There were some whispers following the CFB semi-finals that Nick Saban might walk away but they were hard to believe and brushed off in most places. On Wednesday night, news broke that it was actually happening. At the age of 72, one of the college football titans is officially hanging it up. The 2024 college football season will be played without Nick Saban.
Nick Saban is retiring, sources tell ESPN. He won six national titles at Alabama.
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) January 10, 2024
To say this is massive news for the sport is an understatement. Suddenly, as we hurl towards the first ever 12-team college football playoff one of the premier jobs opens up which could set off a chain reaction all across the nation.
Here are a few quick thoughts as I process this breaking news.
#1 The One That Got Away
I will always lament the fact that Nick Saban missed out on coaching at Notre Dame. Or rather, that the Irish missed out on hiring him. Early in his career with Alabama he took on a much more villainous role for rivals fans and as he aged I think the stance on Saban softened quite a bit. For someone who spent such a long time at a blue-blood and had his team playing at such a high level it became apparent that Saban did things the right way (at least in a SEC framework) and his character was pretty hard to denigrate.
I’ve said it for years and years–Saban would’ve been awesome at Notre Dame. Fans were tortured over the failed acquisition of someone like Urban Meyer but no one would’ve had guaranteed success in South Bend quite like Saban.
While there was never much of a flirtation period like there was with Meyer–Saban was right there up the road at Michigan State exactly when Notre Dame should’ve realized their mistakes post-Holtz and he was needed most. After the 1999 season, Notre Dame decided for 2 more seasons with Bob Davie while Saban went off to LSU. We could’ve saved ourselves so much grief and anguish! Perhaps Saban never spends a quarter century in South Bend and retires like this in his early 70’s but damn if Notre Dame wouldn’t have profited gloriously with him coaching for a long time under the golden dome.
#2 Simply the Best
Nick Saban’s resume throughout his career is just absurd to reflect upon now that he’s retired. Some brief nuggets:
- 7 National Championships
- 18 seasons of 10+ wins (including his final 16 seasons at Alabama)
- 9 seasons with 1 or fewer losses
- 18 seasons with 2 or fewer losses
- NCAA record for wins against unranked opponents
- 4 Heisman winners
- 49 picks in the NFL Draft 1st round
- 10 classes that finished no. 1 nationally in the Rivals rankings
- Signed 65 prospects who were Rivals 5-stars in 17 seasons at Alabama
We could spend all day listing more achievements. In major bowls or those championship games he ended up 15-8 combined at LSU and Alabama. If you took a list of Notre Dame’s biggest wins and Alabama’s biggest wins since 2008 and created a list of 100 games, how many from the Irish make it to that list?
I think Saban will go down as the greatest coach ever, certainly the best ever coach in the modern era.
#3 Who’s Filling These Shoes?
Good luck to Saban’s successor. This is not a job anyone should take lightly–especially coming off a season where the Tide looked as mortal as they have in maybe 15 years–and with a deep stable of Saban assistants either firmly entrenched elsewhere (Kirby Smart ain’t leaving Georgia) or firmly out to pasture. Their defensive coordinator just retired, too.
Remember, with Saban’s retirement a 30-day transfer portal window opens up for everyone at Alabama. No matter how much talent they have today, the roster could be an unholy mess in a matter of days.
Some credible names to take over the Tide being thrown around by the media include:
Dan Lanning (Oregon)
Steve Sarkisian (Texas)
Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss)
Dabo Swinney (Clemson)
Mike Norvell (FSU)
Kalen DeBoer (Washington)
Buyouts for potential Alabama head coach candidates
Dan Lanning — $20 million
Kalen DeBoer — $12 million
Dabo Swinney — $7.5 million
James Franklin — $6 million
Mike Norvell — $4 million— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) January 10, 2024
The scuttlebutt within the media seems to coalescing around Lanning tonight which might be Alabama’s best bet for a high ceiling coach–but also one of the most expensive options and not an easy situation to pry away from the Ducks and Nike’s money.
Years ago, it seemed like Swinney was destined to return to Tuscaloosa but he’s proven to be too weird and his stance(s) in the NIL era probably don’t jive well with the Alabama faithful.
Sarkisian and Kiffin, while familiar, are too damaged I would think.
I don’t believe James Franklin is a candidate for one second. No way.
