Nick Saban, the most successful college football coach of all time, has recently announced his retirement, and since then many things have changed such as top recruits uncommiting from Alabama and many other things. How has Saban’s retirement effect college football?
(New York Post)
Once Saban announced his retirement after 26 years as a collegiate coach has the most winningest record at 274-61-1, just as a head coach, which makes his winning percentage .803. But that isn’t the end of his resume, he also lead Alabama to 8 SEC Championships along with 7 National Titles. To say that there will ever be a coach as great as Coach Saban, is probably accurate.
As soon as his retirement was announced, things changed dramatically. The head coach of the Washington Huskies football team, Kalen DeBoer, was announced as the new head coach, and then the Huskies named Jedd Fisch as their new head coach which put holes in Arizona’s coaching staff. On top of DeBoer taking the job, many of the guys Saban recruited to go to Alabama decommitted because they only wanted to play for Coach Saban. The 2023-2024 Gatorade Player of the Year, from Carlsbad High School by the name of Julian Sayin has just transferred from Alabama to Ohio State due to the retirement of Coach Saban. Sayin was a 5 Star QB recruit, he was number 7 in the nation and number 1 in the state of California. Saban truly made an impact, and everyone wanted to play for him.
On top of that, the head coach of the National Champion Michigan Wolverines, Jim Harbaugh has also been named new head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers. Everyone is wondering as to why Harbaugh is going back to the pros after he just won a National Championship. The only thing, we can think of is that he played on the Chargers for a couple of years, but why fix something if it’s not broken. I would understand if Harbaugh didn’t do big things this last year, but he did, he won a National Championship. So this move doesn’t make any sense on Harbaugh’s part.
Although DeBoer’s hire was a little surprising to Crimson Tide football fans, it works and Bama is the best place for him to build is resume and become a memorable coach. There have already been commits to move to Alabama with DeBoer’s arrival such as quarterback Austin Mack, who transferred to Alabama, as he was the backup to Washington’s starting quarterback last season, Michael Penix, Jr.
To say that Nick Saban’s run at a collegiate football coach was very memorable, is an understatement. Nick Saban will be forever remembered as the greatest college football coach of all time.
