Nick Saban retires

That's one of those randomly pivotal games in college football history.
Saban inherited Josh Booty at quarterback his first season at LSU. Booty had been tabbed the savior of LSU football years earlier, went to play minor league baseball instead, washed out, and then came back to play at LSU. He kinda sucked, and so did LSU when he was the starter in 1999 and the first few games of 2000. Booty was so bad against UAB, though, that it finally let Saban pull the plug without remorse or backlash.
Rohan Davey started the next week and LSU beat Tennessee in overtime to give a jolt to the entire program. LSU won six of its last eight games and made the Peach Bowl that year, won the SEC championship in 2001 with Davey smashing school passing records, and it was off and running. They won the national championship in 2003 and became a true national power after decades of either playing second fiddle to Alabama or underachieving. And, of course, it was the season where Nick Saban started to become Nick Freaking Saban, no longer a mid-level coach but a national championship-caliber coach.

Sept. 23, 2000. UAB 13, LSU 10 in Tiger Stadium. It was a rock bottom moment for LSU football, but also one of the most important, pivotal games in its history.
If LSU grinded out an ugly 17-13 win, or if they muddle through to a mundane 24-13 win in a body bag game, who knows if Saban sticks with Josh Booty a while longer? They probably get blown out by Tennessee and Florida the next two weeks (they lost 41-9 to Florida as it was), and maybe the season spirals out of control and the Saban era quickly becomes a bust.
Instead, the loss to UAB was the clear end of one shitty era and the start of a much better one that has continued for 20+ years. You can probably say the same for Saban's career.

 

Saban didn't just keep the boosters at bay. He came in and looked around at all the various cronies and hangers-on who had accumulated over the years, and took a chainsaw to the lot of them. Everyone back outside the fence, and yes, he meant you too, sir. You had to be somebody to get inside the wire. Many of these were very entitled people who had connections, and he just didn't care.

 

Well, bye…

 

I think if anything his experiences at MSU may have influenced him in this regard: the boosters there have had their fingers in the pie for 60+ years continually fucking things up. For a few years they were on his side, but they had bailed out on his patron saint Perles, and he knew eventually they'd bail on him too. I'm sure booster politics at LSU were similarly steamy, and of course Bama is the Mount Olympus of booster interference, but Saban decided he had to get ahold of the monster before it turned on him.

 

What a fraud. CC: @JC

 

Not only is Jox FM in Birmingham going live with continuing coverage from the entire roster of yappers (including Cole Cuic and Greg McElroy, so guys legitimately plugged into the sport) they already have the voiceover bumpers running referencing the retirement. Guess the voice guy had them in the can Gerald Ford style.

 

Shit that blows my mind even more than Pete Carroll being 29 years removed from getting shitcanned by the Jets b/c Leon Hess was 80 and wanted results now: Nick Saban is three years older now than Bear Bryant was when Bear retired. And Bear, of course, was gone not even a month later. I've always thought of him when I think of longtime coaches retiring. You always worry that the job is what's keeping them going.

 

This was WAY back when, but I remember covering a basketball game in Tuscaloosa when Wimp Sanderson was still there, and the crimson-jacketed types who came wallowing out to take their seats along "press" row ... well, there were a lot of them. I was stunned to see how many of them actually posed as "media" elsewhere ... one guy who wrote multiple Athlon pre-season pieces comes to mind.

 

Bear Bryant had BAAAAAD habits ... he was a heavy drinker and a heavy smoker. Not so much with Saban (other than his breakfast choice, as far as I know).

 

Yeah, there was a lot of deadwood, guys who got inside because they were tight with someone now gone, a former coach or something, or they gave some big donations. and once they were in they were staying.

 

I would personally enjoy this. Simply for the heads exploding all over the state.

https://www.al.com/news/2024/01/ala...-run-for-senate-against-tommy-tuberville.html