

No matter. Another disciple was there to take his place in the Nick Saban Invitational.

Tuscaloosa News columnist Chase Goodbread is also the weekly co-host of Crimson Cover TV on WVUA-23. Reach him at cgoodbread@gannett.com. Follow on X.com @chasegoodbread.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: On Nick Saban's coaching tree, and the CFP that branched from it