Nick Saban retires with a record number of players (and counting!) being taken in the first round of the NFL draft

Nick Saban is retiring from Alabama, ESPN’s Chris Low reported Wednesday, bringing to an end one of the most decorated careers in all of college football.

Saban will be remembered for how dominant his teams were for so long, competing for national championships year after year with the best top-to-bottom rosters. His teams were loaded, and as a result, many of the players who helped make him the legend he is went on to play at the next level, with a select few taken very high in the NFL draft.

OK, maybe more than a select few. Saban has held the record for most players drafted in the first round for a few years now, but now that he’s retired, we’ll finally settle on a number soon.

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He set the record at 34 all the way back in 2019 and pushed it to 38 the following year. Since then, 11 more players from Alabama have been drafted in the first round, putting the number up to 49 players (44 at Alabama).

That number is likely to jump up at least once more with talent on the 2023 roster expected to go in the first round of this year’s draft, including three players in FTW’s latest mock draft.