January 10th, 2024 at 5:11 PM ^
Wow. I’m actually kind of shocked.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:26 PM ^
Dare I say it was classy for him to wait until a couple of days after the National Championship to avoid taking away from the game?
January 10th, 2024 at 5:36 PM ^
It was classy for him to speak with Domani Jackson and get him to commit and then retire a week and a half later
January 10th, 2024 at 5:38 PM ^
Yeah if I’m Jackson I’m like Dafuqs that nick?
January 10th, 2024 at 5:43 PM ^
Doubt he signed anything, every player on the team has the opportunity to leave now.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:35 PM ^
Colin Cowherd is saying that Saban has signed a large tv contract to become an on-air personality. Says it should become well known in a matter of days.
January 10th, 2024 at 8:15 PM ^
I hope he is as engaging as he is in the AFLAC commercials.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:27 PM ^
Harbaugh put him out to pasture
January 10th, 2024 at 6:15 PM ^
Broke OSU. Broke Bama.
No wonder ND begged off the schedule a couple years ago.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:36 PM ^
Not that shocked. Great coach, but the competitive landscape is shifting such that he would need to potentially coach without a significant talent advantage.
NIL, transfer portal, super conferences - all make it much more difficult to run a dynasty.
He's getting out when the getting is good.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:29 PM ^
This is likely a part of it. I am sure that he has "stretched" the rules aplenty but however he did it he did a tremendous job. My contention is that a major part of his success is his ability to rebuild his coaching staff-year after year...despite all the poaching. I think he missed this year and does not want to go through the process again-because this time poaching won't be the issue...he's going to have to fire some incompetent folks-starting with his OC.
January 10th, 2024 at 7:11 PM ^
He's also pretty damn old for a head coach. Dude probably wants to enjoy a little bit of his life, while he still can.
January 10th, 2024 at 9:01 PM ^
There's a rumor circulating - on a few Alabama & SEC boards - that Terry Saban (Nick's wife) is really sick and he wants to spend time with her.. This was not planned
January 10th, 2024 at 5:53 PM ^
Then again, he is 72 years old.
Mack Brown and Kirk Ferentz are now the oldest FBS coaches.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:05 PM ^
I remember when I was at OU, Barry switzer hired him to be the OC during the 80’s to modernize the offense because OU had this unknown freshman QB, Troy Aikman, who could throw supposedly. Wonder whatever happened to that freshman QB?
January 10th, 2024 at 6:36 PM ^
He decided to transfer so he could be a better QB at UCLA under Terry Donahue.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:58 PM ^
Same, but the more I think about it… he seemed remarkably different in his segment on McAfee’s show on 1/4.
January 10th, 2024 at 11:25 PM ^
Get thee behind me, Saban.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:12 PM ^
Love that his last game is a loss to Jim harbaugh and the Michigan wolverines
January 10th, 2024 at 5:19 PM ^
Was just thinking this same thing, this week just keeps getting better.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:51 PM ^
What a damn season:
- Put Ryan Day on the hot seat
- Mel Tucker ousted in embarrassing fashion
- Penn State so embarrassed they fired their OC a week after our game
- Sent Brian Ferentz out with a donut on the scoreboard to cap a horrible career
- Retired Saban after beating him in the Rose Bowl
- B1G & National Championship
Harbaugh just reeked havoc on the CFB landscape this year. We're like 1 Tony Petitti resignation away from almost completely jettisoning his enemies from the sport lol
January 10th, 2024 at 6:02 PM ^
That’s “wreaked”. “Reeked” is for like calling sign-stealing the worst scandal in the history of the B1G.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:55 PM ^
Both may be used in a sentence involving my dog.
January 10th, 2024 at 7:12 PM ^
It rhymes with sneak.
January 10th, 2024 at 7:28 PM ^
Well, I'd settle for getting every other AD in the conference shitcanned. That would be havoc.
January 10th, 2024 at 9:39 PM ^
Don’t forget humiliated all the lame anonymous Big Ten coaching sources who unanimously agreed that we had no chance against Bama with our offense. These same said asses were thoroughly beaten and humiliated once before during the season in their losses to us because (checks notes)…cheating!
January 10th, 2024 at 11:26 PM ^
This season we took care of all family business.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:21 PM ^
The gift that keeps on giving.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:23 PM ^
OH HAIL YEAH!!!!
Not only did he walk off the field at the Rose Bowl a loser but it eliminated his team from a possible National Championship.
Go Blue 🏈🏈🏈
January 10th, 2024 at 8:07 PM ^
Yeah, but the bummer is that the Coaches’ Poll voted Alabama #1 as a retirement gift.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:12 PM ^
Wow. That means his very last time on a CFB playing field was watching Michigan celebrate around him.
