Nick Saban retires, and there will never be another like the Alabama coach،
Nick Saban is the best that ever did it.
There is no argument to be made against this. None. This is a statement of fact. Any historian who says otherwise is one of those people who spend their days surrounded by dusty books on the single wing, watching black and white movies on their handhelds, the ones who cling so desperately to this overcooked idea that things were always better back then. Any current observer of college football who objects to this point is likely a die-hard fan of a team that Saban's teams routinely beat, or of one of the players or coaches who were on those teams' rosters, denied magnitude by magnitude.
He is the best. Period. And now there is a period at the end of his career that is unprecedented. On Wednesday afternoon, ESPN's Chris Low reported that after 17 seasons as head coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Saban is hanging up his helmet.
In those 17 seasons, he won a half-dozen national titles, 201 games and 11 SEC championships during the most competitive era of any conference in the 154-year history of college football. He had a No. 1 ranked team at least once in all but two of those seasons.
Such statistics make no sense. They don't look real. The math appears to have been cheated, and yet it all adds up to the greatest college football resume ever written. This point is indisputable.
Bear Bryant, the man who built Bama and previously held GOAT status in most minds, also won six national championships in Tuscaloosa, thanks to his willingness – after admitted initial reluctance – to evolve, modernizing his offensive mind . At Notre Dame, Knute Rockne revolutionized the way a true college football program is built and run. Frank Leahy saved what Rockne had built, revitalizing a struggling program and restoring it to its former glory. At Florida State, Bobby Bowden forever changed the way rosters are recruited and built. Pop Warner championed safety innovations and managed to balance a heavy ego by continually campaigning to keep grassroots football healthy. Woody Hayes had a temper only slightly less combustible than a gunpowder keg, but he won big games and planted a coaching tree with more branches than could be kept track of .
Nick Saban has done all of the above. Not only that, but he also did everything better. And while he filled college football with his protégés — Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin and Dan Lanning, to name a few — he also did it all for so long that we've forgotten exactly since how long. As handsome as he always looked in Crimson, he also looked pretty dapper in Toledo blue and gold, Michigan State green and white, and LSU purple and gold. His first head coaching job came at Toledo in 1990. In the nearly 30 seasons on the sidelines since then, he has posted a losing record.
At LSU and Alabama, it's tempting to break the historical line between his arrival and everything that came before it. Let's call it “Before Saban” and “After Saban,” but let's not use the acronyms. For what? Because anyone who's ever spoken with the coach knows there's nothing stupid about him.
Before Saban, LSU hadn't won a national title since 1958. In 2003, he fixed that problem. After Saban, the Tigers added two more.
Before Saban, Bama hadn't won a national title since 1992 and only one since Bryant's sixth in 1979. After Saban, he won six since 2009.
Before Saban, no Tide player had ever won a Heisman Trophy. After Saban, they won four stiff-arm awards.
The list is lengthened increasingly. But perhaps the most telling and salient dividing line is less BS/AS and more OS/NS, as in “Old Saban” and “New Saban.” From a football perspective, it's about his willingness, Bryant-style, to change his offensive philosophy. As the game grew faster and wider, he openly campaigned for rules that would keep attacking football slower and closer to his long-held, run-first beliefs. When he realized that it was a losing battle, he not only adopted rapid attacks, but he also accelerated their development. He hired people from the West Coast like Kiffin and Sarkisian. Against all odds, Alabama became the new Wide Receiver U.
But anyone who has spent even the least amount of time with the coach in recent seasons knows that his personal development has outpaced that on the field. There has been a noticeable change in attitude. The intensity never wavered, but he learned to pick his explosive points. During a conversation in the days leading up to what turned out to be his final game as Alabama's head coach, the 2024 Rose Bowl, he became emotional while talking about how this team and its collective personality had made him laugh all season, even when the team seemed lost just three weeks into the season. He credits his last national champion team – the 2020 team that was forced into a close-quarters bubble due to the Covid-19 pandemic – with teaching him to more appreciate his surroundings, while maintaining his legendary hyperfocus on maintaining the Crimson Tide empire. .
“People tell me I smile more now. I don't know if that's true or not. I know I take a break to enjoy things more now than I used to. Maybe it's just getting older , right? But I like “I think it's growth. Personal growth. Proof that we never stopped growing, even when you're an old guy from West Virginia with stiff joints and grandkids dealing with a hundred teenagers every day. “
Saban laughs.
“Here's the deal. I love what I do, don't I? I always have and always will. But yeah, maybe I enjoy it more. One day I will look back and miss it. But I don't think that will be the case anytime soon. I'm too busy right now.
It was December 15. Turns out it was less than a month later. But its impact is certainly not going to fade any time soon. Because that line, the one between “Before Saban” and “After Saban,” has never applied just to Alabama, LSU, or even the SEC. As of January 10, 2024, this era designation applies to all of college football.
All right?
