Nick Saban: It hits all by itself

My buddy Joe was telling me the other day about a radio interview he heard with Alabama Coach Nick Saban.

Essentially Saban said he knows what he wants to do on defense, he recruits the right players for it, then he dictates that right down the other team's throat. But on offense Saban rejected the idea of having a specific philosophy, even though many argue it's important for an offense to have a clear identity.

I can't find this interview online, but Saban has made this point before:

"Our philosophy is we want to utilize the players we have on offense," Saban said following Alabama's second practice of Fall camp Friday. "We start with that. There were times at LSU when we led the SEC in passing and there were times when we led the league in rushing. There were times when we scored a lot of points and there were times when we were hard to score on. ...

"The bottom line is, we don't have a philosophy."

It didn't take long to remember where I'd heard that before. It was Bruce Lee's philosophy of martial arts, laid out at the beginning of Enter the Dragon.