Written by Matt Zemek at Bloguin
It was a very good Saturday for Nick Saban.
See that photo above? That’s Saban taking the team picture with the 1998 Michigan State Spartans.
The 1998 Spartans did not possess championship aspirations, and they did not fulfill them. Michigan State lingered in — if not obscurity — “second-class status” for quite some time following the 1988 Rose Bowl win over USC under George Perles. Mediocre in some seasons and teasingly “almost there” in others, Michigan State established an identity as a member of the “not yet” club in college football.
In 1998, that’s where Saban stood himself.
Then a less-than-remarkable coach, Saban had not yet moved to Baton Rouge, where he launched his ascendancy at LSU. “The Hound” (if Alabama has “The Bear,” Saban is The Hound) was toiling in the middle tiers of college football; he had not left any sort of imprint on the sport…
… not until November 7, 1998, that is.
Saban’s Michigan State team waltzed into Columbus and defeated what might have been John Cooper’s best and most talented team at Ohio State. This was the only game the Buckeyes lost in 1998; they steam rolled Texas A&M in the Sugar Bowl, but in a pre-playoff world, they didn’t get to play their way into a national championship game.
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