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Nick Saban did it his way, and he did it better than any college football head coach in the sport’s history.
But that doesn’t mean the 73-year-old legend who led Alabama to 6 national championships and LSU to 1 did it perfectly. Saban does have 1 big regret in how he went about his coaching journey, and he shared that regret on Tuesday during an appearance on “The Pivot” podcast with hosts Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder and Fred Taylor.
While Clark said that Saban had seemingly made all the right decisions, he asked Saban if there was anything he would’ve done differently. For Saban, the answer was direct and simple: He regretted leaving LSU after the 2004 season to become the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Saban recalled sitting on then-LSU athletic director Skip Bertman’s balcony, when his agent, Jimmy Sexton, asked Saban: “Do you want to be Bear Bryant or Vince Lombardi?”
Nick Saban answered, “Bear Bryant,” yet he still left college coaching and the SEC for the NFL. Saban spent all of 2 seasons coaching the Dolphins, then came back to college and the SEC to take the Alabama job in 2007. And the rest, as they say, is college football history.
Saban spent 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa, winning those 6 titles and becoming a legend. But if he had to do it all over again, Saban would’ve never left college coaching for the challenge of the pro game.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.