Alabama coach Nick Saban remains the highest-paid coach in college football, contrary to initial reports of Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan contract.
Although plenty of smoke emanated from Austin, Texas, after the Longhorns fired Mack Brown, it never seemed like Saban seriously considered a career move. If he didn’t take that apparent back-channels offer, it seems highly unlikely he’d ever leave Alabama for another college program.
But would the 63-year-old coach make one last run at redeeming his NFL reputation?
“Let’s start with the fact that I’m not really interested in any situation in the NFL,” Saban said Tuesday, according to ESPN. “Rex Ryan is a great friend of mine, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. We’re hopeful that he gets an opportunity that’s helpful to him, in terms of what he wants to do. We have a tremendous amount of respect for the New York Jets.
“As I’ve talked about before, I think sometimes you’ve got to pick what you want your legacy to be. Where do you get the most positive self-gratification from, what you want to be and where you think you have the best impact on people. We’re extremely happy with being a college coach and what we’ve been able to do as a college coach and the challenges we have in trying to continue to do it.”
Saban to the NFL seems highly unlikely, but that hasn’t stopped the New York media from pining for him.
The Jets fired general manager John Idzik and coach Rex Ryan on Monday. By the end of the day, the New York Post published a column titled “Jets owner must back up big talk: Go get Nick Saban.”
New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro called Saban the second-best football coach alive behind New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, Saban’s former boss. Vaccaro suggests that the Jets should use a two-pronged approach to pry Saban from Alabama: 1) a salary upwards of $8 million per season and 2) making him the general manager, or at least letting him hire a puppet GM.
Wrote Vaccaro:
This is exactly the deal Pete Carroll was given in Seattle; he had the power to approve the GM, John Schneider, and that’s worked out as well as a thing can work out.
Yes: Maybe only a fool would abandon a kingdom in Tuscaloosa for a condo in Florham Park, and Saban is no fool. Yes: As a close FOH (Friend of the Hoodie), he will be given the chapter-and-verse reasons from Bill Belichick why he should stay away (and remember, it was Belichick’s concerns with “various uncertainties” about the Jets’ pending owner — Johnson — that caused him to pen his famed “HC of the NYJ” soliloquy two weeks before Johnson officially closed on the team in 2000).
And yes: Saban has been down this AFC East road before and it didn’t go well: a 15-17 record in two years in Miami, bequeathing a barren cabinet that rock-bottomed at 1-15 the year after he fled for Alabama.
That last point should be of the least concern. I believe Nick Saban 2.0 in the NFL would be identical to John Calipari 2.0 in the NBA if and when that ever happens. Both had done splendid rebuilding jobs — Saban at LSU, Calipari at UMass — to get their first crack at the pros. They weren’t interlopers, but they didn’t have near the surplus of credibility they own now.
Vaccaro is not the first New York writer to suggest a potential scenario where Saban rides into the Big Apple on a magic carpet and immediately invigorates an NFL franchise. Last week, NJ.com’s Jordan Raanan pointed to an NFL.com podcast that discussed potential NFL job openings.
The Giants retained two-time Super Bowl winner and coach Tom Coughlin, but the podcast suggested that whether the franchise needed a new coach this year or not, ownership should go after Saban.
“I don’t think he’s going to leave for just anywhere but … I think there is an obvious admiration there from the Mara family and if Tom Coughlin and the Giants were to cut ties, whether it’s this year, next year or whenever, I wouldn’t be totally shocked to see the New York Giants make a run at Nick Saban,” Albert Breer said, according to NJ.com.
“I’m not saying that Saban would go for just any pro job at this point. But you’ve got to understand, the Giants job is kind of the gold standard job for the entire profession when it comes to football coaches and I would imagine Nick Saban would at least take that phone call. I don’t know if he would necessarily leave Alabama, but it’s one of those where it’s such a good job that you almost owe it to yourself to listen.”
Saban recently praised the University of Alabama for taking good care of him and consistently has maintained that Tuscaloosa will be his last stop. But if he wins a fourth national championship in six seasons — or even if he doesn’t — it would be hard to blame an NFL franchise or a big-time college program for attempting to pry him away.
Saban has at times appeared more haggard at Alabama this season, where the week-in, week-out grind of expectations, media and one of the most passionate fan bases in the country still only serves as a down-South approximation of New York City.
As well as Saban is compensated already, it wouldn’t be shocking to see the coach and his agent leverage the attention to get yet another raise from the Capstone.
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
