There are at least two factors at work in Alabama Coach Nick Saban becoming the dean of Southeastern Conference coaches last year in his 10th season.

One is the time, for the most part college head football coaches not going into late age in doing the tough job, particularly if they have not only learned enough, but also earned enough to walk away.

The other is Saban, at least in the SEC, and particularly in the Western Division.

Now, unless we find out that Saban was sharing escort service phone numbers with Hugh Freeze, we can put the firing/resignation of the former Ole Miss coach aside. Pressure, though, is on conference coaches to produce since most of them are making several million dollars per year, and those paying the bills aren’t interested in second, third, and certainly not 14th place in the league.

But Saban can’t be blamed for the latest SEC firing of a head football coach, the bizarre ousting of Jim McElwain at Florida midway through his third season. True, Saban’s Alabama team administered a couple of beatings to the Gators in McElwain’s first two seasons, but those were in the SEC Championship Game. McElwain is the only coach to come into the league and win his division in his first two seasons.

Saban has an extensive coaching tree, men who have coached under him who have gone on to be head coaches, and McElwain is one of those. He was Alabama’s quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator for four seasons (2008-11), handling those duties for two national championship teams. He then had a successful run as head coach at Colorado State before taking over the reins at Florida in 2015.

Bama defeated McElwain’s Gators in the 2015 SEC Championship Game, 29-15, en route to the Tide’s national championship, and was a 54-16 winner over Florida last year.

There are not many things at which Saban is not successful, but following Bama’s practice for Saturday’s game against LSU, he said that he had not yet been able to speak directly with McElwain.

“I put a call into him, left him a message, didn’t get ahold of him,” Saban said. “I understand he went to see his granddaughter in Arizona.

“I did talk to Jimmy (agent Jimmy Sexton, who has both Saban and McElwain as clients) about him and how he was doing, sent a message through Jimmy to him.

“As the week winds down here, I’d certainly like to have an opportunity to let him know that we’re here to support him in every way that we can. I think Jim did a really good job there to get to the SEC championship game the last two years, the first two years he was there. We’ve had to play them and they’re always difficult preparation.

“I’m just sorry it didn’t work out for him better. We’ll do everything we can to help him in the future.”

Saban was also in a magnanimous mood regarding Halloween. He wished everyone a belated Happy Halloween, though noted that the assembled reporters “all look like Trick or Treating fools, like an outfit that’s really expert in that regard.”

And then he got to his real point, which was to thank all those who wished him a happy 66th birthday on Halloween.

“But I would like to give everybody a little message, which I kind of feel,” he said. “We all go around thinking, ‘I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to get up and go to work today.’ How about replacing ‘have to’ with ‘glad to’. Glad to get up today, glad to go to work today, glad to have the opportunity, glad to be here. That’s how I feel right now.”

That’s good news for Alabama fans, not so good for rival coaches feeling a touch of heat on their seats.

Nick Saban

Next up for Saban and his Crimson Tide is LSU. Bama is 8-0 and 5-0 in the SEC and ranked second in the nation in the initial 2017 College Football Playoff poll. LSU is 6-2 overall, 3-1 in the conference, and ranked 1`9th. CBS will televise Saturday’s game from Bryant-Denny Stadium beginning at 7 p.m. CDT Saturday.

“We had a good work week this week,” Saban said. “I think the key to the drill, which I’ve talked to the players about a couple of times, is discipline, --discipline to be able to execute, be physical, everybody do their job in the game, be able to sustain that kind of mental intensity for 60 minutes in the game.

“These games have always been tough games. They’ve always been close games. They’ve always been physical games. I think you’ve got to get your mind set to be ready to play a game like that. But it’ll always come down to who can do the best job of executing, blocking, tackling, turnovers, taking care of the ball, making big plays, eliminating big plays, maintaining poise, playing smart and being disciplined.

“I know it’ll be a great atmosphere in the stadium. I think it’ll be important to our players that our fans are really into this game. Got a lot of national attention riding on this game, and this game has turned into a big rivalry for both sides and I think we should respond to it accordingly.”

Like knowing about a man-trap and waling into it anyway, reporters brought up the subject of polls a couple of times.

The first was regarding the Coaches Poll, in which Saban is a voter. Saban said, “I approach my vote in the coaches poll very seriously. I think it’s important for all of us as coaches to try to do a good job of knowing who the best teams are, using some input from other people in our organization to try to be as accurate as possible, even though this is all very subjective when you make these kind of votes if you don’t play each other, and everybody doesn’t play each other. So you really don’t know who has the best team.”

Then he reiterated a longstanding position, espoused earlier in the week. “When it comes to how does that affect our position, what we think about the season, it’s all about the next game,” he said. “We’re going to play three ranked opponents in the next four weeks of the season and if we don’t win all those games we won’t even be talking about those games. What becomes most important? The next game. The team you have to play. Preparing the right way. Making sure you’re ready to go play your best and being able to sustain that week in and week out. This game this week is the most important game on the schedule so that’s what we’re looking for and the rest of it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where you’re at right now, it matters where you end up, and you’ve got to do the things you need to do to end up where you want to end up.”

That should have been the end of that, right?

But Nooooo! Someone was curious as to how (or if) Saban might use as a motivational tool Bama being put at No. 2 by the College Football Playoff selection committee Tuesday night when all other polls have the Tide No. 1.

“I haven’t really thought about it to be honest with you,” he said. “I didn’t even know that we were No. 2 until just a little bit ago. That’s how important I think it is. I would rather our players not be thinking about it, I would rather that they not be talking about it, I’d rather that they be thinking about what they need to do well in this game.

“It’s like getting two-thirds, three-quarters of the way up a mountain and you’re sliding on an icy slope and you’re worried about some airplane flying behind you, and so you fall and bust your ass. That’s basically what it’s the equivalent, rather than focus on what you need to do to keep climbing. I don’t think I can make it any clearer. And I know you all want to make this a big story. Make it one, but don’t make it about me because it’s not going to be about me.”