Last night, Alabama head football coach Nick Saban did the unthinkable, and retired from coaching out of the blue.
I have to admit, I never thought I’d see the day. I was fully convinced that the man would die as a football coach, as the 72-year-old lives and breaths football.
Nevertheless, you have to give credit where credit is due. We’re talking about a guy who won a National Championship at LSU, and a mind boggling SIX Nattys at Alabama. Not to mention, Saban has another 11 SEC Conference titles to his name as well.
Saban is truly the GOAT, and it will be strange not seeing him on the sidelines from here on out in college football.
But for Alabama fans, the question is…
What coach will take Saban’s place?
There’s been a long list of candidates and rumors so far, including the likes of Oregon head coach Dan Lanning (who was reportedly in Tuscaloosa last night), Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer, Penn State’s James Franklin, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, and of course, Clemson’s Dabo Swinney.
As a Clemson fan myself, I have to admit that Swinney might be the most reasonable fit. Swinney grew up a Bama fan, and also played wide receiver there from 1990 to 1992. He even got his coaching career started there as well, starting as a graduate assistant in 1993, and remained on staff until 2000.
Not to mention, Dabo is the most proven head coach on the list, winning two National Championships at Clemson and reaching the College Football Playoff six times.
However, Swinney has had a tendency to be stuck in his ways at times, and with his failure to embrace the new age of college football with NIL and the transfer portal, Clemson football has taken a back seat to the program it was only three seasons before.
Clemson has missed out on the College Football Playoff the past three seasons, and the team went an underwhelming 9-4 this past season, marking Swinney’s worst season at Clemson since 2010.
So, needless to say, there’s a good amount of Alabama fans who don’t want to see Dabo as the head coach of the Crimson Tide.
In fact, there was a whole group of Alabama students who gathered outside the Nick Saban statue at Bryant-Denny Stadium, and chanted:
“ANYONE BUT DABO!”
Weird… the man didn’t die, what are you clowns doing?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see who Alabama decides to hire, but it appears that Tide fans don’t want Swinney as their next head football coach:
