Bruce Feldman·Senior Writer, CFB
Nick Saban, 72, retires after 17 seasons
Nick Saban is retiring as the coach of Alabama’s football team after 17 seasons with the program, ending a storied partnership that saw Saban return the Crimson Tide to the top of college football with six national titles in a 12-year span. ESPN first reported the news.
Saban, 72, is the only coach to win seven national titles in the poll era of college football — with one title at LSU to go with the six at Alabama. He led the Crimson Tide to winning seasons every year since 2008 during his tenure in Tuscaloosa and posted a 16-7 bowl record with the program.
Saban’s latest Alabama team went 12-2 and finished the 2023 season with a 27-20 overtime loss to Michigan — the eventual national champions — in the Rose Bowl.
Read more here.
The Athletic College Football
What’s next for Alabama recruits, signees post-Nick Saban?
When Zavier Mincey announced he was signing with Alabama at the All-American Bowl in San Antonio last weekend, he had no clue Nick Saban was going to retire.
In fact, when Mincey, a four-star safety, moved into his dorm in Tuscaloosa earlier this week, he told his high school coach he was looking forward to competing for a spot in the rotation with Saban watching his every move.
Read more here.
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Being Nick Saban’s GM was far from easy, but he made me better
I had 20 years in the NFL in my back pocket when Nick Saban called me on a late May afternoon in 2005.
I remember the day like yesterday. I listened to the message on the 10th tee at Manito Country Club in Spokane, Wash., where I was living and working for ESPN at the time. I still had a flip phone. Nick had been the head coach of the Miami Dolphins for five months and had just finished his first draft as a head coach in the NFL.
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Football will never be the same
To add quickly to the mountain of stories this week from sports media who have crossed paths with Nick Saban, there can’t be many better training grounds for a college reporter than stammering football questions at his news conferences and bracing for one of two outcomes: mumbling coachspeak or straight ridicule, both served with a glacial glare.
There were no Coke bottles back in the late 1990s at Michigan State, and very few jokes. Also absent: an inkling that this curmudgeon with middling teams would end up the greatest college football coach of all time. He was 25-22-1 in his first four seasons with the Spartans.
“Good coach? Yeah,” Derrick Mason, a receiver on Saban’s first two MSU teams and later an NFL star, said Thursday. “Great coach? I mean, seven nattys, arguably the greatest coach in any sport, period? No one saw that.”
Read more here.
The Athletic College Football
Tommy Rees, Mike Norvell, Kalen DeBoer emerge as top candidates
Alabama offensive coordinator Tommy Rees, Florida State coach Mike Norvell and Washington coach Kalen DeBoer have emerged as the top three candidates for the Alabama coaching position left vacant by Nick Saban’s retirement, multiple sources familiar with the process tell The Athletic. Meetings with Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne are expected to be completed by end of day Thursday and an announcement could come as soon as Friday, sources said.
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Inside Nick Saban's final hours at Alabama
Nick Saban, famous for his process, stuck to his routine Wednesday.
He joined a scheduled SEC coaches video call. He conducted several interviews for an opening on the coaching staff. One in particular, according to a person briefed on the interview, concluded just 15 minutes before the interviewed coach started seeing notifications of news that forever altered college football: The Alabama legend was retiring.
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Nick Saban says decision to retire based on ‘stress’ and ‘grueling’ final season
In his first public comments since announcing his retirement, former Alabama coach Nick Saban said Wednesday he wrestled with his decision up until minutes before a team meeting where he told his players and cited the toll of this past season as a deciding factor.
The Crimson Tide finished 12-2 but struggled early, losing to Texas in Week 2 and surviving a scare against USF the following week before winning the SEC and reaching the College Football Playoff, where they fell in overtime to Michigan.
Read more here.
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How did Auburn fans take Nick Saban’s retirement?
It didn’t take long. The trees at Toomer’s Corner were rolled by a few fans within a few hours of the news breaking that Nick Saban was retiring. And Trey Johnston, who had a view of the scene, was disgusted.
Johnston, whose family has owned J&M Bookstore since 1953, was standing at the store window on Thursday morning as he saw Auburn city workers take down the rolls. It was only a couple of trees, Johnston said, far from what happens at a victory celebration.
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What's next after surprising move?
How surprising was the retirement?
The retirement itself isn’t nearly as surprising as the timing and suddenness of the announcement, which has seemed to leave many at Alabama floored. There has been speculation about Saban’s final season throughout 2023, and those rumors intensified as the season approached its end. What was supposed to be a team meeting on Tuesday was postponed to Wednesday when Saban officially informed the team and set off the biggest college football story in recent memory.
What happens next?