DeBoer is an interesting choice, but I would think a little too unproven and he lacks the experience in the SEC and southeast part of the country to the point where the Tide may be way too uncomfortable taking that leap.
Norvell is a really interesting choice and he could be had for pennies, relatively speaking in the world of college football. He’s exhibited he can turn around a major program under pressure and he’s definitely proven to be a fantastic recruiter. With the pain of this past season and the shaky future of the ACC, would he be willing to walk away from the Seminoles and take the Alabama job if offered?
Would Freeman be a candidate??
https://x.com/PeteThamel/status/1745226874723168435?s=20
Sad emoji!!! No thank you
My kneejerk choice would be Kiffin or Sark — guys who coached under Saban recently and who have been decently successful HCs elsewhere. That’s probably the best choice to maintain Saban’s infrastructure without doing an internal promotion, which no one on Bama’s staff is qualified for.
But yeesh, for as attractive as a job as Bama is, that’s a really tough hire to make.
Coaching salaries are about to go nuts again.
Bama fans generally agree on those two as the most realistic choices. Lanning may well have gotten a significant raise to stay at Oregon from Phil Knight and used the visit to obtain it. Alabama’s contract with Nike runs through 2025.
James Franklin’s agent still absolutely hustling to get his guy’s name out there.
Ha, when I saw that I came down here to comment “James Franklin’s agent is doing *work*” but you beat me to it.
but also I’d be worried that Penn State might get a worrying upgrade at coach
Tim Hyde had some strong thoughts on Franklin on the B&G podcast last night. He’s not a fan.
Pete Carroll’s head coaching career also appears over today. I know he’s been in the pros for a while now but he was my first real “villain” coach. Saban and Carroll went, I believe, a combined 13-1 against ND, so no tears from me over them being gone
Fuck Pete Carroll.
Some strong feelings on RollBamaRoll about Brian Kelly. One poster would “refuse to watch bama ball ever again if Brian Kelly was HC. No way in hell. Dudes a fn murderer.” (Declan Sullivan reference) Another said that he “prefers coaching and support staff alive”. Another says Kelly has “absolutely no shot. He is not a good recruiter, and he is an ethical and legal calamity”. One poster was very proud that his school had the two best HCs in college footballl history, which I could agree with until I noticed he was an Alabama fan. I’ll even admit Saban and Bryant are close seconds.
There’s something to admire about a HC dedicated to his school and their football success and will stay for more than five years building a program and developing players for life. Too many Willie Taggerts and expectations that money can lure the next big name to your school. I hope Lanning and DeBoer stay.
I was going to say, I can’t really see BK to Bama but I know his agent is going to put it out there so he can get a nice new contract either way
The word carpetbagger still has meaning to many Southerners and applicable in his case. Saban, Kiffin and Sark have earned respect as has Rees evidently. I could see BK at Michigan after a Harbaugh exit trumpeting the move as his dream school as always.
Logan Diggs has committed to Ole Miss.
I don’t think it has to do with BK being a carpetbagger unlike those other guys, I think it has to do with BK being an unlikable jerk at best even if a very good coach.
I’m comfortable with a bag of crap covered in glitter or pig in a poke. One poster on RBR said his son offered Deon Sanders as a replacement to which he said Shut your mouth, pack your bags and leave. In the context of an expanding SEC, I’ll wait to see BK’s results in a. program where coaches come. to die or transfer out of.
To answer the headline question – yes, I think so, in terms of being a big (winner) which obviously is about as important as it gets. However, I stump for Bill Snyder as far as being the GOAT coach for value over prior expectations/experience/what the program was.
Excellent point, it sort of brings up further defining criteria for success? Is it taking a historically horrid program and building them into a consistently good to great, not elite one (snyder), or is it the absolute dominance, given all available resources of saban?
Most coaches couldn’t do what they did in either situation… see jimbo at A&M, but is one scenario better than the other? Or… could saban replicate snyder’s results at KSU, and snyder at alabama?
