1928–2000 · American college football coach; Bear Bryant assistant at Alabama 1958–60, head coach at Virginia Tech 1961–70
Jerry Claiborne (26 August 1928 – 24 September 2000) played for Bryant at Kentucky and then followed him as an assistant to Texas A&M and Alabama before building his own long head-coaching career at Virginia Tech, Maryland and Kentucky. He was coaching Virginia Tech, not Alabama or Kentucky, in September 1970. Bryant said Claiborne made the remark after scouting Alabama against USC; how and when it reached Bryant is not documented. Claiborne is the name most often attached to the famous sentence, but the only documented trace of it is Bryant repeating a much milder version of what Claiborne supposedly said.