10 crazy Nick Saban accomplishments at Alabama

The college football world is still processing Nick Saban’s stunning retirement. 

Regardless of any tea leaves or potential hints that the 2023 season would be his last, few seemed truly prepared for Wednesday’s shocking announcement from Alabama’s head coach. 

In terms of the college football universe, Nick Saban was the sun, and everything in the sport has orbited around him for more than two decades. 

First, he fixed a broken LSU program, winning a national title and setting up an infrastructure for future success that was so solid Les Miles and Ed Orgeron were able to win national championships, too. 

At Alabama, Saban became the sport’s GOAT, winning six national championships and returning one of the bluebloods of the sport back to prominence. 

Saban’s legacy is unmatched. 

As I noted on the 🚨🚨🚨Emergency Episode of the Andy Staples Show, Saban’s accomplishments are so expansive — his schematic genius (pattern-match coverage), innovation, development, evolution (from smashmouth football to spread offense) and malleability (navigating COVID season, using the transfer portal and NIL) — they can’t be distilled into a single, simple graphic.

Saban’s famed Process will go down in college football lore — especially with so many poor copycat imitations by ex-assistants.  

So while we wait on Saban’s successor, here are some of my favorite Nick Saban accomplishments that won’t find room on his coaching tombstone next to his seven national titles and nine SEC Championships.

1. Nick Saban lost just 29 games at Alabama while producing 44 1st-round NFL Draft picks.

We’re talking 17 seasons with more Day 1 picks than losses?!?!?!  That’s insane.

2. Saban went 7-6 in his first season at Alabama, and then he ripped off an astounding 16 straight Top 10 finishes — including a dozen Top 5 rankings. Unless Kirby Smart stays at Georgia for another decade-plus, we’ll never see such a long reign of extended dominance. 

3. This stat has been passed around a bit but it still bears repeating: Before this season, every Alabama player who played under Saban and stayed in the program for four years, won a national championship. 

Read that again. 

If you committed to the Tide and stayed in the program for four years you were guaranteed a ring. That’s something that absolutely will never be repeated again. 

4. Nick Saban is considered the Godfather of recruiting. He deftly navigated the NCAA’s rules and regulations, inking a whopping 10 No. 1 ranked recruiting classes. Alabama’s 2023 class flirted with being the best of all time, and while he called it quits here in January, the Tide still inked a Top 3 class again for 2024. 

5. Saban’s extensive coaching tree has long been applauded, but did you know that 36 former assistants — in college and the NFL – became head coaches? Some (see: Steve Sarkisian, Lane Kiffin, etc.) were head coaches before and became head coaches again, while others like Smart developed under Saban and became a first-time head coach. Saban also “invented” the rehabilitation school for wayward coaches where guys like Sark, Kiffin, Mike Locksley,  Mario Cristobal, Butch Jones and others were able to restart their careers. 

6. How long has Nick Saban been the king of college football? Some 54 other coaches have been in charge of SEC programs since Saban took over the Tide’s program in 2007. That’s an average of over three changes a year — many of which were former Saban assistants whom he got head coaching jobs and then beat them into a pulp.

7. For the last 15 years, the SEC has been the dominant conference in college football, and yet despite playing in the most competitive league (and best division in the sport), Saban was 121-18 in conference play at Alabama.

8. Saban coached a Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback (Bryce Young), running back (Mark Ingram and Derrick Henry) and receiver (DeVonta Smith).

9. Alabama was routinely ranked No. 1 under Saban, but even when it wasn’t, no coach was better at toppling the top-ranked team. Saban has eight wins in his career against the No. 1 team in the country. 

10. Lastly, how could I not salute Saban’s love for Little Debbie Cream Pies. He famously eats two every morning, and sometimes has three on Sundays. That’s over 750 Oatmeal Cream Pies a year. Embrace what you love, folks. 

Saban has many more crazy outlier accomplishments, but you get the idea. He was a true 1-of-1 coach.

So, good luck to the next guy, Tide.