BATON ROUGE — During the press conference Tuesday at the Athletic Adminstration Building, Athletic Director Joe Dean along with Chancellor Mark Emmert spoke before head coach Nick Saban addressed the media.
Athletic Director Joe Dean
Let me thank you for coming, very appreciative of your time. As you know, we?ve made a coaching change and this is a special day for the LSU athletic program, naming a new head coach to try to take us in the direction we want to go in the future. It?s been a very interesting process, and I?ve been somewhat deeply involved, and we?re very excited about the result.
I facilitated most of the information and the contacts that were involved, using contacts I?ve made throughout the years. As I told Dr. Emmert, the football coach will be given a five year contract, and obviously I won?t be here that long. I felt that it was important that he take a lead in this and become very involved, and he has done so, very, very well. I really appreciate what he?s done to help us get to where we are, we couldn?t have done it without him. So let me introduce to you Dr. Mark Emmert.
Chancellor Dr. Mark Emmert
It?s terrific to see such a nice crowd to come out and welcome a new faculty hire. For the past couple of weeks I?ve been asked a number of times what kind of coach we were looking for to lead LSU football into the 21st-century. I?ve said on a number of occasions that we were only interested that brought to us a number of qualities and personal attributes. I?ve said a number of times that we were looking for a coach who has demonstrate success at the most competitive levels of football, someone who had an excellent understanding of football today, contemporary football. Someone who could reflect the values of our University to the rest of the world, someone who had a commitment to his players and their personal successes on the field, in the classroom, and in their lives. We wanted a coach who had proven experience and ability in recruiting the best talent in Louisiana and the nation has to offer. I also said I wanted a coach who wanted to build a program, a program that would sustain excellence for a number of years. In short, we were looking for someone who all of Louisiana could turn to with great pride and confidence.
As Joe just mentioned, in conducting this search, we constructed a team that worked tirelessly for a couple of weeks now to bring a successful coach to LSU. Because of that support, we were able to search across the nation quickly and effectively. I know my colleagues are very proud of the professional manner in which this search has been conducted. But most importantly, all of us are absolutely thrilled with the result. We found the coach we were looking for and we brought him to LSU.
In Nick Saban, we have found a coach with an exemplary record of success: Success among the competition in football. He brings to LSU a win-loss record of 43-26-1. He has taken Michigan State to its highest levels of performance ever, this year beating the likes of Michigan, Penn State, Notre Dame and Ohio State. Coach Saban knows football. He spent his childhood as a coach’s son in rural West Virginia. Through his experiences in collegiate and professional football to his role as head coach at Michigan State, Nick Saban?s career has been dedicated to mastering the game of football. His record of success speaks for itself.
His attitude toward and his relationship with his players speaks of a coach who cares deeply for his players as student athletes. Nick Saban wants his players first and foremost successful in life, not just in football — to take responsibility for their behaviors on the field, and as men. This commitment is reflected in his remarkable record in recruiting while dealing with great difficulties at Michigan State, he?s brought exceptional talent to MSU. Everyone we?ve talked to around the country knows he?s an effective recruiter, one of the best as everyone tells us.
Moreover, throughout his career, Nick Saban has demonstrated integrity on and off the field. He is extraordinarily well regarded by those who have worked with him and have played for them. He?s a man of great character, and someone who represents the very best values of collegiate athletics. Nick is dedicated to his family and to his wife Terry and his children Nicholas and Kristin, their commitment to football is a family affair.
Taken as a whole, Nick Saban?s career and morals have proven to me and my colleagues that he is a coach that LSU and all of Louisiana can look to with great pride, great enthusiasm, and great confidence. Ladies and gentlemen, it?s a great pleasure for me to introduce to you the new coach of the LSU Tigers, Nick Saban.
New LSU Head Coach Nick Saban
Thank you very much. The first thing I?d like to say to Tiger fans everywhere, to the players who have made the tradition of Tiger football what it is today, whether you played for Charley Mac, Jerry Stovall, Paul Dietzel, Bill Arnsparger or any other coach who they played for, this is your team, this is your program, and I?m very happy to be your coach. I think we need to pull all those things together that LSU has to offer in terms of support and tradition so that we have the best chance to be successful because I think that togetherness, especially with the high school level of talent and play, that you really have a chance to be successful, and that?s what intrigued me about this job. The hardest thing I?ve ever had to do was get in front of my team at Michigan State this morning and tell them that I was no longer be their coach, and that I was going to take and opportunity to be the coach at LSU. There?s a tremendous commitment on that team, and an endless competitive spirit, and I had a tremendous amount of respect for the men responsible for that. I also want to thank my staff at Michigan State that helped make that happen. That was a very difficult thing for them to take, and I hope they have the utmost success winning the Citrus Bowl this year. Our mission statement has always been that we want our players to be successful and people first, secondly as students, to get a good education and graduate school, and third we would like every player to develop to their full potential and play for a championship, and last to pull together all the resources that LSU has to offer and help every player after he leaves here to launch his career.
