Even those who wouldnt consider themselves football fans or sports fans, have probably heard the name, Nick Saban. The fiery head coach of the Alabama football team. Saban announced his retirement on January 10th, 2024.
The retirment of Nick Saban was rather out of the blue, and unexpected, after he just led his team to yet another playoff appearance, losing to who would go on to win the championship, Michigan in overtime. Alabama finished this year 12-2, with loses to Texas, and Michigan who both made the extremely selective college football playoffs.
Nick Saban started his football legacy as a player, at Kent State University. Playing with the Golden Flashes from 1970-1972 as a defensive back, even though he only stood 5’7. After hanging the cleats up, he stayed at Kent State as a Graduate Assistant and linebacker coach, until 1976.
He then left his alma mater and went to be the outside linebackers coach at Syracuse University. His time at Syracuse was short lived, as he only coached there for one season (1977), after that he bounced around multiple Group of 5 schools as position coaches.
Saban then made the switch from college to the NFL in 1988, becoming the defensive backs coach of the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers). The Oilers went to the playoffs as the last team in the AFC, and made it the second round of the playoffs before losing to the Buffalo Bills.
He would then revert back to college football, and get his first head coaching job, at the University of Toledo in 1990. The Rockets went 9-2 overall, finishing as the Mid-American Conference Champions, this showed lots of hope for the rookie Head Coach, Nick Saban. Once again this stint wouldnt last long and he would go back to the NFL, as the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns, as Bill Belichick was the HC at the time.
From this point on, Nick was getting sum recognition that he is a good coach, and has had a good resume. And from the same point, he was strictly a head coach bouncing around between respectable college and nfl teams. In the year 2007, Nick Saban became the Head Coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, and theres where he would stay until his recent retirement.
Alabama’s dominance since then was through the roof, and people said that every year the team would just get better and better and Saban would bring in all of the best players in high school.
Over the last 16 years, Coach Saban has brought in more accolades than any other coach wether it be college football or the NFL. He racked up a win-loss record as a HC of 201-71, and 201-29 at Alabama alone.
Other notable accolades Coach Saban achieved were:
2x AP College Football Coach of the Year
5x SEC Coach of the Year
1 MAC Championship
11 SEC Championships
19 Bowl game wins
49 players selected in the first round of the NFL Draft
and the most notable accolade being the 7 national championships Saban won.
There is a lot of speculation on who is going to take over the Head Coaching job for the Tide, including TCU coach Sonny Dykes , Georgia coach Kirby Smart, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, and University of Oregon coach Dan Lanning.
