Missouri coach Gary Pinkel and Alabama coach Nick Saban are two of the 10 active winningest coaches in college football.

Saban’s team is No. 1 in the country, recruits five-star prospects with regularity and has a habit of winning championships. Pinkel’s squad is searching for its first conference title since 1969, doesn’t have high-ranked recruiting classes and rarely is met with championship expectations from outsiders. But, each has made his mark on multiple programs while compiling a combined 361 victories (185 for Pinkel, 176 for Saban).

There is one common thread between Pinkel and Saban, though, that dates to their playing days and early coaching days. Both played for and got their coaching starts from the late Don James.

James, a longtime Washington coach who led the Huskies to a share of the 1991 national title, died at the age of 80 last year after a battle with pancreatic cancer. It was during James’ time at Kent State, from 1971-74 that he coached Pinkel and Saban. When James earned his first college head-coaching job in 1971 at Kent State, Pinkel and Saban were on that team, which won the school’s first and only MAC championship.

“He's had a huge effect on me personally,” Pinkel said of James. “I mean, I'm indebted to him forever.”

Pinkel got his coaching start as a graduate assistant at Kent State under James in 1974. He later joined James, a 1997 College Football Hall of Fame inductee, as a GA for a year in 1976 at Washington then again in 1979 as a Huskies full-time assistant, where he remained with James for a dozen years before landing his first head coaching job, at Toledo in 1991.

“I coached with him for 12 years at the University of Washington, the last five years as offensive coordinator and quarterback coach,” Pinkel said. “The program that we put in at Toledo where I was coach for 10 years, then we brought it here to Missouri, the infrastructure is [based] on James' program.”

It has worked well for Pinkel, who is 185-102-3 in 24 years as a head coach and is taking Missouri to its fourth conference championship game since 2007.

Saban, who was a year ahead of Pinkel at Kent State, said coaching wasn’t a desired career path for him until James offered him his first job.

“I never really wanted to be a coach,” Saban said. “Coach James asked me to be a graduate assistant. My wife had another year of school, so I decided to do it, even though I didn't want to go to graduate school.”

Turns out that Saban enjoyed the job and it began the journey that put him to where he is now, with an impressive .751 winning percentage in 18 years as a head coach (176-58-1).

“I really liked it,” Saban said of his first job under James. “I have thanked Coach James many, many times for inspiring me into the opportunity to do it. Also a lot of the lessons that I learned from him starting out as a young coach.”

Saban said there are several aspects of his program that are rooted in things he learned from James, who was 178-76-3 in his head coaching career.

“It starts with how we recruit players, how we evaluate players, character and attitude, how those things sort of play into it, how you sort of try to find out those things about players so you get the kind of guys that are a good fit for your program,” Saban said. “That was a big thing that Don always emphasized. He was really, really well organized. That's something that we've always tried to be and do. Some of the things we did in the offseason program we still do. Some of the conditioning things we do during the season we still do.”

Pinkel also said his recruiting philosophy is based on the teachings of his longtime mentor.

“We think we've developed players as good as anybody in the country,” Pinkel said. “We have a plan and infrastructure set in to do that, professionally, personally, academically, player development. We have our system. It's a system that I learned from Don James when I was a coach with him at the University of Washington. We tweaked it a little bit. You always try to make it better.”

Like Saban, Pinkel also praised James’ organizational skills.

“He was an organizational genius,” Pinkel said. “The detail of organizing every little tiny aspect of your football program, having a plan in place for everything, evaluate everything you do after you do it. ... I would say that in itself is probably as important as anything I've done, I've learned from him.”

Pinkel and Saban may have traveled different journeys to get to this point, but James’ influence on both is clear as they prepare to square off in Saturday’s SEC championship game.

“Don was one of the best coaches to me of all time,” Saban said. “He was my coach, had a great impact on my life. I certainly appreciate him more than anyone could know for the start that he sort of inspired me to have as a coach.

“A lot of his influences really affected our coaching career.”