Playoff coaches share histories

ByTED MILLER
December 30, 2014, 2:37 PM

— -- Oregon coach Mark Helfrich seemed amused as a reporter tried to phrase the question as graciously as possible, a query that inescapably amounted to a straight-up tweak: Did Helfrich feel out of place as he sat on stage beside the other three College Football Playoff coaches, grizzled veterans who each own at least one national title?

Helfrich immediately made fun of himself -- he's one of the most self-effacing coaches of a Power 5 conference team you'll meet -- and reassured the reporter he didn't need to feel bad about his unfortunate phrasing.

"You can put it that way," Helfrich said, responding to the reporter's "I didn't mean to put it that way."

While it's a simple fact that Helfrich doesn't own a résumé comparable to Alabama's Nick Saban (four national titles), Ohio State's Urban Meyer (two national titles) and Florida State's Jimbo Fisher (2013 national title and 29 consecutive wins), all four coaches share connections, direct and indirect, that spiderweb through the coaching ranks, NFL as well as college.

You could even say it all started with Bill Parcells, the grumpy former coach of four NFL teams. But we'll get to that in a bit.

The most obvious connection is Saban and Fisher. Fisher coached under Saban for five of his seven seasons at LSU, together landing Saban his first national title in 2003, one that was split with USC. They also both hail from West Virginia, with Saban's hometown of Fairmont just 22 miles northeast of Fisher's Clarksburg.

Fisher became Florida State's offensive coordinator under Bobby Bowden in 2007, the same year Saban took over at Alabama. That's when both would first cross paths with Meyer, who was coming off his first national title in his second year at Florida in 2006. Saban would go on to earn a 2-1 advantage in matchups with Meyer. They split a pair of meetings in the SEC title game, with the winner of those showdowns going on to win a national title.

Fisher became the Seminoles' head coach in 2010, and that reconfigured the troika in a way Meyer probably would prefer to forget. Saban and Fisher would provide the first and last defeats of a dreary 8-5 campaign for Meyer and the Gators, one that stressed him out so much he resigned for health reasons. That was the Seminoles' first victory over Florida in six years and would be the launching point for a reversal of fortune between the two state powers.

So what does Parcells have to do with any of this? Well, he was highly successful New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick's mentor, and Belichick connects all four programs, at least philosophically.

Saban was Belichick's defensive coordinator with the Cleveland Browns from 1991-94 before leaving to take over at Michigan State. Beyond their collaboration on defensive schemes, they started to formulate what Saban would offhandedly one day call "the process," which is now reverentially termed "The Process" because Saban's tenure in Tuscaloosa has become dynastic. Fisher would learn The Process under Saban and then bring elements of it to Florida State.

Of course, Fisher emphasized you can't just simply copy your mentor.

"When people try to emulate other people, they become fake," he said. "I'm never thinking what would Nick do, what would Bill Belichick do. I don't think like that. I think about what would I do."

The overriding Belichick principle is well-known: "Do your job." But getting to that simple instruction is Saban's "Process." That is understanding all the tasks and contingencies, however minute, involved in running a football program -- i.e., The Details. Once those details are parsed out and understood, they are assigned to coaches and support staff and then to players. That detail-oriented process is then successful when everyone does their job completely and correctly.

Said Fisher, who has crossed paths with Belichick only a couple of times, "I have tremendous respect for the guy. To me, of all the people who run organizations, he does it as well as anybody. ... A lot of things [Saban] believed came from Bill. And a lot of those things came from Bill Parcells."

Meyer and Belichick connected shortly after Meyer took over at Florida in 2005, and the two bonded over offensive concepts. As for Helfrich, his connection with Belichick comes indirectly through former Oregon coach Chip Kelly, who first met with Belichick when he was an offensive coordinator at New Hampshire.

Elements of Meyer's and Kelly's offenses have been adopted by Belichick's Patriots, while Kelly and Meyer absorbed Belichick's ideas about running an organization and cultivating a team culture. When Helfrich replaced Kelly before the 2013 season, the Ducks' enduring "Win the Day" mantra boiled down to a Belichick-ian focus on the present task at hand.

This coaching influence shows no signs of slowing down. New Houston coach Tom Herman is the 12th Meyer assistant to become a head coach ( Meyer noted to ESPN.com's Ivan Maisel that he hired Herman at Ohio State based on a recommendation from Kelly). Saban's extensive coaching tree includes Michigan State's Mark Dantonio and new Florida coach Jim McElwain.

So does Helfrich, who's never met Belichick and only vaguely knows the other three CFP coaches, believe he measures up among these esteemed and accomplished football philosophers?

"Absolutely not in terms of accomplishment. Not at all," he said. "But certainly from a confidence standpoint, from a preparation standpoint, from who we are standpoint. I have a ton of confidence in everybody in this room and everybody in our program. These guys have earned every scrap of getting to this point."

After just two years as a head coach, Helfrich doesn't yet have a coaching tree. While his self-effacement over comparing himself to Saban, Meyer and Fisher is amusing, don't misinterpret it as a willing sense of inferiority or a hint at intimidation.

After all, Parcells was the new guy on the block when he dispatched Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs and Dan Reeves successively to win his first Super Bowl after the 1986 season.