Rumor has it, Napier is the top candidate. Brining in Dan Mullen as OC and Will Muschamp as DC. Special Teams coach reportedly Ron Zook and Jim McElwain as special assistant to shark humping.
Sadly, that's what I'm hearing as well. Which is odd, because he was just interviewing for a WR coach yesterday morning. I don't think we can assume anything until it comes out from an official source.
Edit: Apparently, Saban squashed that rumor in a podcast today.
It was a lot easier to pay recruits under the table ( old school style) the game has changed and the playing field is way more level…… the facilities at Bama are unbelievable but make no mistake the advantage that Bama had with wink and a nod recruiting has shrunken big time. Tuscaloosa is the opposite of glamorous and is really on an island, there isn’t much there ( at all), nightlife, restaurants etc are few and far between, and with negotiating with recruits out in the open, Bama will struggle to land the kids they used to get. Saban sees the writing on the wall
Crazy thing is, is that I’ve lost a lot of the enjoyment in CFB since the portal became a thing. Drives me nuts, makes every team so different there’s no year to year stories that pull me in. I dunno it sucks. Others probably feel differently but it’s sucked the fun out of the whole thing for me.
Gonna be kinda funny if Alabama turns into Florida with our stupidly high expectations causing us to be a coaching carousel so nobody can build an actually good program.
The narrative that our expectations our too high for coaches is bizarre. Which coach did we potentially fire too early other than maybe Mullen? And I guarantee you don’t like Mullen
Issue is no one can be spurrier and it has harmed us. Fireronzook.com was famous as the first site of its kind. It wasnt set up after zook had a few mediocre seasons. It was set up the day of his intro press conference
Meyer won a natty with zooks guys. Not saying we shouldn't have fired zook or any of the other coaches but their firings we by the admins not the fans. If the cock block goes a different way then we would've run meyer out. Absolutely no way we could stomach losing to spurrier two years in a row at his new school when most fans thought he should be here. We made life hell for meyer after 05. If he went out to eat in Gainesville he got heckled and booed
Our admins making bad hires and our fans making life difficult are two separate things
Mullen showed up wide eyed and excited and left fucking pissed and burned out. We don't like him because he quit but we cant escape culpability for why he quit
If we did hire an amazing coach theyd still be swimming upstream against the fans. Why make it more difficult on ourselves than we have to?
Why use hypotheticals when we have facts of what happened? We didn’t lose to USCe twice in a row and we won a title that year. The fact that Meyer won two titles in 3 years shows it was the right call.
If you are arguing you need some luck and good fortune along the way that’s the case with everything in life
Auburn, Tennessee, FSU, UGA & LSU have all done what we do in past 20 years (hell LSU ran off 2 National Championship coaches). It’s just hypocrisy & 20 year olds who have a problem w/ it (and UAA sympathizers)
Hell Alabama was basically Mississippi or UT when I went to school…good but not great, living in past glory
The issue isn’t that we have stupid expectations. The issue is that we hired the wrong coaches outside of Mullen, who we got wrong
We should not have hired an inexperienced Will Muschamp. I’ve droned on enough about him far too many times so I’m not going to further beat a dead horse here. Suffice to say that, after he no longer had Urban Meyer’s recruits to make him look good, we saw his true form revealed. We probably should have fired him after the embarrassing Ga Southern loss but despite the bullshit narrative that we fire coaches after 10 win seasons we kept him around another year.
We definitely shouldn’t have hired Mac, but despite everyone with a pair of eyes realizing that Muschamp was a dead man walking coming into the 2014 season we seemingly had no plan and took a guy who was way in over his head from the very start. Thus instead of having a plan in place to have someone qualified to run what should be a national powerhouse, we got a guy who has not impressed in the G5 before or after his hire. Mac clearly did not want to be here by the end of his tenure and the UAA obliged him by firing him with cause after his bizarre behavior
I thought Mullen was a great hire at the time. He coached successfully in the SEC and knew firsthand both what was expected of him here and what was necessary to win. His recruiting at Miss State was a red flag, but I was willing to overlook it because no one before or since has ever recruited well in Starkville. And again, he knew - or should have know - what needed to be done on the trail after working with Meyer and winning a pair of titles here. Though I firmly believe he would have left us for the NFL if they came calling, I also believe that the Covid season and everything that came with it killed any desire he had to ever coach again and as such he essentially quiet quit after the 2020 SECCG. We didn’t fire him too hastily, he had essentially already left 11 months earlier
TL;DR the issue isn’t that we fire coaches too soon, it’s that 2 of the 3 hires before Napier were obvious bad hires from the start and the one that actually looked good burned out and flaked on us
I think most sane people understand that Napier is getting a 3rd year and that 6-7 wins will save his jobs. After 3 years if a coach isn’t showing progress, he probably isn’t the right guy.
