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Paul Finebaum reacts to Nick Saban joking Miss Terry is pushing him out of retirement

IMG_0985by: Griffin McVeigh08/05/25griffin_mcveigh
Nick Saban, Miss Terry
Nick Saban, Miss Terry - © Gary Cosby Jr.-Imagn Images

Conversations about Nick Saban coming out of retirement continue to pop up. Beginning with Greg McElroy on Monday at SEC Media Days, Saban has joked about the possibility multiple times now. The latest came on Tuesday when Saban was speaking at Nick’s Kids Foundation inside Bryant-Denny Stadium.

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum broke down the comments from Saban, where he said Miss Terry is “trying to drive me out of retirement.” Just the latest comment he made after previously saying something similar when appearing on Fox & Friends.

“I don’t like to read articles on the air – it’s fairly tedious,” Finebaum said Tuesday on The Paul Finebaum Show. “I’ll leave that to the political hacks. But he said, and I quote … ‘Miss Terry is trying to drive me out of retirement. I said on TV the other day that she made me run the sweeper, which is the first time I decided I wanted to get back into coaching.’

“So there it is. ‘But I didn’t even do that right because she said it’s called, running the vacuum in this day and age.’ I don’t know about that. We’ve got a [Swiffer]. … On this interview he did, I don’t know. Am I crazy?”

For Finebaum, this is all a little too strange. As somebody who has covered Saban for many years, Finebaum knows a lot of what the former Alabama head coach says usually comes with a purpose. Constantly talking about a return, usually in a sarcastic tone, might be adding up to something.

“The guy keeps talking about it,” Finebaum said. “I don’t know about you, but would you be talking about something like that if you weren’t serious? … Was it Freudian today? I don’t want to go too deep into the mind here. But Nick Saban’s one of the smartest people I’ve met. He never used to say anything without delivering a message. Yeah, we know the repertoire and the Miss Terry jokes. We’ve all heard them a few times. But did he say this today for a reason?”

If Saban is going to get back into coaching, it likely won’t be for the 2025 season. He is set to join the ESPN College GameDay crew once again. Aug. 30 will be the show’s first on-campus appearance of the year, heading to Columbus, OH, for what should be an incredible nonconference showdown between the Texas Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes.