Alabama head coach Nick Saban is the highest-paid head coach in college football at a program that is as close to college football royalty as you can get. Alabama brings in some of the top-ranked recruiting classes on an annual basis and always seems to be in the thick of the SEC and national champion conversation under Saban, so why would he ever want to leave? Good news for you Alabama fans. Saban can’t picture him ever leaving Tuscaloosa.
“No, I really don’t. I don’t see it ever happening, and I know every year somebody has me going somewhere else,” Saban told ESPN.com in a wide-ranging interview. “I think a lot of it isn’t just about the coaching part. What people don’t understand is they forget you’re a person. They forget you have a wife and two kids and a grandbaby, and they all live in Birmingham.
“They all work here. My wife goes to Birmingham five times a week. My mom lives in Birmingham now after moving from Myrtle Beach. It’s not just the job. A lot of people don’t get that. My life is here.”
Saban’s name tends to come up for various coaching rumors from time to time. Saban’s return to the NFL has been contemplated by some, but that does not appear to be in the cards at this stage in his career.
Saban is a good coach but the bitter taste of the NFL as a head coach clearly did not go well in Miami. Could a chance to redeem himself and make a Super Bowl run entice him back to the NFL? It sure does not look like it. Nothing Saban has ever said has suggested he has any interest in going back to the NFL. And it’s not that he is afraid of the NFL. It is simply that he is treated too well at Alabama to ever want to give that up, and nobody should blame him for that.
Saban is a college football coach, and should remain that way. There are others who will be motivated to succeed at the NFL level because it is the top level of the profession of football coaching. But going to the NFL is not always a great experience. Take Steve Spurrier for example. Spurrier was built for the college game. Pete Carroll was too, although he managed to make a return to the NFL work out for him. Saban? He’s a college coach, and nobody is going to get him to leave Alabama. If Texas couldn’t do it, nobody will.
[ESPN]
