Who is your favorite SEC Football coach?
Recreation/sports website by Saturday Down South
In a Facebook poll of 2,545 respondents, 38.5% chose “Nick Saban (Alabama)”. How we count
Nick Saban's vote total alone — 979 — outweighs the combined haul of nine separate rivals, everyone from Mark Richt down to James Franklin. He held first place from the opening day and never dropped below 29% support across 162 days, closing at 38.5%, more than double runner-up Gene Chizik's 15.6%.
Beneath the surface, women decided the top two: Saban and Chizik are the only picks where female voters outnumbered male ones, while every other coach, from Petrino to Dooley, leaned majority-male. At the bottom, Kentucky's Joker Phillips, Ole Miss's Houston Nutt, and Vanderbilt's James Franklin combined for just 38 votes — a rounding error next to Saban's total.
- The margin · 38.5% is more than double the runner-up's share.
- One man, nine rivals · Saban's 979 votes top nine rivals' combined 936.
- Women picked the top two · Only Saban and Chizik drew more women than men.
- Rock bottom · Phillips, Nutt, and Franklin combined for just 38 votes.