Nick Saban says Florida State is built like an ‘SEC team’

Nick Saban said, “Florida State is built like an SEC team”at SEC Media Days on Wednesday. While meant as a compliment, he’s wrong.

The head coach of the Crimson Tide had lots of positives to say about Florida State towards his season opening opponents.

Fans should take Nick Saban’s comments as genuine compliments. However,  the way he said it did the ‘Noles a disservice. Tallahassee Democrat with the transcription from SEC Media Days:

"Florida State, especially, is built like an SEC team, you know, like our teams. You think of Florida State, you think of fast, explosive players, which they have a lot of. But they are also a big, physical, play great defense, tough, you know, team. And I think it’s probably Jimbo [Fisher]’s experience in this league that sort of why he built his team that way."

The SEC was the standard of college football for years, fast, physical and well balanced on both sides of the ball. While that was the norm in the early to mid 2000’s, that’s not the case the last few years.

Florida State and Clemson have won two of the last four National Championships with both programs beating SEC teams. The ACC produced a Heisman trophy winner, National Championship, and Orange Bowl victory in 2016 and beat the SEC head-to-head with ease.

The ACC features two of the top five coaches in the country, Jimbo Fisher and Dabo Swiney. The SEC has Nick Saban and everybody else is average at best. The ACC is arguably the best conference when it comes to head coaches as well.

SEC What?

“SEC built” was never true to begin with as that conference ripped off and duplicated what they saw in the 80’s.

These SEC schools copied the blueprint laid for Florida State under Bobby Bowden and Miami which morphed into “SEC built” when that league went on their epic run the last decade or so.

Florida State is better than most SEC teams and quite frankly its not even close. Comparing Florida State directly to Alabama is a much more appropriate comparison.