It takes a lot to make Saban smile, this time it was a whole lot of "Ugly". Derick E. Hingle - USA TODAY Sports

Nick Saban Enjoys “Ugly Win” at LSU

By: Larry Burton

As he walked off the field at Tiger Stadium in LSU, an ESPN reporter got Nick Saban’s final assessment of the game. There was plenty of reasons for Saban to be unhappy, offensive miscues like an interception and fumble that could have cost them dearly. But there was a rare grin on his face that told the whole story.

It was a brutal defensive game, a low scoring contest, a war that was fought in the trenches rather than a quarterback vs defensive secondary battle track meet.

It was a game without flashy play calling for the most part, a game that produced few scores and almost as few offensive highlights for the news. It was a game with two stellar defenses and two great running games and each was daring the other to break that mold and try something different.

It was a game like Nick Saban used to love before the days of the hurry up offense and high scoring affairs. It was a game of men on men, muscle on muscle, let’s see who’s standing in the fourth quarter kind of game. In other words, it was a game that Nick Saban loved.

LSU entered the game averaging almost 424 yards of offense a game. They ended this night with just 125. They entered the night a prodigious rushing team, averaging about 240 yards rushing per game and a hefty 7 yards a carry average. The left this game with 33 rushing yards and paltry 1.2 yard per carry average. Alabama took their greatest tool, Leonard Fournette and made him irrelevant.

For a coach who grew up playing quarterback as well as in the defensive backfield, it was clear that Saban was keeping his play caller Kiffin in check, knowing he would win the game with his defense as long as the offense didn’t give the ball away once again.

Reminiscent of his “Make their ass quit” speech, Saban knew that LSU offense had no answer for the defense they were facing and that the Tide had already put them on the bench with their heads down. They couldn’t pass to keep a drive going, they sure couldn’t run and what ended up killing the Tigers was that they couldn’t keep their defense off the field.

Eventually, as they had done all season, Alabama’s offense just kept leaning on the defense all night, running the clock, wearing them down and creating small cracks that Hurts and others would exploit.

Going into the fourth quarter with the game tied 0-0, LSU would only gain one first down and net 25 yards of offense.

Yes, this was a classic Nick Saban game that warranted a rare smile.

Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter

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