Iowa, Purdue once ran like wild bull over Nick Saban

Last Sunday, “60 Minutes” aired a 13-minute segment on Nick Saban, who is probably on his way to his third-straight national football championship at Alabama.

The next time that show profiles a Big Ten coach, the 12th-best team of the league's 20 members will be going to a third-tier bowl game on Mars.

But since Iowa plays Purdue Saturday, I'm writing about the great Saban. Why? Because it's better than dwelling on a dull matchup in West Lafayette. Plus, there's a Fun Fact involved.

Namely, the Hawkeyes and Boilermakers owned this guy when he was Michigan State's coach from 1995 to 1999.

Now and forever, Hayden Fry will have a 2-0 record against Saban. In 1995 at East Lansing, Sedrick Shaw set an Iowa record for carries in a game, with 42. He gained 250 yards. The Hawkeyes handled MSU, 21-7.

“He ran like a wild bull,” Fry said.

“We put it down their mouths, basically,” Iowa offensive tackle Ross Verba said.

Can you imagine anyone rushing for 250 yards this year against one of his Saban's Alabama teams? If so, you're a crazy dreamer.

In 1996, Matt Sherman threw three touchdown passes and Iowa overcame a 17-0 deficit to beat the Spartans, 37-30. MSU fumbled five kickoffs in the game. It lost only one, but can you imagine a Saban-coached Crimson Tide team fumbling five kickoffs? If so, you're a crazy dreamer.

Iowa and Michigan State didn't play each other again until 1999, Kirk Ferentz's first season as the Hawkeyes' coach. MSU destroyed Iowa 49-3 at East Lansing, then Saban left for LSU.

But Saban's final game in his five seasons as LSU's coach was the Capital One Bowl at the end of the 2004 season, a year after the Tigers won the national title. It was Tate-to-Holloway on the last play, and Ferentz's Hawkeyes stole it, 30-25.

So, the tally is Iowa 3, Saban 1. Not the stuff of “60 Minutes,” is it?

Iowa's opponent today, the totally dreadful Purdue Boilermakers, used to play entertaining, competitive football. Jim Colletto was 0-1-1 against Saban's Spartans when he was the Boilermakers' coach. But then came Joe Tiller, who immediately made Purdue football watchable after six years of foundering under Colletto.

Tiller beat Saban's teams by one point in 1997 and 1998, then walloped them 52-28 in 1999, Saban's last season at MSU. Drew Brees threw five first-half touchdown passes.

So, the tally is Purdue 3, Saban 1, with one tie.

What was college football ever thinking with ties, by the way? Iowa had 39 of them in its football history. Twenty-five years ago, Iowa's Big Ten record under Fry was 4-1-3. That would be a really good record in soccer. But in the 1988 football season, we never did figure out what 4-1-3 was. It only got the Hawkeyes to the Peach Bowl.

After seasons of 6-5-1, 6-6, 7-5 and 6-6, Saban led the Spartans to a 9-2 mark in 1999. He jetted off to LSU before Michigan State played in the Florida Citrus Bowl. You could say his career took off from there.

Meanwhile, someone emailed this week to tell me he bought two tickets to Saturday's Iowa-Purdue game on StubHub for 25 cents each. Some might call it a bargain. Some.