It might have been one of football’s largest contrasts of personality. In 1988, Alabama head coach Nick Saban arrived in Houston, joining the coaching staff of the NFL’s Oilers.

Saban was from the Don James coaching tree. He was buttoned up, used to always having a tight schedule and plan for every minute of the day.

The exact opposite of Oilers head coach Jerry Glanville.

“Everything that you think you need to do to be successful as a coach, organizationally, we didn’t do,” Saban said Thursday during his weekly radio show, comparing Glanville to late Mississippi State head coach Mike Leach as unique personalities in the sport. “We didn’t have a notebook. I mean who in their right mind ever heard of a coach in the NFL or college or anything else that doesn’t have a notebook? When I got the job, he handed me a notebook. It was 1975 Atlanta Falcons. Now this is 1988 or (1989).”

Saban, who might have got his years slightly off, as Glanville was with the Detroit Lions in 1975 and didn’t join the Falcons until 1977, questioned his new boss on how he was going to learn the defense. Glanville said the Oilers would teach it to him, but he didn’t want it on paper for someone else to see.

He went on to note that Glanville never had a practice plan or script of the plays he wanted to run. He contested it to Alabama which heavily scripts its offensive and defensive calls before a practice.

Saban also said Glanville didn’t have an install sheet or any sort of practice plan that he put on paper.

“There was no preparation time as a coach,” Saban said. “When you walked on the field, if you know what’s coming you can go study your book and say ‘OK, I know that I know this stuff so when I go in front of the players today I’m gonna know what I’m talking about. None. None. You talk about making you a better coach. You had to know everything like that because you didn’t know what was coming next.”

Saban continued to marvel at the way Glanville ran the operation in Houston during the two seasons he spent as a defensive backs coach there. The Oilers made the playoffs in each of those years.

“Now we had good players, which that might be the lesson in all of it,” Saban said. “But he was a really good coach. He was a really good teacher on the field. The players had respect for him, he was very enthusiastic, very positive. But I grew up under Don James when every minute of every day was organized.”

The show’s host, Alabama play-by-play broadcaster Eli Gold shared his own memories of Glanville, who he worked with calling NASCAR races. According to Gold, Glanville would ask him one question during the rehearsals, then go into a totally different topic during the actual race.

Gold said Glanville told him he did it to keep him honest.

The story prompted another Saban memory of Glanville, who is still coaching football into his 80s according to the Toledo Blade. Glanville, who was known for leaving tickets at will call for Elvis Presley while coaching the Oilers, also tried his hand at racing, driving in NASCAR’s Nationwide and trucks series.

According to Saban, Glanville would occasionally take his coaching staff out somewhere in lieu of an afternoon meeting.

“Nobody knew where we were going, nobody knew what we were gonna do” Saban said. “Sometimes we went to the movie, whole staff. But sometimes we went to Houston motor speedway and next thing I know, instead of being in a meeting, I’m sitting in that car, floored, waiting for that green light to come on and see how fast you can go down the thing. I’m like ‘This is our afternoon meeting?’”

More: Casagrande: Let’s talk about sports, finding a new passion at 180 MPH