Nick Saban reveals secret he’s kept from Bill Belichick: ‘Bill would kill me’

Back when Nick Saban was Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the Browns, the Alabama head coach had to figure out how to get one by the head coach.

Very few people would risk incurring the wrath of Bill Belichick. When you’re Nick Saban, you can get away with it apparently.

During his weekly radio show on 95.3 The Bear and Tide 100.9, Saban shared an incredible anecdote from his time coaching with Bill Belichick.

Nick Saban kept a sly secret from Bill Belichick

Saban was Belichick’s defensive coordinator in Cleveland and occasionally the head coach would try to change Saban’s play calls at the last second. He even claimed the Browns lost a game because of it once.

So Saban figured out how to prevent the late confusion. He worked out a system with middle linebacker Pepper Johnson to get them off the hook from the head coach.

“I said ‘Look, Pepper. I’m going to give you a signal, and you touch your face mask when you get the signal.’ If Bill wants to change after that we’re done,” Saban said. “I’m gonna say ‘he looked away. I can’t give him another signal.’ And that’s how we operated the rest of the time.”

It seems Belichick never caught on because Saban survived his time in Cleveland.

“If Bill knew that he’d probably kill me,” Saban joked.

Saban has said in the past that his four years with Belichick and the Browns were “the worst of his life” so it’s for the best that he ended up leaving in 1995 to become Michigan State’s head coach. He went on to become arguably the most dominant head coach in college football history while Belichick became arguably the most dominant head coach in NFL history.

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