Nick Saban didn’t realize he was being recorded. As a result, the entire college football community was able to witness a slice of this sport we’re never permitted to see.
We got to watch The Godfather of Recruiting work.
This was February 2021 and Saban was conducting a video call with an elite defensive recruit. He was giving the usual spiel about national titles, draft picks and how he built the best program in college football.
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Then Saban broached the topic of negative recruiting. That’s when the pitch went into overdrive. That’s when he started spitting the hard truths prospects need to hear.
“Everybody is going to tell you in recruiting, ‘Don’t go to Alabama. You can play at our school before you can play there. They’ve got all these good players and you aren’t going to be able to play while you could play at our place earlier,’” Saban said. “I think that’s the worst stuff people can tell you. … If you ask our players on our team, they’ll tell you just the opposite. They’ll tell you, ‘The competition made me better.’
“Marlon Humphrey will say to you if you play corner — the first corner taken in the NFL Draft — he can say, ‘I had to cover Amari Cooper every day.’ Amari Cooper was the first receiver taken in the draft. Cam Robinson played left tackle here and won the Outland Trophy. Jonathan Allen played for Washington and he won the Nagurski Award. They practiced against each other every day for three years. All those guys will tell you, ‘That made me better … the guy I practiced against was better than the guy I played in the game against.’”
Saban, 72, inspired people. Perhaps that’s why that leaked recruiting call was so powerful. It was just an ordinary day for Saban in his office. He’d done a million calls like that before. But we got to watch Saban explain to a talented teenager what it takes to be great. No shortcuts. No pie-in-the-sky promises. Hard facts about what it takes to achieve excellence.
The best coach in the history of our wonderful sport shocked the world Wednesday when he announced his retirement. Poof. A piece of our sport is gone, and the hole it leaves cannot be filled by an exciting coaching search or recruiting storylines.
A chapter of this sport is permanently closed.
GO DEEPER
Soul food, Italian suits and hard truths: What it's like to be recruited by Nick Saban
Saban wasn’t just a coach. He was also a shining example of greatness. Coaches wanted to be him, and players took the hard route to play for him. He, in many ways, felt like the steadying presence of a sport that has evolved so dramatically that some of us don’t even know how to keep up anymore.
I am legitimately sad.
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Saban, at his core, was a master motivator and recruiter. There are so many amazing statistics you’ll find about his Alabama tenure — starting with the six national titles in 17 years — but there is always one that stands out to me: He won 10 recruiting crowns in a 13-year stretch, including an astounding seven straight from 2011 through 2017. And he did it by having conversations like the one we were all lucky enough to see.
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Mandel: Alabama’s Nick Saban, college football’s greatest coach, is going out on his own terms
Alabama has tremendous tradition, administrative buy-in, facilities, proximity to talent and one of the premier fan bases in the country. But Saban, with an insatiable desire to recruit, did the one thing that made him almost impossible to beat — convinced an absurd amount of five-star prospects to play for him year after year. And not just any players who got offers because of a ranking. The right players, the ones motivated by hearing how hard things were going to be once they got to Tuscaloosa.
That’s how Alabama became the first real recruiting dynasty. Year after year, Alabama was going to get better players than its peers. It didn’t matter which assistants left, Saban consistently dominated the most important aspect of the sport — talent accumulation.
He turned Alabama into a football factory. More elite players equated to more wins, which turned into more titles. Then he sold that. Repeat. It was a machine.
Saban made dominance look easy. That’s how he fooled fans of other programs into thinking national titles should happen regularly.
The only programs that competed with Alabama for more than a decade were the ones that tried to do it Saban’s way. That mindset, that system, could be replicated only by like-minded people. That’s why Georgia’s Kirby Smart is who he is. That, in turn, is why Oregon’s Dan Lanning is the most obvious candidate to replace him in Tuscaloosa.
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But there is no replacing Saban.
The question I can’t stop thinking about is, “Why now?” Alabama’s 2023 recruiting class ranked No. 1 nationally and included nine five-star prospects. His 2024 class ranks No. 2 after the early signing period. This year’s team was two wins away from another. Saban had more titles in him.
We’ll find out more when (or if) Saban decides the time is right. But I have this sinking feeling that the coach who was so good at adapting didn’t have the will to adapt anymore because of the direction of the sport. Name, image and likeness and transfers are the future, and maybe Saban — always a proponent of achieving greatness the hard way — didn’t want to adapt to that world.
At 72, it’s certainly understandable why the master of all things didn’t want to master agents and handlers and players who don’t have the desire to stay long enough to refine their skills the way Humphrey, Cooper, Robinson and Allen did.
Even if it turns out to be something else, there will be no other Saban — just coaches who are brave enough to dream they can be that great, too.
I’m going to miss him. I found his old-school presence comforting.
Now, we have another seismic shift in a sport that might be changing too much too fast.
GO DEEPER
Mueller: Being Nick Saban’s GM was far from easy, but I'm forever grateful. Here's why
(Photo: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)
