The Nick Saban era at Alabama football is over after he retired earlier this month. The Crimson Tide made a run to the College Football Playoff this season, but they lost in the Rose Bowl to the eventual national champion, Michigan. Now, Alabama has hired Kalen DeBoer over from Washington. Not a lot of people saw Saban leaving after this year, but one person that did is Alabama senator and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville.

“I kinda saw it coming,” Tommy Tuberville said in regards to Saban's retirement during a recent appearance on Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich. “He never mentioned it, but he and I have been working on an NIL bill, along with a lot of other coaches, ADs, for the last couple of years. And he just got tired of it. It wasn’t just NIL. I think he got to a point where, you know, he wanted to do maybe something else. He had accomplished so much. And I hate to see him go from college sports. I think he will stay active in some way, I don’t know what it is. The success he had…it will never be duplicated, in our lifetime, anyway.”

Tuberville and Nick Saban had some battles back in the day when Saban was both at Alabama and LSU, and Tuberville actually had a winning record against Saban. He doesn't let him forget it.

“Don’t think I don’t tell him that quite often,” Tuberville said. “We had some great games.”

Now, Tuberville is a senator in Alabama, and after the success that he had against the Crimson Tide, there was some concern that he wouldn't be able to get Alabama fans to vote for him. However, Tuberville, the former Ole Miss and Auburn coach actually gives himself credit for bringing Saban to the Crimson Tide. He once beat Alabama six times in a row, and he got a lot of their coaches fired, and Saban was brought in to fix it all. That's the pitch that he gives to voters.

“I told them, ‘First of all, you wouldn’t have Nick Saban, because I got the rest of them fired,’” Tuberville continued. “When Nick came in, he changed the, I guess, the atmosphere in what Alabama had their possibilities of doing. He was the best guy for the job.”

That streak that Tuberville went on against Alabama is impressive, and he is proud of it. He also doesn't think that we will see anything like that for a long time.

“That’s probably the best feat of coaching in my lifetime, that I’ve ever seen in terms of consistency,” He said. “And again, it won’t be replicated any time in the near future.”

Nick Saban is no longer the head coach of the Alabama football team. It is truly the end of an era, and Tuberville knows that Saban did a lot for college football in his coaching days.

“You can’t say enough of about what he’s done and meant to football over the last 25 years, and what he’s brought to college football, in terms of notoriety, more television sets watching college football,” Tuberville said. “He’ll be missed.”