In a low-key moment a few years ago, Nick Saban revealed one of his biggest fears.
Can you imagine, he said, one of his Alabama teams ever going 8-4? For virtually any other coach, that's not a bad thing. For Saban, it's acceptable.
That's not the level he reached at Alabama. This is Gator Bowl-level stuff.
That prospect may have frightened Saban, but it also motivated him—so much so that he got out before anyone could put any expiration date on him. He got out in time to preserve his legacy as the greatest college coach of all time.
Not just college football. All team sports. Certainly now. Maybe forever.
There will be little doubt after the 72-year-old Saban resigned Wednesday after his 17th season at Alabama. He leaves the team with 292 wins, the 15th most wins of all time, four Heisman Trophy winners and 49 players selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. His accomplishments are comparable to Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak.
Saban's seven national championships, six at Alabama (along with Paul “Bear” Bryant) and one at LSU, are a record that will likely never be broken. It might as well be set in stone, especially at a time when winning a national championship has never been more difficult.
Saban captured the title market, but he did so during the most competitive stretch in college football history. He is responsible for a large part of it. Recruitment has never been so intense. Still, Saban and Alabama largely dominated, with by far the highest-rated classes (10) since 2010. Although Florida led the way, the SEC has won 13 national titles in the last 18 seasons; The six Alabama players account for almost half of that output.
The former Kent State defender from Fairmont, West Virginia, is at the center of the action and has mastered his sport like no other coach before him. It took Bryant 22 years to win his six national championships. Saban made it at Alabama in 12 years.
Game, set, match, college football!
It won't. With this season starting with the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, hoisting the Cup will be even more difficult at the end of the season.
Saban retired before he would have participated in his fourth postseason era – the old bowl system, BCS, CFP and expanded CFP. He coached in eight bowl games, won three conference titles and a national championship before taking over at Alabama.
And he was a second choice! Rich Rodriguez had already accepted the job in Alabama in December 2006, but after about a week he changed his mind and returned to West Virginia.
Imagine that if Saban was the backup plan.
He's traveled around the sun 72 times but looks 20 years younger, and given his energy level, some might say he acts even younger when he's still playing lunchtime basketball with his co-workers. These legendary games included some of the strongest and most talented coaches in the industry. Somehow, Saban's team usually won.
Saban may have been a taskmaster, but his staff wasn't stupid.
Along the way, the great coach built a massive coaching tree, along with a virtual halfway house for coaches who had experienced personal and/or professional adversity. Perhaps the most notable “graduate” of this latter group is Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who took his team to the CFP this season.
Sarkisian, who will be a candidate to replace Saban by then, came to Alabama in 2016 after being let go from USC. His battle with alcohol had become public, but Saban had faith. Sark performed well enough to get the Atlanta Falcons job the next year before returning to Bama in 2019. There he coached Tua Tagovailoa, won the Broyles Award as the country's top assistant and was the offensive coordinator for the 2020 national champions.
The most successful branch of Saban's family tree is Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who coached under Saban three times over 11 seasons, including the last eight as defensive coordinator at Alabama. Smart was headhunted by his alma mater in 2016. Since joining the Bulldogs, he has posted a 94-16 (56-9 SEC) record with a 42-2 record and two national championships over the past three seasons.
When Alabama didn't win it all in 2023, it was the first time in the playoff era that Saban went three straight seasons without a national championship. For any other coach, participating in the CFP would be enough. At Alabama, Saban competed not only against the other 132 FBS teams, but also against his own standards.
Georgia fell short in the threepeat because Alabama upset it in the SEC Championship Game last month. That 27-24 result will stand as Saban's 292nd – and final – win. (His career total is 297, although five wins were removed from the 2007 season.)
The Crimson Tide were right again on January 1, losing the Rose Bowl semifinal to Michigan 27-20 in overtime. The end of the game was both heartbreaking and telling. Alabama had a seven-point lead with 4:41 left in the game, with Michigan on its own 25-yard line.
