Return of the GOAT? Five totally serious landing spots for Nick Saban

On Monday morning, Greg McElroy hijacked the start of the SEC media circus by suggesting that Nick Saban could eventually return to college football. 

“A very much in-the-know person that I have a lot of respect for and have spent a lot of time around and just really, really admire, they seem to think Nick Saban’s not done coaching,” McElroy claimed on his radio show, McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning. “He’s pretty adamant that he thinks Nick Saban will be coaching again. … Look, if it wasn’t someone notable, I’d never say a word.”

And that was that. The fire was lit and the spread was imminent. 

LSU head coach Brian Kelly was asked about it hours later. 

“It’d be better for college football if Nick Saban is coaching. Period,” Kelly responded.

And then Lane Kiffin was asked about it. 

“He’s not going to need me to hire him,” Kiffin joked. “I don’t think he’s done. I think he’ll be back. Whether that’s college or NFL, I think he’ll be back.”

We found our A1 topic for the week at SEC Media Days. 

You know how these things go. Regardless of whether Saban actually has any interest in returning to college football — Paul Finebaum essentially laughed off the suggestion — the prospect of Saban’s return will dominate sports talk shows for the next week. 

It’s an interesting question, to be clear. The sport has changed significantly just in the short amount of time since Saban has been gone. And he would walk back in the door as the oldest active head coach in college football. 

We did this when Bob Stoops retired from coaching in 2016. “Surely he can’t be done,” folks thought. “Surely he’ll get that itch again and he’ll come back.” 

Stoops took a job coaching an XFL team in 2020, then returned in 2023 when the league rebooted. In 2021, he also stepped in to coach the Alamo Bowl at Oklahoma following Lincoln Riley’s move to USC.

Did he technically return to college football? Yes. And the XFL gig shows that itch to coach is still there. 

Stoops is also nearly a decade younger than Saban. 

But Saban is the GOAT. He’s inarguably the GOAT. And if there’s a program with enough cash and enough caché to secure an audience with him, there’s probably a chance. 

So… who could actually bring him to the table? Which program could actually pull Saban back from retirement? 

Alabama is the easy answer, so that’s off the table. There are probably a couple of realistic options out there. And then there are the fun ones. Let’s focus on the fun ones.

Here are 5 schools that we should totally, absolutely take seriously.

West Virginia

Country roads really do take us home. If there’s an off-the-beaten-path option for Saban, it’s to return to his roots and take over the hometown team. Saban was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, some 20 miles down the road from Morgantown. 

This one would be a little awkward because the school just hired Rich Rodriguez last December. An alum, Rich Rod coached at West Virginia 3 different times from 1985 through 2007. He started as a student assistant, then came back as a linebackers coach in 1989. In 2001, he was hired as the head coach to replace the school’s all-time winningest coach, Don Nehlen. 

He went 32-5 over his last 3 seasons at the school before taking the Michigan job. West Virginia finished inside the top 10 of the AP Poll each year. 

One could make the argument the Mountaineers haven’t been relevant since. Dana Holgorsen had WVU ranked as high as sixth in October 2018 before losing 4 of his last 7. The school hired Neal Brown to replace Holgorson and, in the 6 seasons since, has not made a single solitary appearance in the AP Top 25.

Rodriguez probably isn’t in “rehab your image and take a bigger job” mode at this point in his career but who knows. Stranger things have happened, and he has left Morgantown more than once already. 

Saban coached defensive backs at West Virginia in 1978 and 1979, but that has been the extent of his experience working close to home. If Saban wanted a challenge and wanted to avoid any possible overlap with the SEC or Alabama, heading to Morgantown would check those boxes.

Ohio State

Now, we get to the fun options. 

A massive chunk of Saban’s football career has been spent in the state of Ohio. He played at Kent State in the early 70s. He coached on the Kent State staff from 1973-76. He returned in 1980 to coach defensive backs at Ohio State, spent 1 year as the head coach of Toledo in 1990, then spent 4 seasons coordinating the Cleveland Browns defense. 

Let’s say Ryan Day loses to Michigan for an incomprehensible fifth time in a row. Let’s just say that happens. The Buckeyes would be looking at 6 consecutive years without a win over that team up North — something that hasn’t happened since Meat Loaf sang he would do anything for love. The Buckeyes won’t have much love for Day at that point.

Unless there’s another national title run in the cards to save Day’s skin, fans will be searching for the ejecto seato button and Ohio State will be opening the most sought-after coaching job in a long time. It might even look better than the Alabama job did when it opened. You’re not replacing a Nick Saban or an Urban Meyer, you’re replacing a guy who couldn’t get it done. And what better way for Ohio State to sell an upgrade than by hiring the guy who supersedes all others?  

Saban can build another Death Star while, again, avoiding any Alabama overlap. He can conquer a new league and settle the argument of which conference, the SEC or the Big Ten, is actually the best. 

He can also atone. 

Saban has been a collegiate head coach at 4 different FBS schools. He went 9-2 at Toledo. He went 48-16 at LSU. He went 206-29 at Alabama. He went just 34-24-1 at Michigan State, and he didn’t win a single bowl game with the Spartans. 

For someone as competitive and driven as Saban, do you think a mediocre record at a power conference school eats at him? Think of it like the bodybuilder who has a physique that ranks in the top 5 percentile of the general population, but he can’t get his damn calves to grow and that’s all he focuses on. Michigan State might be the calf of Saban’s coaching career, the thing that gnaws at him. It’s possible!

