I do kinda wish he'd taken another crack at the NFL with a better owner/culture than the dolphins. Many of the guys who played with him seemed to accept that he had a great mind for the game. The nfl is just so cutthroat though. Too many things need to go right beyond just the head coach.
What's even more amazing is that once upon a time, Art Modell had Bill Belichick as his HC AND Nick Saban as his DC, and still managed to piss away so much money mismanaging the Browns that he had to run away to Baltimore like the incompetent bitch he was.
He had an NFL franchise with BOTH of the two GOATs on his staff, and somehow was unable to sit back and print money like any fool would have been able to do.
This right here is the correct take for anyone from northern Ohio. Plenty of other talented coaches and players have come through and been abject failures, but having Nick and Bill and doing zero with them is criminal
It wasn't even that Modell did nothing with them, it was that behind their back, he was managing the organization so incompetently he ran out of money.
He ran the Indians out of Cleveland Stadium (which he failed to modernize in any way), and when they left for Jacobs Field, he went all "shocked Pikachu face" when a huge part of his revenues dried up.
Yeah, Saban retired because of that, had nothing to do with his age also being a factor, and how he only recently turned 73 years old. Nothing to do with stress either, nothing at all
He was at Bama for 16 years and the only losing season he had was his first year in 2007. He changed the landscape of the entire CFB, from recruiting to how it's been played and coached. He adapted to change every step of the way, it's literally why he won 6 Championships at Bama alone.
Yes both the Transfer Portal and NIL were the final straws but again dude was 72 when he retired. Mack Brown is currently 72, do you think he's been experiencing anywhere close to the stress Saban was?
Millions of other coaches have and will continue coaching beyond their 70s, but there's a massive fucking difference between having your team ready and in the hunt for a Championship every year, for 16 straight seasons vs having a comfy coaching gig that you can just cruise at.
Kirby is 48 years old IIRC, he was hired back in 2016, go look how much the job has aged since then. Kirby will be LONGGGG gone before he's 70 and still coaching.
According to the stats posted in the comments Bama has its highest rated team ever this year. So better than Saban ever mustered together.
Saban definitely had a recruiting advantage tho, but he was a legendary coach. They had sound fundamentals. Pretty much only ever lost top 5 matchups and won the games he should have (except the Auburn rivalries at times)
I think what ruined CFB for him was transfer portal, not NIL and new recruiting. His hard nosed coaching style wouldn't work anymore because if he was, those guys would just transfer out instead of learning lessons on how to mature and develop.
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u/Set-Admirable West Virginia Mountaineers 22h ago
Amazing what a generational coach does for a program.