{"id":122499,"date":"2026-01-18T03:40:29","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T03:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/122499\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T03:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T03:40:29","slug":"former-alabama-and-current-miami-player-compares-mario-cristobal-nick-saban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/122499\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Alabama and current Miami player compares Mario Cristobal, Nick Saban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even in retirement, Nick Saban is making an impact on the College Football Playoff<\/a>. Entering the semifinal round, it became guaranteed that one of his ex-Alabama<\/a> assistants would win the national title, as all four remaining teams were coached by a Saban disciple.<\/p>\n

Miami\u2019s Mario Cristobal coached Saban\u2019s offensive line from 2013 through 2016. He then became head coach at Oregon before ultimately landing at his alma mater in Coral Gables. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s one player in Monday\u2019s national championship game who would be most qualified to discuss the two coaches. James Brockermeyer has played for both.<\/p>\n

Miami\u2019s center, who started his college career at Alabama was asked about both coaches on Saturday during national championship media day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say they\u2019re alike and different,\u201d Brockermeyer said. \u201cObviously coach Cristobal has taken a lot of things from coach Saban that he learned over the years, whether that\u2019s how practice is scheduled or day-to-day operations. But he\u2019s put his own spin on it at the same time, it\u2019s not like a carbon copy of the old Alabama. But both coaches are incredible. I\u2019m really thankful and blessed to have been able to play for both of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brockermeyer, alongside his brother Tommy, joined the Crimson Tide before the 2021 season. He spent three years in Tuscaloosa, and was part of multiple College Football Playoff teams while with the Crimson Tide.<\/p>\n

He entered the transfer portal during the spring window following Kalen DeBoer\u2019s hire. Brockermeyer spent a year at TCU before joining Miami ahead of the 2025 campaign. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only Miami player who has dealt with Saban in the past. Quarterback Carson Beck was committed to UA before he flipped to Georgia in the 2020 recruiting class, where he played for another ex-Saban assistant, Bulldog coach Kirby Smart.<\/p>\n

Beck was asked about the differences and similarities between Saban and Cristobal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of them are super intense,\u201d Beck said. \u201cThey\u2019re super intense, and you can tell that their love for the game is super, super, super high. Again, that\u2019s what I would say is the same, but they all have a different way of coaching, from coach Smart to\u2013 obviously I never got coached by coach Saban, but being able to meet him and be around him, they all have different ways of doing it, but at the end of the day, they\u2019re super intense and have a great love of the game, for the game of football.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miami faces Indiana at 6:30 p.m. CT Monday. The game will be aired on ESPN.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even in retirement, Nick Saban is making an impact on the College Football Playoff. Entering the semifinal round,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[8173,61098,6610,61099,57,123,125,124,56527,62,61100,18724],"class_list":["post-122499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-alabama","tag-ctfb","tag-fb","tag-fbc","tag-football","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-preseason","tag-sec","tag-tide-football-practice","tag-ua"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}