One of the oldest adages in football is that defense wins championships.
San Jose SaberCats head coach Darren Arbet tends to disagree.
"I think the teams that make the least amount of mistakes win football games," says Coach Arbet.
If anyone should know, it's Coach Arbet.
Darren Arbet, in his 10th season as head coach of the SaberCats, is a three-time ArenaBowl champion (2002, 2004, and 2007) and a two-time Arena Football League Coach of the Year (2000, 2002). His 107 regular-season victories rank him fourth all-time in AFL history and his 13 postseason wins are good enough for third all-time in AFL history.
"Games are won out on the practice field and that's something I try to instill in the players," says Coach Arbet. "Everyone has to be on the same page. You have to come out and practice hard, go after each other and compete. You have to have guys who love to compete."
Much like asking a father to choose his favorite child, Arbet could not choose which of his three championship teams was his favorite.
"All the teams are different," he replied. "We're all in this thing because we're competitive and every year is a different year and you have to win it a different way. All of them were fun and I enjoyed all of them."
One of the trademarks of Arbet's SaberCats is their ability to catch fire towards the end of the season. In the past three seasons, his teams have headed into the playoffs riding winning streaks of seven, 10, and six games, respectively. Over his 10 seasons as a head coach, his teams have closed the regular-season with a winning streak of five games or more a whopping five times.
The mastermind behind the SaberCats isn't so quick to absorb all of the credit though.
"The thing I like about these guys is that once they're here they put in the time and as more time passes by they start hitting on all cylinders," Arbet said of this year's end-of-season success.
"The guys have a great work ethic and determine that they want to get better everyday."
A humble yet confident man, one area where even Arbet is at a loss is how his team will respond coming off of a bye week when they play host to the Colorado Crush this Saturday in the Divisional Round of the AFL playoffs.
"I guess we'll find out Saturday," Arbet said with a laugh.
One would assume that the bye should have no effect on the SaberCats.
After all, defense does not win champions; Darren Arbet does.
Coach Darren Arbet can be seen on Russell Athletic ESPN Arena Football Saturday, July 5th on ESPN at 3:00 P.M. ET when the Colorado Crush (7-10) travel to San Jose to play the San Jose SaberCats (11-5) in the Divisional Round of the AFL Playoffs.