I’m in.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:21 PM ^
Nick Saban is simply too pure and holy to be able to continue a coaching career in any wretched sport that would allow an unprincipled, sign-stealing miscreant like Jim Harbaugh to capture the title that rightfully belonged to his underrated, two-good-loss-having Alabama squad.
Truly, he was too good for us all. :cries a tiny tear:
January 10th, 2024 at 5:44 PM ^
And - only the most talented roster in college football - as was the case for seven of the last nine years. (Oh - those "down" years in terms of roster talent - they were ranked second.)
Maybe Nick will write a book and describe how they perfected the brown bagging and auto dealer system - prior to NIL being a "thing".
January 10th, 2024 at 5:46 PM ^
Genuinely curious why people on here talk about Saban like he's Urban Meyer.
January 10th, 2024 at 5:57 PM ^
Because in the pre-NIL era, he was widely suspected to be one of the most profligate spenders, but was always sanctimonious and smug about running a "clean program."
January 10th, 2024 at 6:10 PM ^
The sport is flooded with sanctimonious people and Saban doesn't strike me as being anywhere near the top of the list. For someone who is the greatest college football coach ever, he drew relatively little attention to himself. And even when considering the recruiting advantages, Bama developed talent better than any program when Saban was in his prime (M has taken that spot over). The huge number of NFL rosters filled with his players isn't the result of Alabama boosters buying cars for recruits.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:34 PM ^
Well if they are 5* who would make it to the NFL at an 80% clip anywhere and they go to bama because of boosters, then yes it's highly correlated.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:46 PM ^
5* recruits don't have successful NFL careers at an 80% clip. Do you know who brought in some of the best recruiting classes (by stars) in Michigan's modern history? Brady Hoke. There are maybe 2-3 players a year who are so talented that the coaching they receive in college will make little difference in their success as pros.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:46 PM ^
Saban was mid at MSU and left them for LSU which IMHO was a huge step up other than LSU’s talent acquisition. (MSU has proven that they will pay a coach.) he won a NC at LSU, which was huge, after some ok seasons and then sucked at Miami. In the NFL.
I don’t think anything was ever proven at Bama other than gray shirting (remember that?), but the talent gap was so huge that something had to be going on. …and all of his protégés (Jimbo Fisher, Dabo Swiney and Kirby Smart) seemed to be able to recruit really well after being at Bama. Even Kiffin and Sark seemed to pick up some tricks.
TLDR—he screwed MSU who used to be our little brother and it is hard to believe he recruits without cheating.
January 11th, 2024 at 8:27 AM ^
even though a Bama blogger went on on Twitter last night claiming that Saban kept the boosters in line they even know that is not 100% true... Saban might have kept a large portion of them out of the football buildings... but everyone one down there knows that Little Bear (Bear Bryant's son) is the one pulling the strings... IIRC he has his own private conference room/office in Bama AD where he and the top flight Bama boosters hold their meetings with certain AD people...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_W._Bryant_Jr.
So for all of those years Saban had to play nice with Jr and they would keep him clean of everything...
January 10th, 2024 at 5:58 PM ^
I don’t get it, either. All Saban did is win on the field and don’t think I’ve ever read a story where he came off like an asshole. Maybe the best ever.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:30 PM ^
Wasn’t he one of the voices against satellite camps? I can’t remember seems like so long ago.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:48 PM ^
He was. He was the loudest voice.
January 10th, 2024 at 7:06 PM ^
He was against satellite camps, against NIL, against transfer portal, and was IIRC the most egregious oversigner.
Someone did a diary on this blog years ago and explained how he basically recruited 5 classes worth of recruits every 4 years, which means a lot of students who had to commit to him if they wanted to play at Bama were screwed over and kicked to the curb, schollies cut, forced to drop out, pay the school, or try to transfer (in the antiquated transfer system, not exactly a smooth or no-cost endeavor).
So for all the superficial Southern decency—and yeah, Saban doesn’t present as a raging boner like some coaches do—he was actually quite the bastard.
The overall picture here is, he was an outspoken advocate against players having more control over their own careers in favor of coaches having unilateral control over players. He thrived in that system. I would bet he’s dependent on it for his success. He very well may be retiring because college football is becoming less exploitative toward the players. Let’s not launder this on his way out the door.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:32 PM ^
Agree. I love Saban. There's 0 pretense. He can whine like all humans, whatever. I don't always agree with him, that's ok too. I'm sad to see him go. He's miles above clowns like Dabo/Day and massive pieces of shit like Urban/Freeze, etc.
January 10th, 2024 at 6:55 PM ^
saban just sounds like satan. urban may actually be satan. and if you see your mom today...
January 10th, 2024 at 7:14 PM ^
I like Saban. And turtles.
See my avatar (no turtles).
January 11th, 2024 at 8:04 AM ^
I dont think you remember how many recruits were down to Bama and Michigan as their final two teams between 2016-2023. How many of them chose bama because they were given a bag? We'll never know, but its safe to say they've been stacked with mercenaries for years.