Nick Saban finally admits what really caused him to step down as Head Football Coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide
For years, a narrative persisted that Alabama couldn’t compete financially in the NIL era. Saban’s own words and recent spending data tell a different story entirely.
Nick Saban finally addressed the elephant in the room regarding his departure from Alabama, and his answer should surprise no one who has been paying attention. The former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach told ESPN’s Get Up, via On3, that NIL had nothing to do with why he stepped down from coaching. It was his age.
For a lot of people, this was pretty much common sense. But for years, a narrative was pushed by what can only be described as Big Ten propagandists that the SEC, and more specifically Alabama, didn’t have the money to compete in the new era of college football. The story went that the Crimson Tide couldn’t buy NIL rosters, would never be able to keep up, and that Saban saw the writing on the wall and got out before the program crumbled.
The numbers don’t support the NIL narrative
In reality, Saban left because he was in his 70s and simply didn’t want to coach anymore. And there are numbers to back up why he isn’t lying about this.
Just a few weeks ago, estimates were released on how much each college football program is spending on its roster. According to a post from Bama Perspective breaking down that data, the Alabama Crimson Tide land somewhere between 9th and 12th in the country in spending.
Does that sound like a program that can’t compete? A team that isn’t able to afford some of the best players in the transfer portal or the top recruits coming out of high school? If you’re somewhere between 9th and 12th, that means you’re comfortably in the top 1% of the roughly 200 to 500 colleges that play football in the United States.
Saban’s age and final season tell the real story
The truth is, Saban has also talked in the past about how labor-intensive that final season was. He felt like he had to do far more than usual because of his coordinator situation, which only added to the wear of coaching at the highest level at his age.
So hopefully this puts all of the NIL and money talk about Alabama and Saban to bed once and for all. He wasn’t running from a financial problem. He was a 72-year-old man who had accomplished everything there was to accomplish in college football and decided it was time to walk away. The spending numbers confirm that Alabama has the resources. Saban just didn’t have the desire to keep going, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
