A look at the success of the Alabama football program under Coach Saban. This goes into everything from recruiting to preparing for practice and also for games. Of course, this book came out in 2017 so much has changed in college football and some of his assistants have left to become head coaches but they are successful as well. An interesting look into Saban and Alabama football.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book, Phil Savage does an excellent job of giving the reader a behind the scenes look at the system which Nick Saban implemented at Bama and which puts them in position to compete for a national title year in and year out.

If you are interested in 'how the sausage gets made' and not just the end result of W-L record it is highly likely that you will enjoy this book as much as I did

Dating back to the start of the 2008 season, Alabama has played in exactly three regular season games in which it had been eliminated from national title contention. This is an absolutely mind-boggling factoid and a testament to the outstanding job Nick Saban has done leading the Crimson Tide since he arrived at the team in 2007. Despite ridiculous levels of staff turnover, he has managed to churn out dominant seasons year after year. In 4th and Goal Everyday, former Saban co-worker (the two worked together as assistants under Bill Belichick with the Browns), ex-Browns General Manager (the less said about that the better, to his credit he did draft Joe Thomas), and current Alabama radio analyst and Executive Director of the Senior Bowl Phil Savage investigates the secrets to Saban's success at Alabama.

I approached the book with some trepidation because its presumably publishing house-decided title seemed ridiculously cliched and portended a slew of clunky metaphors and hagiographic prose. And yes, Saban comes off very well (there is a brief section on his less-than-stellar tenure with the Miami Dolphins, but it's not particularly long or thoughtful), but there is some substance between talking about how great and successful he is. Savage is able to leverage his connections with Saban to share stories from their days as NFL assistants and how working under Belichick shaped Saban's coaching philosophies. He is still very close to Saban and even writes up film notes for Saban to help prepare for games, but this isn't a fly-on-the-wall account of a season in the life of Saban. Rather, Savage relies mostly on anecdotes and interviews with former players and coaches to help the reader understand how Saban operates. Thankfully, he is able to get a wide array of former Tide players to open up about their experiences and his stories from the Browns also help the reader learn about what shaped Saban during his formative coaching years.

So what makes Saban so great? Savage offers several reasons, dividing his book into the various contributors to the Tide's dynastic run over the last few years. Some factors include emphasizing fundamentals, a tremendous emphasis on recruiting (which has to be helped by the Tide's status as a SEC juggernaut, it's much easier to get talented players when you're located in a high school football hotbed and are consistently the best college team in the country), and constant desire for improvement and innovation and adapting to and setting trends. He is also excellent at developing talent, to the point where some NFL scouts ding Alabama prospects because they assume that Saban has milked all he can out of them and they have basically hit their skill ceilings.

The reader gains considerable insight into Saban's quirks and personality. He is obsessed with little details and perfectionist puts a lot of pressure on himself and his players and fellow coaches, with this high-stakes ethos serving as the source for the (rather cheesy, to be honest) title of this book. Anecdotes such as how Bill Belichick forced Savage to run tryouts for Browns ball boys illustrate the "no detail is too small" philosophy that Saban adheres to at Bama. Savage also details several coaching innovations over the last several decades that Saban is leveraging, such as the Cowboys' data-driven approach to drafting players that began in the early days of the franchise.

Overall, 4th and Goal Everyday is a pleasant read for Alabama fans and anyone interested in how dominant college football programs operate. Savage devotes plenty of time to X's and O's such as why Saban stopped recruiting traditional Nose Tackles and how he coaches defensive backs but also how he fosters a culture of winning and more off-the-field matters. It definitely seems geared towards Alabama supporters, and even die-hard fans may get a bit bored by Savage monotonously detailing recent major Alabama games, but all in all it's a decent read. You're not going to get a deep psychoanalytical investigation into Saban (I doubt he's the kind of person to really open up all that much about anything anyway) but you will finish with a better understanding of how he has been so successful for so long at Alabama.

6.5 /10

With the recent long run of success by the Alabama Crimson Tide football program, this book looked like the perfect source of information on why the Tide has been the most successful it had been since the days of Paul “Bear” Bryant. The author, Phil Savage, certainly has the pedigree to write about this. His long career in football as a coach, scout and general manager, as well as his current position as a radio analyst for the Crimson Tide certainly places him in a position to intimately know the workings of the football team.

The reader will learn about Coach Nick Saban (for whom the author worked as an assistant coach with the Cleveland Browns) and his involvement of every aspect of the football program. From recruiting to practice to film sessions to game day, the reader will be given a guided tour inside the program, learning about it from coaches, players (both current and former) and Savage himself as he has been connected to Alabama football since he was a very young fan.

My reservation about the book is that Savage’s style of taking the reader on this tour comes across to me as arrogant and elitist. Throughout the book, Savage reminds the reader of Alabama’s recent string of championship and near-championship seasons and whatever part of the program is being discussed, well, it is just the best way to approach the task. For a comparison, living in an area where there are a lot of New York Yankee fans, this sounds much like them – we are successful and we will constantly remind you. There is no argument that Alabama has been the best college football program for the last decade. I was just hoping to learn why it was, not to have this fact be constantly repeated through the book.

Despite my misgivings about this writing style, I do give the book a passing grade for the insight, the knowledge and the details that Savage shares with the readers. This book is one that every Crimson Tide fan will want to read – but Auburn Tiger fans may want to think twice before buying.

I wish to thank St. Martin’s Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.