Given Nick Saban’s age and the surrounding College Football landscape, is it fair to finally ask how much the GOAT has left?
Before I get Alabama fans riled up with that headline and the oak tree in my front yard dies a slow, painful death, let me explain myself. This is not a “Nick Saban is washed” or “Alabama is falling off” declaration. I promise.
Rather, it’s me asking (and trying to answer) a question about Nick Saban. One that would have seemed absurd 18 months ago, but feels like a legitimate one now.
“Has Nick Saban already won his final National Championship at Alabama?”
Had you asked me this on December 5th, 2021 I would have laughed in your face. The audacity!! The day before, Alabama had run all over Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, 41-24. That win moved the Crimson Tide to 12-1 on the season and a number one seed in the upcoming College Football Playoff. They were the defending National Champions. Their Quarterback was about to win the Heisman Trophy. Their star defender had just put up a 17.5-Sack, 31-TFL season. They had two receivers that were likely to be selected early in the upcoming NFL Draft. The world was Nick Saban’s oyster like it had been since 2008.
Despite losing the rematch with Georgia in the CFP National Championship 33-18, there was still every reason to think that Alabama was in prime position entering 2022. Bryce Young was back. Will Anderson Jr. was back. Secondary stalwarts like Brian Branch, Jordan Battle, and Kool-Aid McKinstry were all back. There was continuity on the coaching staff with both Coordinators returning (though many Tide fans would argue this was a negative). And just for kicks, they added an impact player via the Transfer Portal, Jahmyr Gibbs, at Running Back.
The Fine Line Between Winning and Losing
So what went wrong for Nick Saban and Co. in 2022? Not a whole lot, really. They played 13 games and won 11 of them. The two losses were decided on the final play, in road games against Top-Ten conference opponents. They won the Sugar Bowl by 25 points over Big 12 champ Kansas State and were ranked number five in the final AP and Coaches’ polls. Two of their players were Top-Three picks in the NFL Draft. There really isn’t much for Bama fans to hang their heads about.
But here’s the thing…
What qualifies as a “successful season” at about 125 schools (maybe more?) doesn’t qualify as one in Tuscaloosa. When you follow up a non-Title season with a non-Playoff season, and your Championship drought reaches two years and counting, some Bama fans get impatient. Dare I say, irrational. 15 seasons of sustained dominance can lead to massive expectations.
And as a result, for the first time since he was hired, there are now questions about what the future holds for Nick Saban and Alabama.
The Case for Nick Saban Winning Another Natty
Well, the first thing working in Nick Saban’s favor is Nick Saban himself. He’s widely considered the greatest College Football coach of all time, and that’s no accident. He didn’t just wake up one day with seven National Championships and an obscenely long list of accolades. He’s really, really good at this! He’s never been scared to implement change (ie hiring Lane Kiffin to revamp the offense) but also has the self-confidence to not panic and make change for change’s sake. He has a demonstrated history of hiring good coaches, putting together great recruiting classes year after year, and marrying those things with great game-planning and in-game coaching.
One thing Alabama will never lack while Nick Saban is in charge is talent. They might have the occasional position group that’s underwhelming (the WR room in 2022, for instance). But by and large, the roster will always be stacked. 2023 shouldn’t be any exception. Their 2020-2023 recruiting classes ranked second, first, second, and first nationally. There won’t be any shortage of good players. If you have a roster as talented and as deep as Alabama looks to put on the field this fall, you’ve got as good a chance as anyone.
Even if some fans have been disappointed in how the last two years went, the team was 24-4. They’re literally three plays away from that record being 27-1. It’s not like they’re Cal or Northwestern; a handful of plays break a different way and he’s 51-3 with three National Championships in the last four seasons. He hasn’t lost a step, of that I’m sure. They’ll continue to be very, very good as long as he’s there. So why all the angst?
The Case Against Nick Saban Winning Another Natty
Conversely, most of the reasons you can come up with for why Alabama won’t win another National Championship under Nick Saban have very little to do with Nick Saban himself. Rather, the biggest arguments against him adding an eighth ring at some point have much more to do with what’s going on outside the Alabama program.
His Age
First, the one factor related directly to Saban himself. Not from the “is he too old to succeed” standpoint, because he clearly is not. But to decide whether you believe he’ll raise another trophy before he’s done, you first have to decide what “before he’s done” means. Saban is 71 years old. He signed a contract extension last August that lasts through the 2030 season. He maintains that he intends to finish out that contract, and I’d like to believe him. But it’s difficult to envision him patrolling the sidelines after his 79th birthday. If so, will he be able to approach the job with the same workaholic vigor? I think it’s more likely that he coaches through 2026-27 than in 2030 or beyond. Past that point, it’s fair to wonder if he’ll be able to put as much into the job as he would like, or the administration/fans expect.
Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL)
Alabama’s pockets are as deep as just about anyone’s. NIL isn’t going to cause them to plummet in the recruiting rankings, as evidenced by their 2022 and 2023 classes. But it does stand to reason that the recruiting advantages they had enjoyed during Saban’s tenure have narrowed. NIL might be acting as an equalizer, of sorts. Recruiting is a zero-sum game. If I get a Five-star player, then you, by definition, cannot get that Five-star player. Not only are you taking a small hit to your overall talent level, but now an opponent is making upward progress, even if it’s incremental.
Losing one or two or even three recruits a year because somebody outbid you for that particular player probably doesn’t hurt in the short term. But losing out on seven or eight of those types of players over a period of four years might. There aren’t any givens with NIL and how it will affect teams, it’s still a relatively new phenomenon. And between the seven rings and the track record of sending players to the NFL to get paid, I’d argue he still has the best recruiting pitch around. But NIL might help everyone else narrow that gap, if even just a little bit.
The Expanded College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff will be expanding from four teams to 12 beginning in 2024. I don’t like it either, but nobody asked me, so here we are. In theory, this basically guarantees that Alabama makes it in every year, but does it improve their chances of winning a National Championship? I’m not so sure. If anything, it probably hurts them. If you’re an at-large team, you have to win four games. That’s four games against quality opponents with a target on your back. And rest assured friends, Alabama has a target on their backs every time they take the field. They get everybody’s best shot.
And if we’re being honest, they’ve struggled a little the last two years in those types of games. Yeah, they’ve won almost all of them. But they’ve played down to the opponent enough that you might not feel great about avoiding the upset. LSU and Florida were bad teams in 2021, a clearly more-talented Alabama team beat them in one-score games. Same with Arkansas, who was at least decent. In 2022, they narrowly escaped 8-5 Texas and 5-7 Texas A&M in games in which they were heavy favorites. For that matter, they were favored by more than a Touchdown in each of their losses.
The SEC
The conference is a meat grinder. This is nothing new, Alabama is used to it. But the division does seem to be getting better around them. Brian Kelly looks to be really building something at LSU. Say what you want about Hugh Freeze (you probably won’t get much argument from me) but the man can recruit and the man can coach. There’s a very real possibility that Auburn takes some big steps forward in the next few years. Even Kiffin and Ole Miss have improved since he arrived on campus (even though I don’t necessarily think they’re a real threat to win the division). If Kelly, Freeze, or Kiffin are able to sustain whatever progress they make, coming out of the West looks like it might get more difficult in the next handful of years.
Outside of the West, there are a couple of teams in the East that have improved in the first two years of their new coach’s tenure. Tennessee made a giant leap in 2022 under Josh Heupel, averaging 46 points per game and winning the Orange Bowl to finish 11-2. South Carolina has exceeded expectations in each of Shane Beamer’s two seasons, but I view them similarly to how I see Arkansas. A team that has gone from mediocre-at-best to above-average, but I think they both have a pretty clear ceiling. But that’s five or six teams that are better than they were when Alabama won their most recent Championship in 2020.
The Elephant in the Room
You’re going to have to excuse the shitty pun, I couldn’t resist. But we need to talk about Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs. They’re not going anywhere. If you’re looking for the biggest single obstacle to Saban adding to his trophy case, this is likely it. It’s tough to look at the back-to-back National Champions and feel like you can win a title in the next five years without beating them head-to-head. I’ll always be willing to give the GOAT some benefit of the doubt as far as “Does he have a decent chance to win any given game?” But I certainly don’t feel great about picking anybody to beat Georgia anytime soon.
Smart has modeled his program in the image of Saban’s, and done it just as well if not (arguably) better. Since 2017 they’ve put together a top three class every year but one (2021, fourth). They’ve upgraded facilities, upgraded staff, upgraded… well, everything. They sure seem to have become what Alabama used to be. They’ve won 29 of their last 30 games and will somehow come into the season feeling like they have an army of doubters to prove wrong.
There just doesn’t seem to be a lens you can view them through and come away thinking anything but “They’re going to be a title favorite every year for the foreseeable future”.
So Will He or Won’t He?
I really don’t know. Yes, the volume of words for and against that preceded this question may look like I have a real firm opinion. But I don’t. Am I leaning one way or the other? Yeah, I am. Like 55/45, 60/40 at the most. But leaning nonetheless.
Gun to my head, if I had to bet my children’s eyeballs, I would say Nick Saban’s last National Title has come and gone. Wouldn’t feel great about it, but that’s what I’d pick, despite what it means for my tree.
This brings me no joy to say, but I don’t believe he’ll actually coach until 2030. I think he’s got another four, maybe five years left. He’s not getting younger. The conference around him is getting better. Getting into the Playoff might be getting easier after 2023, but winning it might not. And the machine that Kirby Smart has turned Georgia into isn’t helping.
So one of two things will happen here. The first scenario is that I’m right, in which case Saban can comfort himself with those seven Championships and a nine-figure bank account. The second scenario ends with him on a stage, covered in confetti, thanking me for that Yummy Rat Poison.
Eric Mulhair is the Co-Host of The South Endzone Podcast and a contributing writer for Belly Up Sports covering College Football. You can follow him on Twitter for the most up-to-date info on Podcast/Article releases, or even just to argue about College Football.
