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He has done this better than Bowden or Paterno or maybe even Coach Bryant. A gentle handoff in a changing age of the sport, to a younger man who seems to understand where the sport is and where it’s going.
If we can keep the NFL’s hands off DeBoer, there’s no reason for him to ever go anywhere else. He’s at the pinnacle of the sport right now!
To be fair Coach Bryant stayed as long as his health would let him. Just a shadow of himself and apparently on deaths door, the man could still coach pretty good.
Damn right he could. Still The Goat in my mind, even though I was only 6 when he passed. But, two different eras of college football that Bryant presided over, and he got us titles in both of them. Same thing could be said for Coach Saban. It was the third era, the NIL/Portal era, that proved to be when he called it quits, and I don’t blame him.
And even then, Saban was in the title game in '21. Two plays away from the playoffs in '22, and one play away from the title game in '23. The NIL/Portal stuff didn't slow him down much at all.
I think he knew what he had to do to continue to perform in the NIL/Portal era, he just knew that he was getting too old for it. If the Portal/NIL stuff started 10 years ago I don't think it would have slowed him down at all
Bryant’s era was easier. You could have 200 people on your roster, give football players scholarships for any male sport, and the recruiting was open year round. He was amazing for the time, but if Saban existed in Bryant’s era he would have 10-12 titles
And what's interesting now is that some schools are paying guys NIL as walk-ons to cover what a scholarship would when they are past the scholarship limit.
Saban was king of some loopholes, but that's a pretty big one.
Also he didn’t hang on way too long. Bryant’s last NC to retirement was 3 years, Saban’s last NC to retirement was also 3 years.
It wouldn’t take a lot to end better than Paterno. Basically don’t go out after being implicated in probably the worst abuse scandal in the history of American sports.
Well there’s the gymnastics scandal to compete with it
Oh shit yeah that’s worse. But point stands about having a better exit than Paterno isn’t a high bar.
People seen to forget JoePa won a conference title in 2009, 2 years shy of his retirement
Paterno's entire legacy was tarnished by the Sandusky scandal.
Did he even have a working headset tho? It’s widely known both he and Bowden were mostly for show their last few years.
Didn’t Joe tell the president of the school and they are the one that didn’t report it? Irrc he was basically a scapegoat
In an era where he didn’t have say over hiring and firing of his coaches 🤷♂️
You are casually dismissing turning a blind eye to systemic child abuse
Deboer has never stayed for longer than a few years anywhere he’s been. I hope he does well at bama and he stays but we’ll see
This is literally what people said about Saban lol
Makes sense with him just coming off a coach interview and having the 5 minute break to make the decision. Whoever he interviewed wanted to know how long he was staying and hiring coordinators had clearly been a challenge at the end.
I hope we find out someday who it was he interviewed
I thought it was Sheppard? Weird to think we hired his then head coach but wasn’t all the rumbling when Wiggins left that Sheppard was being inked up?
I don't think I remember reading that, Shep came with KDB iirc
Yea, maybe that was just message board rumor but I thought he had interviewed prior to saban retiring and he was the one who wanted confirmation before moving from Seattle.
Even "worse", said he interviewed 3 and all 3 wanted to know how long he was going to be staying in this interview.
Not sure if this article is from the interview, but it's actually pretty good from Saban with him being pretty candid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8BDUlylro0&t=303s
I was so lucky to witness prime Saban
I know life isn’t football, but my grandfather who was a lifelong Bama fan died Summer 2008. I wish he could’ve seen a glimpse of what we were going to become. He couldn’t remember the day of the week it was (Parkinson’s disease) but he could tell me our Offensive Lineman and who we were playing week to week.
I loved that man.
My grandpa died this year. He was also a lifelong bama fan. I know it is probably just a coincidence but he died the day after I told him that saban had retired.
So say we all!
Prime Saban produced “We Want Bama”
We were THAT feared across the entire landscape. Every team that felt they had a shot knew they still needed to bring their best because it was going to be a FIGHT!
Truthfully, it was always going to be a beat down if that team didn’t bring a fight 😂 We did a lot of ass kicking from 2008-2015. Stuff changed a little when Clemson became a behemoth and then Georgia too but we still had two titles in that timeframe. Also only missed the playoff once in that 2015-2023 span of time. Absolutely bonkers.
Absolutely f’n bonkers indeed. I’m so happy I was a Tide fan my whole life.
On a whim, my son and I went to Tuscaloosa this fall and caught a game. He graduates from HS next year and had never been to a game in Tuscaloosa. We went to the Walk of Champions and saw Saban.
Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t wait for the right time to do this stuff with your kids.
With nil, conf referees and transfers, college football is basically a different sport
And not foe the better
Noo not even close to the game Saban started with at Bama
It's sort of ironic that prospective hires/ players being wary of Saban retiring ultimately led to his retirement.
Pretty impressive how many really good players he signed even with all that speculation going on. Give Debo a lot of credit for holding most of it together but Saban pretty much built the 24 class, Debo “JUST” had to hang in there for dear life and get Ryan Williams to come back. He’s done well so far
And this is coming from a guy who knew he had tenure.... Nick earned the right to age and coach this program back into the ground where he found it, but that was never his style.