"Got my job for me" - When Nick Saban revealed how Bill Belichick helped kickstart NFL coaching career

The frenzy around former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick's appointment as North Carolina Tar Heels coach continues to grip college football fans. The surprising move was announced on Wednesday, with the decorated NFL star landing in Chapel Hill to much fanfare with elevated expectations.

Despite his extensive NFL portfolio, Belichick has no experience in college football and is a novice at that level much like former Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban who was a national champion with the LSU Tigers before he opted to take the Miami Dolphins job in the NFL in 2005.

Saban lasted only two seasons before he returned to college football as the coach of the Crimson Tide kickstarting his own dynastical run in Tuscaloosa. The pathways of Saban and Belichick mirror each other at different levels.

During a Sept. 2021 episode of "NFL Films," Saban revealed how the pair's fathers met as coaches at the Naval Academy leading to a friendship between the pair and Belichick getting Saban his first coaching job.

"Bill used to come home in the summertime to visit his parents and same age, same young guys trying to come up in the business," Saban said. "We sort of naturally just became friends. Bill probably got my job for me at the Houston Oilers which was my first job in the NFL. And then I went to Toledo as the head coach, I was there for one year.

"Bill gets the Cleveland Browns head coaching job and he started calling me about coming to Cleveland to be the defensive coordinator."

Nick Saban coached under Bill Belichick in Cleveland as the defensive coordinator for four years before he took the Michigan State Spartans job and started his own trajectory as a legendary coach in college football.

Nick Saban tabs Bill Belichick to succeed at UNC

Despite the skepticism that the Bill Belichick to North Carolina move has garnered, Nick Saban was positive about his potential in college football with his extensive experience.

"Bill’s an outstanding coach," Saban said. "He’s very well organized. He’s a good teacher. I think he relates well with the players. I think he would do a great job in college. It doesn’t surprise me, when you have a coach of his caliber, quality, consistency, and success for a lot of years, that it would be somebody that people would consider, Relationship building is not as important, not that Bill wouldn’t be good at that.

"It’s not as important now that you pay players. I think it becomes a little bit more about the money and the deal that you make with them. So, it is a little bit more like pro football."

In his capacity as an analyst on ESPN's pre-game show "College GameDay," Nick Saban could be put in the unenviable position of offering analysis on Bill Belichick's North Carolina Tar Heels.