It reminds me of my buddy who trains olympic athletes, how hes super interested in the exponential amount of work taking someone performing at 98% of their peak ability, and squeezing the extra 1-2%, whereas when I coached high schoolers, I derived a ton of joy getting people from like 20% to 75 or 80% with an equivalent amount of effort. (In no way am I saying I’m an equivalent coach to someone at the olympic training center though), and this may be too coarse a comparison, but snyder and saban could be equals as successful coaches, given slightly different criteria
In CFB, I think you can’t ignore available resources. What Saban did was incredible, but he also did it within a historic program in the best conference. I think you have to give major credit to anyone that can build a program outside of the traditional powerhouses.
Saban definitely had resources, no question about it. An administration and booster network that wanted Bama at the top. However, it’s easy to forget that Bama kind of sucked when he took over, so it’s not like just anyone could have had the success he did.
Again, I am not trying to downplay what he did. His level of success in this era is absurd. I just think subway alum raised a good question.
Chuck Martin vs. Nick Saban?
If you’re talking chuck martin when he was at grand valley state, then theres a case to be made; chucky lost 3 conference games in 6 years, 2 of those coming his first season (yo’ boi was apart of the third!) And he won 2 d2 titles in 6 seasons, but even all that, I’d still give the nod to saban
With the tremendous resources, also comes tremendous expectations; how short was his leash early on? Granted, saban delivered in a short time frame, but just the pressure from EVERYONE affiliated with bama could drive some to madness.
Some people are born and bred for the big time, saban is in rarefied air.
Really hope a reporter asks Saban who had the better coaching career, him or Bill Snyder.
He’s obviously not been active for a while and this feels like maybe a hotter take than it should be, but Bobby Bowden is kind of a mix of both and maybe deserves a mention in that category. I bring him up too because he least coached into the recent modern era.
Mel Tucker’s availble…
Don’t be a jerk
I mean I can name pretty much every alabama loss after the auburn cam newton loss in 2010. That’s wild, right? I mean saban defined this era of college football. definitely the goat in my mind
let’s try this
2011 lsu game of the century
2012 manziel game
2013 kick six
2014/15 ole miss
2014 ohio state playoff game
2016 clemson championship
2017 auburn
2018 clemson championship
2019 burrow shootout (forgot the insane mac jones auburn game)
2021 texas am and georgia championship (which they would’ve won had both wideouts not got hurt)
2022 tennessee and lsu last play road losses
2023 texas and that’s it. they definitely didn’t lose in the playoffs
Perfectly concise and accurate.
i think the only one you’re missing is the 2013 Sugar Bowl vs Oklahoma after the Kick SIx game
Oh good catch, definitely forgot about that. pretty crazy that is their least memorable loss for like a 15 year stretch
I’m surprised nobody has posted about how working with a Rees offense was so terrible that Saban chose retirement over doing it a second time.
https://x.com/patrick_mayhorn/status/1745209999020994584?s=20
I got you
or since it didn’t automatically embed it
Best part of this is this became the biggest news story in CFB this week. Saban rained on the parade. And for years to come this will still be more noteworthy than anything else this week.
Bama should hire Harbaugh to really put the icing on the cake.
How about Ryan Day and his staff and players?
Even if there might have been a chance for Saban to come to ND, say in the late 90s or early 2000s, I think the best case for us would have been winning one title like he did at LSU and then trying his luck at the NFL. The 15 years of dominance at Bama was not something we were going to see, even with Saban on our sideline. There’s also a big question whether he would have been able to have success with the shackles that the administration put on the football program, especially back then.
Saban overrecruited to obtain his success setting an example for so many other coaches to attempt to replicate. So many young men across those programs did not have a chance to obtain a quality education. Hesburgh and subsequent ND administrations and coaches did not pursue the overrecruiting, which with NCAA lack of rules nowadays is a bygone concept. Colorado under Deon may be an extreme example rebuilding a program. Lanning at Oregon had over sixty transfers out in the two years before 2024. Of course that would not happen at Notre Dame where we commit to a four year education. Those are the “shackles” for Notre Dame success both on the field and off.
Some Alabama players may transfer out with the thirty day window exemption. Lanning is in Tuscaloosa. Oregon fans and alumni to whom Lanning assured that he would remain for years to come and was very happy in Eugene. Alabama has said they would have a new coach within seventy-two hours, which is what you have to do to minimize those transfers.
I imagine that should Lanning leave Oregon his players would have that same thirty day window to transfer out without that knowledge and preparation for the surprise departure of a HC. To continue to the exmple, whomever Oregon would choose as his replacement outside of their current staff, their university’s football players have that same thirty day transfer window.
