I’d be remiss if I didn’t share my feelings about Nick Saban, having covered him since his days at Michigan State. College football is going to miss his enduring greatness.
Michigan State Saban was young, brash, and a bit hard to deal with. However, you could see the spark of something great after his NFL stint with the Browns. His 9-2 season in 1999 was a breakthrough, and it was clear he was ready for the next step and level. He was an amazing talent evaluator and was in on some big recruits at Michigan State, and recruiting was clearly something he excelled at. So his success at LSU was not surprising, although he had to reset the infrastructure there, and the job he did to win a national title there is very underrated. This was when I knew Saban was an elite recruiter and obviously a great coach, but we still didn’t see everything coming just yet.
His jump to the NFL sucked, as Saban was made for college football and recruiting. That being said, I still thought he’d be successful, but his failure made me all the more convinced that college football was his jam. When he was hired at Alabama, despite the mess he inherited, I knew we’d see some fireworks.
His 2008 recruiting class at Alabama surprised even me and set the tone for his run at greatness with players like Julio Jones, Mark Barron, Burton Scott, and others. Saban kept seven of the top 10 players in Alabama home in Tuscaloosa and landed the top recruiting class in the country. Since I’d been covering recruiting, at that time, every program with a top recruiting class won a national title — from LSU (under Saban) to Texas to USC to Florida, and Saban was doing it all over again. It was clear national titles were coming, but six? I didn’t see that coming.
I won’t bore you with the rest. We all know Saban went on to compile nearly double-digit No. 1 recruiting classes, won six nattys at Alabama, and kept his team a national title contender as other programs like Georgia, Clemson, and LSU rose to national prominence under different coaches. His coaching tree ranges from Kirby Smart to Steve Sarkisian to Lane Kiffin to many others, and his imprint on college football will continue for ages.
More Sports News
Simply put, Saban is the best who ever did it, and an argument between him and Urban Meyer as the greatest head coach recruiters in history still rages in my mind. Saban has always been prickly, cranky, and hard to deal with, even as he softened these past few years, and that’s the price of greatness. He suffered no fools, accepted zero nonsense, and began work on the next season instants after the confetti fell (usually on him).
No one will replace him at Alabama, and we could see a fall similar to that of the Gators replacing Meyer for a bit in Tuscaloosa. It’s been a heckuva run, and he’s been an amazing representative of college football. Hopefully, he’ll move into an ambassador role a la Tiger Woods for the PGA Tour. Saban’s voice is needed and needed badly so here’s hoping retirement doesn’t mean silence.
Congrats on your retirement, Coach Saban. You are the greatest to ever do it.
