Nick Saban was arguably one of the biggest busts as an NFL coach, but he is also arguably the greatest college football coach of all time. Funny how different the two games can be. After 16 seasons, nine National Championship Game appearances, and six National Championships, Saban called it quits after the 2023 campaign.
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His retirement, while not exactly shocking considering Saban turns 74 this year, still shook up the college football world. A big reason for that was the belief that Saban stepped away due to the new changes related to NIL and the transfer portal.
However, CBS Sports football analyst Josh Pate believes Saban’s Alabama exit was a little more complex than simply being fed up with the recent changes allowing players to be paid and move around the transfer portal more easily. Pate noted that Saban had always been able to adjust to changes in college football like these, so his reasons for leaving likely had more to do with his age and a lucrative offer from ESPN.
“That dude always found a way. COVID came around, dude just pivoted on a dime. They dominated that year. That dude ran three different, totally unique versions of offense in his time at Alabama. They won with Tua, they won with Derrick Henry, they won with John Parker Wilson and Greg McIlroy at quarterback,” Pate said.
“At every turn of his career, he adjusted. He would’ve adjusted to this, it’s just he looked at it and said, I’m not sure that’s the version of the game I wanna coach anymore. Also, I’m in my 70s, and I can go to ESPN and get a raise for talking about football instead of just coaching it anymore.”
Saban, for his part, didn’t mince words about why he decided to leave after the 2023 season, just three years out from his most recent National Championship.
“I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I’m going to play because they’re thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me?”
“Our program here was always built on how much value can we create for your future and your personal development, academic success in graduating and developing an NFL career on the field,” Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low.
Saban felt disillusioned with the new priorities of players and programs at the college level. And while he said he’s not calling it “bad” or “wrong,” he made it clear it’s not how he wants to operate, and it’s not how his team was able to find success during his decade and a half in charge.
Pate also talked about how Saban’s departure from Alabama, and by extension the SEC, has left that conference much worse for wear. The Big 10 now seems to be the powerhouse conference since the NIL era began. Some see that as proof that SEC teams had been paying their players previously to get an edge.
But Pate believes that the impact of Saban was so outsized that when he left, the conference was always going to see a dip, no matter what else was going on. Pate called Nick Saban’s retirement “a bombshell, it was like an asteroid into the ocean of college football.”
When you’re big, you’re big. And no one was bigger than Nick Saban in the SEC.
