Nick Saban to Retire As Alabama Coach After 17 Seasons, per Report
Alabama coach Nick Saban is retiring, according to a Wednesday afternoon report from Chris Low of ESPN.
Saban, 73, is widely considered the greatest coach in college football history. He won seven national titles in his career–a split title in 2003 with LSU and six with the Crimson Tide.
In 2023, Alabama went 12-2, winning the SEC title but losing in the Rose Bowl to Michigan.
Such was the standard Saban set at Alabama that this season was considered a down year. He ended his career with the Crimson Tide with a ledger of 206-29, an .877 winning percentage.
Nick Saban is retiring, sources tell ESPN. He won six national titles at Alabama.
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) January 10, 2024
A native of Fairmont, W.Va., Saban began his college coaching career with Kent State—his alma mater—in 1973.
Gradually winding his way through the collegiate ranks, he got his first head coaching job with Toledo in 1990. After steering the Rockets to a 9-2 record, the Cleveland Browns hired him as their defensive coordinator; successful stints with the Browns and Michigan State landed him the LSU job in 2000.
The Tigers recovered from a 2-2 start in 2001 to win the SEC and reach the Sugar Bowl, and two years later they went 13-1 and shared the national title with USC.
Following a disastrous two-year stint with the Miami Dolphins, Saban landed with an Alabama program mired in mediocrity. After a hit-or-miss first year that included an embarrassing loss to Louisiana-Monroe, Saban took the Crimson Tide to the Sugar Bowl in 2008. In 2009, Alabama beat Texas to win the national title and birth Saban's modern legend.
A step back in 2010 was followed by titles in 2011 and 2012, making the Crimson Tide the first program to win three national championships in four years since Nebraska in the 1990s. Alabama's 2013 season ended in heartbreak, as Auburn defeated the Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl thanks to the iconic Kick Six—an event so heartbreaking it is believed to have encouraged a brief flirtation between Saban and ESPN.
In 2014, the Crimson Tide made the first CFP but lost to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Championships in 2015 and 2017 followed—the latter of which included one of the gutsiest in-game moves in the history of American sports, a switch from quarterback Jalen Hurts to Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of the national championship against Georgia.
Saban's program weathered all manner of changes to college football, winning the title in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and playing for it in the first year of the NIL era in 2021.
"I want you to know that it will be our goal to give you the kind of football program, the kind of football team that you can be proud of," Saban said in his introductory presser in '07.
Mission accomplished.