I’m not sure how often we — and by “we” I mean we and the college football public — can write the same story, but hopefully this is the last time. Nick Saban is not returning to coaching.
That’s according to Nick Saban, who made his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Friday from inside FirstBank Stadium before College GameDay‘s appearance at Vanderbilt tomorrow. McAfee and Saban were talking coaching openings generally with, apparently, super-agent Jimmy Sexton standing just offscreen. McAfee remarked how the openings at Penn State and Florida were certain to get a Sexton client, and thus Sexton himself, a large amount of money, Saban interjected with this:
“I want to stay retired. I do not want (Sexton) anywhere near Miss Terry because when she hears some of these numbers, she gets interested,” Saban said, smile across his face. “And I ain’t interested.”
The comments come less than a week after Miss Terry herself appeared on GameDay and simultaneously threw water and gasoline on rumors that her 7-time national champion husband would return to coaching.
“I have no doubt that if Nick wanted to go back to coaching, he could win his eighth national championship, but we’re having too much fun. And we wouldn’t want to take that opportunity away from all of our baby coaches, like Kirby [Smart] and Lane [Kiffin],” she said, jokingly referencing the Saban coaching tree.
“Too much fun,” Terry Saban said. “I haven’t heard a number yet.”
“Mrs. Always Right has spoken,” Saban echoed.
The I haven’t heard a number yet seemingly open a crack in the back door, but Saban said Friday, “No way.”
This, hopefully, ends a news cycle that began back at SEC media days when former Alabama quarterback and current ESPN analyst Greg McElroy said on his local radio show that “someone very much in the know” “seemed to think” Saban was not done coaching. And, thus, a fire storm was born. Perhaps Friday was the end, but I’m not holding my breath.
As for the coaches who will take jobs this offseason, Saban said the most important aspects for coaches considering new jobs are: NIL, the administration’s involvement in day-to-day happenings in the program (more on that below), academics (meaning: which kids do and do not get in), and facilities, which are not near as important as they were a decade ago, for obvious reasons. “You could have the nicest facilities in the world, but if you don’t have any money to pay the players, they’re not coming,” Saban said.
“The most important thing when you take a job is, how do you establish the ground rules going in?” he said. “You’ve got all these people giving money so that you can pay players, but does that come with them having some influence in what happens in the program? How you coach the team, how you coach the players and all that. When I took a job I said, ‘Okay, this is how it’s going to be. I’m not listening to the board of trustees, they’re not telling me who to recruit, they’re not telling me who to play.’ Understand that going in and go tell them before I go take the job, because I’m not listening to that bullshit.'”
That laying of the ground rules obviously worked for Nick Saban, because he was Nick Saban. We’ll see if it works for the coaches who take the Penn State and Florida jobs, who will not be Nick Saban, according to Nick Saban.
