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With a new head coach for the upcoming season, it's currently an adjustment period for Alabama football. The program just parted ways with Nick Saban, who announced his retirement after 17 years at the helm. Saban cited age as the reason for his retirement, and he reiterated this during an episode of the Paul Finebaum show.
During a discussion about recruitment and the transfer portal, the recently-retired coach indicated how his age played an obstacle when securing the commitment of new coaches and players.
“I didn't want to ride the program down,” Saban said, per 247 Sports' Mike Rodak. “I tried to hire three coaches — every one of them wanted to know how long I was going to be there at the end of the season. Every recruit wanted to know how long you're going to be here. Well, when you're 72 years old, it's harder to say I'm going to be here for the next four years.”
Saban also talked about the difficulties he had to go through due to constant changes within the team.
“But the question I had for people is how long are you going to be here? A lot of coaches left — for good reason, they got better opportunities, because we won — and a lot of players left because they thought they had better opportunities someplace else. So that became more difficult, but we managed it. We got some good players out of the portal. We lost some good players in the portal,” he added.
Nick Saban's storied career
As the 72-year-old departs from Tuscaloosa, he'll be replaced by former Washington football coach Kalen DeBoer, who is tasked with continuing the Alabama legacy that Saban and many other coaches before him built. The program has a total of 18 National Championship titles, the earliest of which was around a century ago.
Under Saban's leadership, the school won its six most recent National Championships. Saban and his squad dominated during their time together, with the Tide garnering undefeated campaigns in two of those six seasons (2009 and 2020). Additionally, Saban tallied nine SEC titles for Alabama as well.
As for the man himself, Saban's success goes beyond Alabama. Prior to the start of his Crimson Tide tenure, he already won a National Championship with LSU football in 2003. All in all, Saban finished his coaching tenure with a 292–71–1 record. He was named AP Coach of the Year twice: once with LSU during their championship season and the other in 2008 with Alabama.
Saban now works as an analyst for ESPN. Still, he's likely to continue being involved with the Tide, based on Kalen DeBoer's recent comments about giving Saban “100% access” to the program.
“He's (Nick Saban is) the best in the business to ever do it,” DaBoer said during his Alabama introductory press conference, per Sports Illustrated's Mathey Gibson. “I'm just gonna make sure that's all known. That's how I feel. 100% access, okay? To everything. I would be a fool if that wasn't the case.”
