Nick Saban Hangs Up His Straw Hat

As discussions of greatest-ever go, this one’s pretty clear-cut. There’s always room for debate — sports talk radio wouldn’t exist without it — but the best college football coach of all time (the GOAT) has to be the guy in the straw hat in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, who on Wednesday night hung up his whistle and removed his headset for the last time.

Nick Saban exits the game waving in the face of college football a ridiculous résumé: seven national championships — one at LSU, then six in 17 years at Alabama. His Alabama teams have been ranked first in the country at some point in 14 of the past 15 seasons — indeed, it seems, before playing a single snap, one could safely pencil in the Tide into the college football playoff field. Bama under Saban provided a pipeline to the NFL; 49 of his players have been first-round draft picks.

And he built this football factory employing what he termed “The Process.” His very visible partner and wife summed it up succinctly:

The rules for the game of football may change, but the “process” will never go out of style: hard work, discipline, the relentless pursuit of a worthy goal, not cutting corners, and doing things the right way for the sake of constant personal improvement, not for the scoreboard.

Other greats, as worthy as they were — the Frank Leahys, the Bernie Biermans, the Woody Hayeses, even the Bear Bryants — notched their national trophies under far-less-straitened conditions: no scholarship limits, nine- or 10-game schedules, and highly esoteric crowning of national championships by multiple panels.

Saban did his with the 85-scholarship quota while managing the corporation-level, multimillion-dollar, highly pressurized organization that is today’s major college football program. Recruiting is more competitive now; the game is more complicated; media demands are far more onerous. And he won those seven crystal footballs in what is, without argument, the toughest football conference in the land.

And, unlike his more rigid peers, he has adapted his coaching philosophy to changes in the game. Defense used to win championships — the phrase was one of the more ironclad clichés of the game — and it did for Saban as well, in 2009, 2011, and 2012. But then the game shifted to the other side of the ball; hitting was curtailed for fear of concussions at the same time hurry-up offenses and run-pass options put extraordinary pressure on defenses, especially secondaries. Said Saban to ESPN in 2020: 

It used to be that good defense beats good offense…. It used to be if you had a good defense, other people weren’t going to score. You were always going to be in the game. I’m telling you. It ain’t that way anymore.

Saban responded by signing great, versatile quarterbacks (Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Bryce Young) and exemplary receivers while dispatching play-calling duties to offensive innovators like Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian. More national championships followed.

But he leaves the game trailing behind him more than on-the-field trophies. He has planted a coaching tree with branches that extend from coast to coast. The builder of the game’s current top program, Kirby Smart at Georgia, spent nine years as an assistant at Bama. Sarkisian, coach of newly invigorated Texas, which made the College Football Playoff this past year, also spent time under Saban at Bama. Jimbo Fisher and Will Muschamp served under him at LSU. The names of other former assistants constitute a Who’s Who of current standout mentors: Kiffin (Ole Miss), Dan Lanning (Oregon), Billy Napier (Florida), and Mario Cristobal (Miami), among others.

Some of these owe more than mere football tutelage to the retiring Saban. Kiffin, after multiple high-profile bomb-outs, was given a second chance as an assistant on Saban’s staff. Sarkisian, after spectacular off-the-field troubles, was rehabilitated at Bama.

Neither has Saban’s salary escaped notice. He was the highest-paid college coach in 2023, pulling down $11.4 million. Much anguish is typically expended on college coaches’ salaries, but Saban, and other highly paid football mentors, are worth every penny. The face of many universities — as much as it is lamented — is their athletic department, and the face of many athletic departments is the football program. Success on the football field equates to a public relations bonanza — and, frequently, higher enrollment. Alabama’s student population jumped from 25,580 in 2007, when Saban arrived, to 38,645 in 2022, a rise of 51 percent. In 2013, Dr. Robert Witt, Alabama’s chancellor, told 60 Minutes, “Nick Saban is the best financial investment this university has ever made.”

But he’s gone now — gone to earning seven figures sitting on a pundit panel on the tube, no doubt — and the question becomes: Who will be Saban’s successor?

Who will be the guy who follows the guy?

History has not been kind to that guy. From “Clean” Gene Bartow succeeding John Wooden at UCLA, to Phil Bengtson, who, in addition to everybody everywhere mispronouncing his name “Beng-ston” rather than “Bengt-son,” had the misfortune of following Vince Lombardi in Green Bay, the guy who follows the guy has faced an uphill struggle that often fails. Think of Ron Zook, Ray Goff, Gary Gibbs, and Earle Bruce, among countless others. Much better is it to be the guy who follows the guy who follows the guy.

But that guy is a couple of years down the road. The question of who will be Saban’s successor is now, and it had the private-jet trackers out in force, as internet sleuths canvassed flight plans and charted tail numbers attempting to learn which head coach happened to be flying into Tuscaloosa at any given moment.

The selection had to be made quickly, to keep the current roster from jumping into the transfer portal and to keep the recruiting class onboard. The names that were thrown around included most particularly successful coaches with Bama ties — Sarkisian, Kiffin, and Dabo Swinney of Clemson were all mentioned.

But the Bama power brokers went outside the box and selected Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer, fresh off a national title-game appearance.

He will have a pretty big straw hat to fill.

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