FOXBORO -- While Nick Saban has pledged to stay with the Miami Dolphins "until the job is finished," his success may come at the expense of his friendship with Bill Belichick.

Things have been pretty different for the longtime friends since Saban accepted the head coaching position at Miami nearly two years ago. As AFC East rivals, the Dolphins and the Patriots play each other twice a year and as both men say, they're in competition 365 days a year.

"I talk to Nick, but I haven't talked to him this week," Belichick said on Friday. "I consider Nick a good friend, he's obviously an outstanding coach, and it's hard when, you know, they're in your division. It's hard to have the same kind of relationship with a coach you're in the same division with."

Belichick and Saban met in the early 1980s when Saban was coaching at Ohio State and Belichick was with the New York Giants. Saban briefly coached at Navy, where he worked with Belichick's late father, Steve.

Eventually, Bill Belichick became head coach of the Cleveland Browns, and brought Saban onto his staff. Adroit at defensive scheming like his boss, Saban did well as the Browns' defensive coordinator and became head coach at Michigan State in 1995, Belichick's final year in Cleveland.

Though they no longer worked together, Belichick and Saban continued to bounce ideas off one another. Belichick said that he trusts Saban's judgment and ideas so fully that when Saban said a play or scheme wasn't working, he just tried to fix it from the point where Saban had encountered difficulties, not retracing the steps his friend had already taken.

But much of that had to end once Saban came to Miami. Belichick did joke at the time about the uniqueness of having two Croatian coaches in the same division, and while they still talk about family life, there's no more talk about strategy, potential draftees or free agents.

Earlier this year, as the Dolphins struggled in the opening weeks, Saban said he missed his football chats with Belichick because at the time -- with his team 1-3 -- he could have used his friend's help.

He has said much the same in the past.

"We don't talk as much as we used to, especially about football. That is a bit unfortunate because I enjoyed that. It was part of the growth and development that you have or continue to have as a coach," Saban said. "On the other hand, it is not personal."

Belichick likened his current relationship with Saban to the one he used to have with Pittsburgh's Bill Cowher when he was with the Browns.

"Bill and I -- even though we had never coached together -- I consider Bill a good friend and somebody that we talked and had a good professional relationship," said Belichick. "But when I went to Cleveland, there's no lack of respect. Nobody was mad at anybody, it's just we were going against each other twice a year. Now that I'm not at Cleveland, we're in the same AFC, (but) it's not like you're in the same division. We have more of the relationship than we had before I went to Cleveland, so I think that's fairly common."

But Saban still has the lessons he learned by working with Belichick, and has put some of them to work for him. It's probably not a coincidence that the only two losses the Chicago Bears have suffered this year were to the Dolphins and Patriots, with their fluid defenses and different looks from one play to the next.

"I certainly learned a lot of good things from Bill in terms of the systematic approach to defining things so that everybody in the organization understands what you want, what's expected and what they are looking for, not only in players, but in how you want to get things done," Saban said. "I think that systematic approach is probably one of the biggest things that I was able to take away from him."

The system has worked for Belichick. If it works for Saban, he may have to beat one of his mentors on the way to the top.

smanza@projo.com / (401) 277-7340