To do that, I think you must have a great support mechanism, and it certainly starts at the top, and I was certainly impressed by our chancellor, Mark Emmert, who I think will provide the leadership and create the atmosphere to help us be successful in building a program. Joe Dean, who has an outstanding reputation as an athletic director certainly represented nothing but class in the entire way this process was presented to me, and I?m sure the entire athletic department will be very supportive of our efforts to build this program. I?m sure the university community is very willing to do anything and everything to make this success possible. When I think of LSU football, I still think of Chinese bandits, I still think of playing hard and relentless competitors, and great defense. I can promise you our goal objective is to have that kind of team. I think that we should always be in the top 25, and I certainly think that we want to win our conference, and play in the championship game there, and if you do that, you?re very close to being one of the top teams in the country. Those are the goals and objectives that we?re going to have here, and I think we?re going to have a great product. You have to know what your competition is and you have to eliminate derision from within, and I think that is the biggest cancers to a program. Everybody has to have a common goal, and everybody has to pull together to reach that goal. That?s the way I?ve been able to be successful in other endeavors, and certainly I would hope that we can provide the kind of leadership that will enable us to be successful here because of our ability to work together as a team.
Coach Saban then opened up to media questions.
Do you plan on bringing any of your staff with you from Michigan State and do you plan on retaining any of the current staff?
I think that we really need to hire the best available coaches fitting the situation here at LSU, and that will be my objective. I will need to sit down and talk to the coaches here at LSU, most of which I have never met. We also have some very fine coaches at MSU, and I know there are some people here who we ought to take a look at. I think that should be our objective more than anything else based on our situation here at LSU.
More than anything, what makes LSU a better opportunity than MSU?
Well, I think I like the challenge of this program here at this institution, and there?s great tradition here. I think the SEC is a very outstanding, nationally competitive conference. There?s a challenge to being a part of this conference. We were at MSU for five years, we didn?t win a championship there, and that was the only thing I regretted about leaving there, that our players didn?t get a chance to play for a championship while I was there. But, all those things are what intrigued me about coming to Louisiana State University to coach.
When will you start recruiting officially here for LSU?
I think there are some things administratively that we have to take care of regarding MSU and the bowl game situation. Being fair, honest and loyal to me for the past five years as to how they would like to handle the bowl situation, I think that?s the right thing to do. They have not made that decision yet. Until they do that, and we get a staff hired here, I?m not exactly sure how we?re going to handle that, but as soon as we hire a staff, and get them moving in the right direction. Recruiting is very important.
Is Morris Watts a possibility to return with you to LSU?
Morris Watts is a member of my staff at MSU and he?s a very good football coach. I haven?t had the opportunity to talk with all of my staff.
What will you tell the players of LSU?
We?re trying to set up a meeting as soon as possible. I want to let them know that I?m a players coach, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the game. I?ll tell the players the same thing as I?ve said here today. We care about them first off as a person, then as a student, and lastly as an athlete. I am aware that everybody cares about wins and losses. But we will make sure we take care of them in that order.
What is your defensive/offensive philosophy?
I believe in having a multiple attack, with good passing efficiency. On defense, I believe in keeping the offense off balance, trying different things. You have to do a good job of adjusting on defense from the different looks you?ll get, and if you?re not good at that, you won?t succeed. You have to tailor your scheme to the talent available.
How did this all come about?
This all began happening for me a few days ago. You know, I was supposed to be coaching the East-West game with Steve Spurrier, which probably some time today I got fired. I think that Bill worked really hard in all of this, making me aware and filling me in on what was going on. All I can say that regardless of the circumstances that brought us here, we are very happy to be here.
Were you unhappy with Michigan State?
No, not at all. I mean, I was very happy. I have been at MSU for 10 years. Five years as a defensive coordinator, and then five years as the head coach. That place is as much my home as anywhere I?ve ever been.
What will your focus be in recruiting, nationally, or locally, as the previous staff did?
I think that recruiting is a lot like the (NFL) draft. You want to take the best player available, yet you have to satisfy needs. I think that you have the most success recruiting within a five-hour radius of your school. That?s where you can see the football player and know exactly what you?ll get, because he?s closer to you and you have a better opportunity to evaluate them.