Since taking over as the head coach for the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2007, Nick Saban has had a bit of success: Four National Titles, four SEC Championships, six SEC West titles, 2008 AP Coach of the Year, and two SEC Coach of the Year Awards.
Saban has been at Alabama for 10 years now and prior to moving to Tuscaloosa, he had never been anywhere more than five. While he rarely talks about anything other than the Tide’s next game, the milestone got Saban to open up a little bit about the big picture.
“I think you get to a station in your life, whether it’s family or relationships, a combination of all the above, that you just feel like you’re entrenched,” Saban told ESPN.com Monday. “You can’t even visualize being somewhere else, and that’s where I am right now.”
Now 65-years-old, Saban says he still has no plans of ending his college football dominance anytime soon.
“I’m not looking to get out. I’m really not, even though I know that’s going to start being talked about more now,” Saban told ESPN. “What I have noticed is that it’s the first time people are starting to say to recruits, ‘He won’t be there the whole time you’re there,’ because of my age.”
If Saban’s 2016 recruiting class, which ranks second in the nation behind Florida State according to ESPN, didn’t play under him for all potential four-years at Alabama, their odds of having success for two years under the head man is still extremely high.
“When I talk about a successful program,” Saban said. “It’s not just winning the national championship every year because nobody can do that. It may be the expectation around here, and I understand it and I want to do it, but it’s unrealistic to think that you’re going to do it every year.”
Maybe it’s unrealistic to think that you’re going to do it every year, but it’s not unrealistic to think you’ll do it under Saban if you stay all four years. Since taking over in 2007, every single one of Saban’s recruiting classes has won a National Title. Think about that.
Outside of Les Miles at LSU, no SEC coach has been at his school longer than Saban (Miles has been in Baton Rouge since 2005). However Saban admitted to ESPN that he’s happy to stay at Alabama until he retires.
“There was always a next step before I came here,” Saban said. “It wasn’t just to be a college head coach because I’d spent time in the NFL as a coordinator. So when I went back to college to be a head coach, within a year or two, I started getting head coaching offers in the NFL. I really wanted to stay in college. But in the back of my mind, I always thought that I’d go back to the NFL and try to be a head coach.”
Until the day comes when Saban retires and Alabama has to find someone to succeed their most successful coach since Bear Bryant, Tuscaloosa can sleep well knowing Saban isn’t going anywhere.
[ESPN]