In this metaphor, I guess, Ohio State is the quad. Just blow those puppies up and no one pays any attention to the baby calves below them. This thread is really getting loose. The point here is that Saban would win a lot at Ohio State. The rest of the Big Ten would hate Ohio State even more than it already does if Saban was coaching at the school. He’d destroy the “but he never won like that in the Big Ten narrative” and he’d probably beat Michigan more than 1 time in 6 years. 

By the way, Saban has as many wins over Michigan in 3 seasons with Michigan State as Day has in 6 full seasons with Ohio State. Just saying. 

USC 

“But Nick Saban has never coached on the West Coast,” you might say. 

And I would respond, simply: “OK?” 

He might not have any coaching experience out west, but they sure as heck have a relationship with him out there. He took the state’s top-ranked prospect in the 2020 class, a kid named Bryce Young. He took the state’s second-ranked recruit in the 2017 class, a kid named Najee Harris. From 2016-20, Saban had multiple California kids in a recruiting class 4 times in 5 years. 

It’ll be hard for any 1 school to really “lock down” the state of California in recruiting, but if there was going to be a coach-school combo that would keep California from bleeding talent over to the SEC, it would be Saban at USC. 

USC needs rejuvenation. Still. Lincoln Riley was supposed to reignite the ember that was the Trojan brand, but we have our answer on that front. 

Three years in, you typically know what a coach is and what he’s going to do. Three years into Saban’s Alabama tenure, we knew it was going to be magic. Three years into Urban Meyer’s tenure at any of his final stops, we knew it was going to work. Three years into the Scott Frost tenure at Nebraska, we knew what it was. Three years into the Hugh Freeze tenure at Auburn, we kinda know how it’s going to be. 

Given that kind of time, especially in this era marked by remarkably-liquid roster mobility, coaches show an administration what the ceiling is going to be. Some coaches break through. Think Dabo Swinney at Clemson. Oftentimes, they don’t. 

I don’t think Riley is breaking through. Since his 2022 Trojans got off to an 11-1 start, USC is 15-13 in its last 28 games. Riley doesn’t have a Heisman Trophy quarterback or a Stoops-built roster, but he does have a schedule that includes Michigan, Notre Dame, and Oregon. If USC is mediocre again, the Trojans are thinking long and hard about dumping Riley. They’re not paying him for Las Vegas Bowl appearances.  

If USC is broken, it needs a special coach to fix it. It needs a coach who can galvanize recruiting efforts in the state and inspire a fanbase. Plus, can you imagine a Nick Saban team with California speed all over the field? If Saban can’t do the things necessary to restore USC to the summit, we can probably leave USC in the same bucket as Nebraska and stop questioning whether the Trojans are going to come back to prominence. 

There’s zero reason for Saban to take the USC job beyond ego. It would feel like starting over, and it would be more challenging than trying to make it through a Love Island episode without losing your faith in humanity. 

And for those reasons, I want to see Saban do it. It would be the ultimate “who do you think you are, I am!” moment for the greatest to do it.

Miami

Lol. 

Could you imagine? 

Saban coached the professional team in Miami during the 2005 and 2006 seasons. He started 3-7 as the Dolphins’ head coach. He watched his front office trade for an injured Daunte Culpepper instead of signing Drew Brees before the 2006 season. Saban started his second Miami season 1-6 before rallying. 

“I guess I have to say it. I’m not going to be the Alabama coach,” he said later that season before becoming the Alabama coach. 

The Hurricanes currently employ Mario Cristobal, who is kind of like the Nick Saban of Dave Doerens. Cristobal is the kind of coach who is good enough not to warrant being fired but bad enough to make his fanbase wish he would just leave. The Hurricanes might be pretty good in 2025, but they didn’t make the College Football Playoff last season with Cam Ward, so you have to approach the new year with a healthy bit of skepticism. 

Another disappointing year likely wouldn’t lead to a dismissal, but if Saban called up Miami’s Dan Radakovich and asked for a meeting, the LifeWallet guy would go full-on Undertaker and write a check that day. 

The motivation here would be suspect. Saban isn’t really exorcising any demons by returning to Miami and winning at a level that isn’t the NFL. But the talent base would be incredible and every season would basically come down to one question. Did you beat Clemson? Cool, here’s a Playoff spot. 

I guess Florida State fits this option as well, but Miami is the cooler option. Suppose Saban wants to avoid the SEC because of his Alabama ties — which is sort of just an assumption I have made without any insider information to justify it. In that case, one of the Florida-based ACC schools is probably the cleanest path back into college football. The footprint remains the same from a recruiting standpoint and the backing will be there.

Auburn

The best option on the board. 

The funniest option on the board. 

Nick Saban taking the Auburn job would be akin to Louise from Bob’s Burgers laughing maniacally in front of the fire. 

Consider, for a moment, the possibility: Nick Saban leads Auburn to its first Iron Bowl victory over Alabama since 2019 by beating the Crimson Tide on Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium. 

Does Alabama change the name? Does the statue get removed from the Walk of Champions? Would Alabama turn on a coach who won 6 national championships and more than 200 games for the school? 

The people want to know. And by “people,” I mean those of us who wake up each morning craving chaos. 

There’s too much respect on both sides for this to actually happen. Even though it’s probably more likely than not that Auburn will be looking for a new head coach in a year, there’s less than a 1% chance Saban is the guy Auburn brings in. 

But, man. Just imagine.