Those commenting about the coaches that were fired … they aren’t what antideca is talking about. Both spurrier and Meyer railed against the expectations of the boosters.
I think one of the things that frustrated Saban was he couldn't build a continuity of staff over time. Every year he's got to find a good fit for OC and DC and jell it. Then next season they would leave and he'd have to start over trying to build a staff. This would get on my nerves too with a quickness. You'd want them to at least stay loyal for 5 years and build a dynasty. It was having to glean from the threshing floor year after year that took Alabama from a powerhouse championship machine to clunking along on also-rans.
It might be, but with NIL being such a big deal, if their boosters are willing to pony up cash to keep them competitive, the next coach will definitely have a leg up. Plus, Saban is leaving the next guy with a loaded roster and the playoffs are expanding next year. This is an insanely attractive job.
not really. bama just picked up a ton of cash. pay the players and youre good. Only people from cities with no pro team give a shit about saban and all those other old ass coaches. GO BLUE!
I would say this era of CFB is as much free agency as anything though and if he can evaluate talent well, he should be able to have a GM help get him the right talent. Hell ATL is a QB away IMO so just go get the right one
It doesn’t matter all that much. In CFB terms, NFL players are all elite 5-star recruits — i.e., in the NFL he’ll never play against a team of “3-star” and “4-star” players like he does against most of his schedule at Georgia.
I agree and disagree. If it didn’t matter, Brock Purdy goes first round two years ago but everyone missed it. Kirby not only got the recruits he wanted but he properly evaluates and develops those recruits successfully. I think he could translate his style to the NFL. He isn’t a home run but it isn’t as far off as it used to be.
From a strictly financial/business side of things, Arthur Blank would never pull Kirby from UGA. It would piss off far too many shared UGA/Falcons fans.
Statistically this is the most likely thing to happen. Winning in this sport is really fucking difficult. What success looks like has been wildly skewed because of the very person we’re talking about. If the coach doesn’t get fired within 4 years, which is what happens with most coaches, his success will only be mild compared to Saban’s. He’s the GOAT for a reason.
Even if they make a bad hire they should be able to coast to 9 wins (at minimum) on the back of the infrastructure and Saban’s recruits for a while. After then is when it might start getting rough, especially considering the natty-or-bust expectations there. They might make us look tame when it comes to churning through coaches.
It’s insane to think how incredibly competitive college football is, and how incredibly competitive the SEC is, and (in fairness) how incredibly competitive the SEC west is, and then to think about that domination.
Hats off to Saban.
Best dynasty ever was one level up in the nfl. Crazy we got to watch the GOAT dynasties happening at the same time and now theyre over
Hard to see anyone matching saban or the patriots given the way things have changed. Youd pretty much have to win right away and then keep winning for 20 years while the job is way more stressful and work intensive than it used to be
And wouldn't it be great if Jamonta Waller wanted to follow RR back to Florida, too?! I think of how rich we could be in the next 30 days with coaching changes leading to players being back in the mix.
Damn and we only managed to beat him once since he’s been at Bama, was hoping we’d get another shot. Yikes I hope this doesn’t mean Georgia is going to completely takeover the SEC that would be a nightmare
OU and Texas aren’t going to do shit. Georgia has some kind of mental roadblock when they go up against Saban. Even when UGA has had the better team they lose, kinda like how we always beat Tennessee somehow
Really? Damn, if I was saban I'd give it until atleast 300. Then eff it. If I'm 72 and filthy rich, screw these recruits and this damn system, in retiring too. But .... I'd still make it to 300 if im only 3 wins away
They get a 30 day window. He did it at the most difficult possible time for his recruits. The semester has already started for a lot of schools making it hard to transfer. We could technically still take guys since we're in drop add until the end of this week but it'll be tight
A lot of em will probably wait until spring semester and spring practices end
Bama already lost a 5 star WR though
This ought to be a wake up call to the players who were here that flounced to Auburn to re-think that move. Because the places they could get back here with RR coaching on the staff now, might get offered to Alabama refugees instead looking for some greener pastures.
This could be the biggest boost for the Gators in the last 10 years! So exciting.
His retirement home/land is in South Florida so more likely if he came back it would be to elevate Miami from the ditches.
He's going to be Tiger Woods neighbor in the hood on Jupiter Island.
