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99.9 The Fan: Who steps into Saban's shoes?
Tim Donnelly and Dennis Cox of 99.9 The Fan have an instant reaction to the announcement that Nick Saban will retire.
I hate to cut you off but, uh, actually even cut the music and throw some breaking news on here. Um, we'll come back to the starting five if we have time. Chris Lowe ESPN Nick Saban retirement. Whoa Chris Lowe ESPN Nick Saban is retiring. He just informed his team that he's retiring. Whoa, that's huge. That's the college football coaching goat. Just, just bowed out. Wow. Ok. That's massive six national titles at Alabama. No, he's retiring. He is retiring. Sources tell ESPN. So Dabo, I'm already gonna throw it out there. I'm going to, I'm going straight to it. Let me take five minutes and, and, and talk about the legacy of Nick Saban here for a second. Um, this year them not winning a national championship. Alabama is the third consecutive year that he did not win a national championship. That's the longest streak of his tenure at Alabama, which means he will retire with no player that played for him. Four seasons did not win a national championship. Every player that played for him, four seasons that exhausted their eligibility while he was, their coach won a national championship. That is pretty darn impressive. That is pretty darn impressive also, uh, his ability to adapt, I think is one of the most underrated things in college football. Do you remember how he won his first couple national championships? LSU at Alabama, uh, like, defense and ground and pound. Oh, they were like 1410 games and it was, you know, 3.5 yards of carry is fine with me, uh, three yards and a cloud of dust. And then about halfway through, he pivoted to, like, all right, if the rules are gonna favor passing, we'll be the best passing offense out there. We'll, we'll be a little more big play oriented on defense and we'll start cranking out NFL quarterbacks and they did that right. I, I mean, it's not just Bryce Young, it's Tua, it's Mac Jones, it's, it's to a weirder extent, Jalen Hurtz, like they won with, what was it, Coker? And they won with Tua national championships and Tua was just in there for the last half of football. It's, it's his legacy as a college football coach, uh, kind of regardless or sorry. Uh, like, kind of outside of whether you liked the way he did it. The success is inarguable. Right. Because I agree sometimes the, the, the Antics, the, you know, uh, the, the over the top red face screaming at a freshman, like, rub me the wrong way. Occasionally, I think you can get your point across in other ways, but also, you know, his players reacted to it. So how can you argue with it? He got the results, right. He got the results and, and his former players all speak at least the ones that, you know, didn't transfer out speak pretty glowingly of him, speaks pretty glowingly of him. Um So yeah, just the breaking news. Say it once again for people like me brave. You're just tuning in Chris Lowe, ESPN. Nick Saban is retiring Sources tell ESPN. Uh, he had just informed his team that he's retiring. That's Nick Saban. Um Now I'm gonna, I'm gonna relate this to, to something here in the triangle. Uh, to me, coach K, Nick Saban, a lot of similarities there, right? I also think they're getting out, they, they chose to retire at similar times, uh, for a reason, I think they, they see that college sports are changing in a big way and it, it takes a lot of, of renewed effort and a longer term commitment to keep up with the Joneses, right? When, when coach K and Nick Saban began their runs and coach K long before Nick Saban at Alabama. But when they began their runs in their, in their respective, um, uh, sports, it was you get a guy to commit on signing day pretty good chance he's gonna be on your team 34 years into the future. Coach K rode through the, the one and done era. But when it got to the, the, the transfer portal era when it got to the nil era, you, you felt him kind of go like I let someone else figure out the best ways to handle all this. I like scheming up, you know, pressures and I like scheming up uh how to get players open on the wing and I like motivating guys and Nick Saban kinda strikes me as similar, right? He's getting out when college football is becoming about how many auto dealership commercials can we crank into your, your, your offer here? Even though he owns like uh ton of car dealerships. Uh You know, how many boosters can we get to put money directly in the player's pockets? And he's just going like the game is changing. I'm a bit old for this. Let someone else uh figure it out. The difference is and this plays into what uh what, what Dennis was saying and if you're just tuning in Nick Saban retiring according to uh sources who told ESPN S Chris Lowe, um it doesn't seem like there's a