SIDELINE SHOWS: Alabama coach Nick Saban (left) and his LSU counterpart, Les Miles, take far different approaches to coaching. (AP)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Beatles had the Stones. John McEnroe had Bjorn Borg. Ferrari has Maserati.

And Nick Saban has Les Miles.

The Alabama coach has beaten his LSU counterpart a couple of times — and vice versa — but Miles occupies a utility closet in Saban’s head. It is filled with crazy play calls, one-liners, bizarre sideline behavior and cartons of LSU hats, one of which always seems to be on Miles’ head.

Miles, aka The Mad Hatter, smiles more in one hour than Saban does in a month — during the offseason.

This does not compute in the World According to Nick. Football is a game of focus and discipline and desire and detail — especially detail, especially in a game such as tonight, when the No. 2 Crimson Tide host No. 1 LSU in the game of the year.

In Saban’s world, there is no time to laugh. There are no reporters to charm. There isn’t a booster whose back needs to be slapped.

Saban is X’s-and-O’s.

Miles is Y’s-and-Z’s.

Miles will start a postgame press conference marveling about the facilities at Cowboys Stadium, where LSU throttled Oregon, 41-27, earlier this season. He will regale the media with nostalgic tales about his relationship with retired coaches.

When Saban was halfway though his postgame press conference three years ago after Alabama had beaten Auburn to snap a six-game Tigers win streak in the Iron Bowl, a reporter asked the coach if he was happy.

An anchor on the Weather Channel shows more excitement over a low pressure system than Saban did after that game. Saban assured the media the he was happy.

He said he had just danced a jig with his wife, Miss Terry, as he calls her, in the locker room. Really? Saban danced in front of his players?

Nope. Never happened, said the players.

“Nick enjoys the perception that he has no personality,’’ CBS color commentator Gary Danielson told The Post. “Because when he walks in a room to recruit a player or coach a player they go, ‘Oh, wow!’ Here’s how Nick takes advantage of that. You walk in a room and you feel you’re the only one that’s been charmed by Nick. He’s a brute to everybody else, but, boy, how nice he is to me. He creates a relationship where you think you’re the only one who gets to be close to Nick.’’

Is anyone close to Nick? By all accounts he is a good family man, a solid citizen who stepped up after a tornado ripped through Tuscaloosa in the spring and undoubtedly a superb football coach who has won two national championships, one at LSU and one at Alabama.

But the guy sure looks as if he could use a week at Canyon Ranch.

Now this Miles guy, he’s gearing up for an audition on Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”

“It’s crazy,” LSU senior linebacker Ryan Baker said at SEC Media Days this summer. “He’s a character. I remember my freshman year, it was before camp. He came in one day and he had the headband on that he has in the basketball video, and he had on these real tight shorts. He came in and was doing a dance.”

Miles has been caught on camera munching blades of grass on the sideline during a close game. His players get a kick out of seeing him bobbing his head to the music being pumped through his headphones on team flights.

“We never know what to expect from our coach, and we love it,” Baker said. “We go into every game not knowing what to expect, no matter the situation. He’s unpredictable, and we love it.”

In a 28-24 win over Florida in 2007, Miles went for it in on fourth-and-1. Five times! That’s not the World According to Nick.

And that’s why LSU has a chance today — because Les Miles is hiding in a closet in Nick Saban’s head, waiting to jump out and try something just crazy enough to win.