It’s about to be an extremely busy next few days for athletic director Greg Byrne and the Alabama program. On top of the ultimate task of hiring a new football coach, there’s a time element that increases the pressure. Because of Saban’s retirement, Alabama players have 30 days to enter the transfer portal, and that roster looks extremely attractive to coaches nationwide. It’s a simple answer with huge implications — hire the next coach as soon as possible, then begin the process of re-recruiting the current roster.
Who is Greg Byrne?
The only job less enviable than replacing Nick Saban is making the hire to replace him. That responsibility belongs to Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne, who has run the Crimson Tide athletic department since 2017.
Greg Byrne is one of the most highly regarded athletic directors in the country, the son of longtime athletic director Bill Byrne, who worked at Oregon, Nebraska and Texas A&M. This industry is in Greg Byrne’s DNA. He grew up around college campuses, steered programs through a variety of challenges through 15 years of AD work split between Mississippi State, Arizona and Alabama, and obviously understands the dynamics at play with a hire like this.
Read more here.
Oregon coach Dan Lanning staying put
Oregon coach Dan Lanning announced Thursday he is staying with the Ducks amid rumors he’s a front-runner to become the next head coach at Alabama.
Lanning addressed the speculation that he could succeed retiring Alabama coach Nick Saban by posting a minute-long video on his social media accounts that ended with the line: “The Ducks aren’t going anywhere … and I’m not leaving.”
Read more here.
Saban's wins
Nick Saban's 297 wins as a college head coach came against 155 opposing coaches. Those who lost to Saban most:
- Dan Mullen, 11
- Houston Nutt, 8
- Jimbo Fisher, 7
- Les Miles, 7
- Ed Orgeron, 6
- David Cutcliffe, 6
Saban's 71 losses came against 48 coaches. Only Tommy Tuberville (4) and Gus Malzahn, Les Miles, Steve Spurrier, Joe Tiller, Joe Paterno and Lloyd Carr (3) beat him three times. The only coaches to beat Saban at Alabama multiple times: Malzahn and Miles (3) and Hugh Freezer, Dabo Swinney and Urban Meyer (2).
And then there's former Purdue coach Jim Colletto, at 0-1-1 the only man to tie Saban — 35-35 in 1995.
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Nick Saban was the king of getting high school prospects to the NFL
After Nick Saban’s first season as its coach in 2007, Alabama did not have any players selected in the 2008 NFL Draft.
Bama getting shut out only happened one other time in the history of the draft for this proud program. In a way, it was an indictment of the roster Saban inherited. But the Crimson Tide had plenty of good players returning in 2008. Together, they won 12 games.
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An ode to the godfather of college football recruiting
Nick Saban didn’t realize he was being recorded. As a result, the entire college football community was able to witness a slice of this sport we’re never permitted to see.
We got to watch The Godfather of Recruiting work.
This was February 2021 and Saban was conducting a video call with an elite defensive recruit. He was giving the usual spiel about national titles, draft picks and how he built the best program in college football.
Read more here.
Saban AND Belichick?
What's next for Nick Saban and Bill Belichick?
Saban’s departure from Alabama is surprising but not shocking
Nick Saban’s retirement did not come as a shock to people who’ve worked for him. A surprise, yes. But not a shock.
The greatest coach in college football history is a creature of habit who craves and covets routineness, so much so that assistants could tell the day of the week by looking at his outfits.
“He had Monday clothes, Tuesday clothes, Wednesday clothes,” said Michael Locksley, a former Crimson Tide offensive coordinator who is the head coach at Maryland. “He would eat the same thing every day for lunch, mac and cheese and stuff like that. He’s so routine-oriented.”
Which explains why his departure might not be as sudden as it looks.
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What Nick Saban retiring means for Kirby Smart, Georgia
Spikes. That’s the lasting memory of the Nick Saban era and his dominance of Georgia. Spikes.
It was a rainy day in Athens, midway through the 2015 season. Saban had brought in a (seemingly) vulnerable Alabama team, two weeks after a home loss to Ole Miss, to face unbeaten Georgia, which was feeling good about itself. Good about its chances to finally beat Saban. And good about the way it did things, on and off the field. The right way.
Read more here.
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Do you have the answer?
It’s come to my attention that Nick Saban has been at Alabama for so long, most fans under 35 have no memory of Alabama without him.
So, without Googling it … who was their coach before Saban?
Multiple choice responses only, plz.
Byrne's history
When Greg Byrne has done high-profile coaching searches in the past, he has told coaches that if their names leak, they no longer will be considered.
Different school, different stakes but something to keep in mind as reports surface.
The Athletic College Football
Where does Saban rank on all-time list of coaches? Who’s next at Alabama?
Well, it finally happened. Alabama coach Nick Saban, who won six national championships in 17 seasons with the Crimson Tide, retired Wednesday.
So what happens next? How will his departure affect the college football landscape?
We asked five members of The Athletic’s college football staff for their thoughts on the Saban era.
Read more here.