GOAT Slaying 101: Smart is to Saban as Dye was to Bryant

If you're of a certain age and you took the SAT back in the day, you remember the analogy questions all too well. They went like this: Blank is to blank as blank is/was to blank.

The question filled in the first two blanks. You had to choose the pair that best completed the analogy. Like so: Kirby Smart is to Nick Saban as Pat Dye was to Bear Bryant.

No need for multiple choices. There is only one correct answer here.

It may be the ultimate compliment to two legends who set the bar impossibly high until they inevitably had to pass the baton. Good coaches win. Great coaches win championships, plural. GOATs do all that and then some. They raise the coaching sons that grow up to help nudge them from the stage and take their place.

Call them home-grown GOAT slayers.

It happened with Bryant and Dye, and if you're seasoned enough, it feels like deja vu all over again with Saban and Smart. With the true post-spring off-season upon us, it's worth a deeper dive. ...

Read the rest of Kevin's column on the eerie parallels between these coaching legends and their most impactful proteges. Only in the Lede.

Four college football coaching legends: Pat Dye and Bear Bryant, Kirby Smart and Nick Saban (Photo illustration: KS)