super obvious uh changing of guards passing of the torch, right? Nick Saban retiring today or, or telling his team he's retiring. I mean, as of, let me see when the tweet came out, Chris Lowe's Tweet, the first one came out four minutes ago, five minutes ago, we had no clue what was happening. Do you remember how coach K did it? He had a full year where he had the coach in, waiting on the sideline. John Shire, wait, like learning and everybody knew and it was a uh right. The, his final game, every Duke player came back and they did the whole tunnel of Duke greats for him to walk out. Nick Saban is doing like the five o'clock on a Wednesday. It's gonna leak. I'm gonna tell the players and I'm, I'm sure there'll be a press conference tomorrow and then it'll be be, you know, no retirement tour. That's pretty darn, I think. Pretty darn cool of Saban. One of the more likable things he's done. Yeah, I wonder what else. And by the way, I'm processing this with, with you all in real time also, I think we probably should have saw it coming. Like Nick Saban did weekly spots on the Pat mcafee show and, and, and they weren't as quite as inflammatory as, uh, the Aaron Rodgers spots on the Pat mcafee show. Uh, but Saban was doing weekly media hits that he didn't have to do that right there. Should have told us he might not be as engaged in the coaching as he once was. Right. I mean, he used to call the media what, what rat poison as he used to say what the media coverage was rat poison. Then, then this year he was like, no, I got a half hour a week for the rat poison like that. That shows, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up on college game day next year, like rat poison. There you go. Well, well played. Thank you. I had that right at the, the tip of your fingers. Um Maybe Lee Corso's chair becomes open. Lee's been who is an institution and right should have the chair as long as he wants it. Maybe they can, they can work a transition there. Um Because obviously I just said, right, Nick Saban, Pat mcafee, Pat mcafee on college game day, Nick Saban, see what I'm doing there. So, quit asking. It would be so great if he becomes a part of the media, so great. If he becomes a part like Boeheim, just like Boeheim, 100% just like Boeheim. Um Nick Saban retiring, Pete Carroll just, just got one upped. Right. Carroll just moved to a 70 year old coach with a Super Bowl ring. I'll raise you a 70 year old coach with six national championships. Just got moved to the B section. Uh You had a good afternoon there. Um I mean, you knew it was coming at some point. We just didn't expect it. It was just like, well, wait a second, he's retiring, he's retiring. I thought we would have got, I thought he would have opted for the, the farewell tour, which by the way, and I know coach K did it and I know Jeter did it and I know Kobe did it and I know Big Papi did it. Miguel Cabrera and I know Miguel Cabrera did it. I know Dwyane Wade did it and he had a hashtag and I, and I know lebron is probably gonna do a farewell decade. Like I know all of that has taken place. I respect the guys that just random Wednesday at five o'clock. I'm done. Tim Duncan. My favorite, my favorite you brought, took the words out of my mouth. My favorite is Tim Duncan press release at 10 a.m. 1130 press conference. He was eating lunch at 130 in the Caribbean Island somewhere. Like it was just bing bing bing done. And we didn't see him for like two years and then all of a sudden he was an assistant coach uh like that. I, I just, there's something about like, no, my run's done. I'm out. I, I've been super celebrated like it would have felt weird to have like, you know, half of Auburn Stadium like, oh, we respect him. Thank you for the years of competition. Like no, don't ask for applause. You got booze your last time there as you should have because you're Nick Saban. Uh Now let's go to uh what you asked earlier. Who's next? Oh Yeah. And actually let's, let's add this, who from Bama is in the portal? Big time question. Uh All those guys, I'll tell you right now when you commit to Alabama, you're committing to Alabama, but you're committing to Nick Saban in a lot of ways you're committing to Nick Saban, you're committing to the guy that brought the, the rings out and dropped him on the, the office in front of you and said, hey, look at this. Um, that's who's next? Dabo. Kirby Kirby Smart. Oh, I mean, I don't know. Kirby Smart's got a SARS going over there. Yes. The Sarkesian of Texas. Dan Lanning, the, the, the, the latest game of college football just changed massively and the ripple effects will be felt everywhere. Dave Doran Mac Brown, Mike Elko, who's, who's in the running? I mean, I think the, the speculation has always been Dabo because he went to Alabama. Alabama guy. Drew Kirby was an assistant for, or, uh, yeah, Kirby was an assistant. Right.