Should that or any other choice happen to replace Saban, I imagine their fan base and alumni would send a big F**k You to Alabama, to Saban and to what college football has become – except at ND and some others that commit to that four year scholarship.
This is not at all a statement about Saban’s quality or legacy but it is kinda funny which is more important
The South Florida Bulls were the 4th and final road non conference game for Nick Saban Alabama
The other 3
Also, just want to circle back to your mid-season “should be a quiet coaching cycle” comment and see your thoughts on it now lmao. Gonna be a wild month or so.
What hath I wrought?
Saban was definitely a home run hire for Bama, hopefully they hire a great coach that doesn’t match the success of Saban, so they fire them, and go on a long slow decline to mediocrity, not coming out of it for say 30 years or so.
Which leads me to an idea for an offseason article. You can review the coaching hires at ND based on where the program was when the coach was hired and what they did for it over their tenure. Strikeout through homerun.
Myopically I just don’t want this to have a negative effect on us, so with that in mind:
The betting market odds on it being Freeman have shifted from ~+2000 when Saban announced to ~+4000 now, so moving in the right direction for us.
Roberts says it’s not Freeman, for what that’s worth, too.
When we make the playoffs in 2024 and give HCMF his giant extension it had better have a Lanning-esque mid-eight figure buyout.
HCMF now +10000 (which is 100 to 1, but also the best chance I’ll get to use this gif).
Lanning is staying at Oregon. Bama fans do not want Dabo. Bama may go after DeBoer but Grubb turned them down for OC last year. DeBoer would want to bring his staff. Grubb replacing Rees? Sark has probably got all he wants in Austin with an extension probably coming to increase his $5 mill buyout. Norvell is a possibility. Belichick is free and why not go after a NFL coach? Internal staff hire? Tuskaloosa continues searching.
Which program is optimal for their new coach to poach the current players under the thirty day transfer window?
BRING BACK BILL O’BRIEN
Yeah, do you want to be the guy that follows the legend? Or the guy after that?
I did hear the IB guys talking about how the old Saban model of over-recruiting and greyshirting was going away with the NIL and portal, and Saban would have to kind of start over with a new model. Not an easy thing in your early 70s.
Which also got me thinking about John Wooden. I read an article where UCLA definitely had bag men, and it seemed to strain credulity that Wooden didn’t at least have an awareness of it. Part of the Wooden mystique was maintaining the squeaky clean image while some shady stuff was going on.
I get the same vibe from Saban. He’d have to be obtuse to not be aware of the bag men, and that Alabama boosters were probably at the top of the list for bag money. But somehow he managed to keep his program from ever getting into a scandal over it.
The best Saban stat – he coached the #1 team at Bama for 109 weeks.
No other program in college football history has been ranked #1 for 109 weeks (the poll era goes back to 1936). Ohio State is 2nd, with 105.
But — what about overall best winning percentage? (I’d still like to be voting the Rock, which btw, had IMO an even harder time than modern era coaches, we literally had to take trains all over the damn country).
Sharing this so we can all enjoy, 1, Bama fans saying nice things about Freeman, and 2, Dabo getting spiked into the earth’s core:
https://themessenger.com/sports/alabama-nick-saban-successor-lane-kiffin-deion-sanders
This made me laugh: “Won’t have to worry about making new friends because his pal Tommy Rees is already there.”
Speaking of Tommy, he is apparently one of the top 3 candidates to replace Saban, per Bruce Feldman. The other two are Norvell and DeBeor.
What is happening.
Tweet and story have been removed, so…
Well it was still on the Athletic as of 8:40pm.
Yea I just saw it on the athletic now at 9:38PM. I wonder if the likely suspects don’t want to follow Saban.
Thanks! Maybe they temporarily took it down for some edits, or changed the url? Whatever. Absolutely wild if true.
Lanning used the announcement of staying at Oregon to pitch his program and to recruit transfers.
and from a video on X
Imagine Harbaugh announcing that he’s leaving opening up the thirty day transfer window at Michigan as well as Alabama’s.
Bama may well be making sure the next candidate is in the bag to prevent any further pronouncements like Lanning’s. Certainly Bama fans would not have weeped should a Lanning hire brought transfers from Oregon and destabilized the Ducks.