Tommy Tuberville is heading to Washington D.C. The former head coach at Auburn and other schools ran as a Republican and defeated incumbent Doug Jones, a Democrat, to be one of Alabama’s Senators in the next United States Congress. On Wednesday’s SEC coaches media teleconference, Alabama coach Nick Saban was asked about his old Iron Bowl rival.

“Tommy’s always been someone who I have a tremendous amount of respect for,” Saban said. “Yeah, we did compete against each other but we’ve been really good friends for a long long time. I’m really happy for him and I think he’ll do a really, really good job.”

Alabama voters should not expect to see Saban follow Tuberville’s lead of going from football to politics. Saban was asked if he has ever considered running for political office.

“I can answer that part real quick: no,” Saban said.

So much for the Iron Bowl rivalry moving to Capitol Hill.

Tuberville most recently served as the head coach at Cincinnati from 2013-16. Prior to the stop at Cincy, Tuberville was the head coach at Texas Tech from 2010-12.

Tuberville got his head coaching start in the SEC at Ole Miss from 1995-98 before leaving for the Auburn job where he coached from 1999-2008.