Nick Saban reveals he once tried to hire David Cutcliffe to join Alabama staff

There are very few coaches who have earned more respect nationally than Nick Saban. The seven-time national champion earned his reputation as the best coach of the 21st century. Of course, there are plenty of coaches who he respects too.

One of those coaches Nick Saban respects is David Cutcliffe, a now retired coach known for his work with quarterbacks. He respects Cutcliffe so much, in fact, that Saban admitted at the Nick Saban Legacy Award press conference that he even once tried to get Cutcliffe to join the Alabama staff.

“I think Coach Cutcliffe is probably one of the best quarterback teachers and one of the best offensive coaches,” Nick Saban said. “I actually tried to hire him at Alabama once because of that respect that I had for him.”

David Cutcliffe is an Alabama graduate who got his start coaching at Banks High School in Birmingham. Despite that, he never coached at Alabama. Instead, his first college job came in 1982 at Tennessee and he worked various jobs there until 1998. That was when he became the head coach at Ole Miss. In 2006, he’d return to Tennessee for two seasons. Then, he’d get another head coaching job. That time it was with Duke.

At Ole Miss, Cutcliffe had a record of 44-29, but was fired after going 4-7 in 2004. That was his only losing season with the program, and he was a year removed from his only double-digit win season with the program. While with Duke, he’d go 77-97. That included a stretch with six bowl games in seven seasons and an AP Top 25 finish. At each stop, he was well respected nationally. As Saban explained, part of that was because while he may not be winning national championships, he was succeeding with less resources and at schools with less success historically.

“Sometimes, I think he did a fantastic job at Ole Miss and Duke,” Nick Saban said. “Which [are] not necessarily Texas, Alabama, Ohio State. And I think sometimes, you know, our record because we had better opportunities reflects that. But, as a teacher and a coach and a developer of people, I don’t think it gets any better than Coach Cutcliffe and Coach [Pat] Dye as well.”

David Cutcliffe is always spoken about as a great quarterback coach. That’s in no small part because he coached Peyton Manning at Tennessee and Eli Manning at Ole Miss. Among the other notable quarterbacks he coached were Daniel Jones, Tee Martin, and Erik Ainge.

It’s impossible to know what Alabama’s offense would have looked like had Cutcliffe joined Saban there or even how long he would have coached there. Certainly, the Crimson Tide had plenty of great quarterbacks during the Saban era, and having Cutcliffe there to coach them wouldn’t have hurt at all.