Somehow the Wolverines became a team of destiny and won the CFP National Championship this week. Still, a Tide team that was written off just weeks into the season — after losing a Heisman Trophy winner (Bryce Young) and Defensive Player of the Year (Will Anderson Jr.) from its 2022 roster — finished with 12-2 and won the SEC.
That's not 8-4. Not close.
But the game is for the young people. Smart, 48, is almost a quarter of a century younger. Jim Harbaugh, 60, of Michigan, is more than a decade behind Saban. Sarkisian, 49, has just reached his peak.
Saban didn't want to stay with the Mets too long like Willie Mays. He didn't want to be like Michael Jordan, who was in obvious decline in his twilight years with the Washington Wizards. He has watched from afar the sad, slow end to the career of his great mentor Bill Belichick, whose New England Patriots bottomed out at 4-13 this season four years after Tom Brady's departure.
“He saw that,” a source close to Saban recently told CBS Sports.
Belichick, 71, still seems to have the urge. Saban has decided not to let additional wear and tear tarnish his gilded legacy.
Being part of Saban's circle of trust was like being in an exclusive club. The man himself held out the velvet rope to those he could confide in.
I am by no means claiming that I was part of that circle, but a moment a few years ago surprised me. I was asked to appear in person on Saban's radio show, “Hey Coach,” which airs on Thursdays of game weeks.
During a commercial break, he leaned forward and said, “Ask me anything.”
Really? Anything? What is a media representative supposed to do with it? Let's just say it wasn't the right time or place to ask what trick moves he had prepared for LSU.
One of Saban's greatest abilities was his adaptability. In 2014, Alabama was vulnerable to spread option offenses. The coach who had once criticized these offenses—“Is this really how we want the game to go?”—turned around and developed one of the most powerful attacks of its kind in the game.
In 2014 — 10 years to the day he retired — Saban hired Lane Kiffin, who had been fired from USC, as his offensive coordinator with the intent of installing the spread. That year, a converted running back named Blake Sims set Alabama's total offense record. The Tide won the SEC, made the playoffs and finished 12-2. A year later, Alabama hired Saban to win the school's fifth national title.
Kiffin became another graduate of this Saban Halfway House and transferred to FAU in 2017. In 2023, he led Ole Miss to 11 wins for the first time. This is just another look at Saban's coaching tree, which might as well be a redwood by now.
The biggest question that arises after Monday's spectacular resignation: Who will replace the great coach? There are many who want the job, but who is qualified? Who wants to be Saban's successor?
There's an old saying in coaching: “Never be the guy who follows the guy.” In other words, it's hard to follow a legend.
The next man up will be held to a standard that Saban himself ultimately found too difficult to consistently achieve.
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne was undoubtedly prepared for this day. He has a short list. The coaching underground is already screaming that Clemson's Dabo Swinney wants the job. The former walk-on wide receiver from Birmingham, Alabama is certainly qualified. But is Clemson still at championship level or in decline?
Washington's Kalen DeBoer certainly deserves an appearance if he comes within a whisker of winning a national title in his second season with the Huskies.
Oregon's Dan Lanning seems like the most logical choice. The former Alabama assistant under Saban won a national championship as defensive coordinator under Smart at Georgia. He has a 22-5 record in two seasons with the Ducks.
This coaching search could get more attention than a presidential election…or maybe our goals are too low.
Saban coached Kings. Perhaps the best book about Saban comes from former Forbes editor Monte Burke. Saban didn't participate in “The Making of a Coach,” but he didn't stop Burke from pursuing his story.
Everyone talked to Burke. Whether you loved Saban or loathed him, there were stories worth telling.
And the overwhelming majority love him.
Burke's book was the most insightful look yet at a legend who resigned Monday before mediocrity could catch him.
In the end, the decision was not a bombshell.
It was time.