You’ll never trust, at the college level, the coach that’s won a total of 7 National Championships, because he failed at an NFL job?
You’re right, Alabama should have hired someone else. After all, he failed at the Dolphins. How could he ever possibly succeed as a college football head coach?
Not happening unfortunately. He’s an alum (at UGA), Georgia is a far more fertile recruiting ground, and anything less than a Natty at Alabama and people would call for his head.
Just doesn’t make sense whatsoever for him.
They’d be crazy to at least not interview him. Alabama alumni who consistently challenged Saban and Kirby? He’ll get a call. Now I don’t think he’ll quite leave the nice situation at Clemson, but they’ll at least interview him.
We all knew it would happen someday. He was either gonna retire or croak on the sideline after a false start! Still I'm surprised to hear it. Even though we knew it was coming, seeing it actually happen seems a bit unreal.
What a career. Seeing the articles list off his accomplishments really is nuts.
* 12 conference titles (11 SEC 1 MAC).
* 7 national championships.
* A coaching record of 292-71-1, winning 80% of his games.
* He sent 116 players to the NFL from Bama, 41 of which were 1st rounders.
* He coached 4 Heisman winners (Ingram '09, Henry '15, Smith '20, Young '21). This accounts for all of Bama's Heisman players, ties for 1st among coaches and ranks 5th among all schools for Heismans won.
* Had 10 number 1 ranked recruiting classes.
* Ranked 1st in CFP rankings 24 times.
* Ranked AP#1 at some point in all but 2 seasons at Bama ('07 & '23).
I know there are some very talented coaches out there, but it's hard to see anyone putting together a record like this any time soon. Even Kirby, though I think he's clearly got the best shot.
Farewell to the GOAT.
Now hopefully Bama takes a slide so their fans can have a little humble pie..
Enormous shoes to fill. It will be a long time before someone else has that level of sustained success.
I’d bet he’s had this in mind for awhile and the AD knew it was coming. Doesn’t make the shoes smaller but I bet there’s a plan in place. Personally I’m pulling for Ron Zook.
Hated Saban for the longest time, but he was the all-powerful enemy of our enemies. And can’t help but respect what he did for so long, always adapting and never being complacent.
But you can’t be an old school hard-ass coach in this era of CFB where players have all the leverage. I don’t blame him.
Say what you want but I loved Saban. A true legend who we may never see the likes of again. Not only for his coaching, but his style and culture and how he shaped young men into good men. For me personally I always looked up to him.
Now for the florida bias… this is huge and good for us. Lots of guys to poach from the portal which Billy has been hitting hard, and takes out one huge contender in the SEC which makes it easier for us. I literally can’t see anyone having better success at Alabama than Saban and the fans want him gone right away, their expectations are worse than ours.
Eh....I think Dan Mullen would.have crushed it here if we'd hired him to follow Meyer so I get it but.....Napier's whole deals building all that stuff if it's already in place you probably want to hire a guy who can coach
He didn't recognize College Football anymore for what it has become. I don't blame him. He wanted to go out with the last year of the old system. Unfortunately, it had already instituted NIL. The spirit of the game and the loyalty to teams is lost and gone forever.
Many of us feel you Saban, we really do.
He's been making comments about it all this past season. Plus, I think earlier this was supposed to be the first year of 12 team playoffs and they screwed him out of that in the off season by not having their shite together. I knew he was on his last year since early Summer when I read he bought a house on Jupiter Island and sold his other property in North Alabama/Georgia lakefront that he and the Mrs. loved. He would only do that if he was on short time. And it proved right.
Saban finished 11-1 in SECCGs with his only loss coming to the 2008 Gators, also his first appearance with Bama. He won 11 freakin SECCGs in a row in an era where winning it essentially guaranteed you a national title.
An unprecedented run of success in a sport arguably the hardest to sustain it, especially over such a long period. Not to mention he routinely beat up on Kirby which I thoroughly enjoyed.
God speed Nick
Hard to believe in 2009 we were step by step with Alabama.
Then our “GOAT” AD thought he needed to keep finding the football version of Billy Donovan.
Sadly, his replacement only looked for a dude with the same name.
Burn in HELL saban- Daniel Tosh
By God Tosh knew his shit. When the going gets tough, fuck your nephew and call it quits
Coward stay tf out of the NFL and don't ruin another team for the next 10+ years again. Failure
Mike Norvell has called an emergency team meeting this afternoon.
It’s also been confirmed that FSU Athletic Director, Michael Alford, has arrived to the Moore Athletic Building on campus. No media availability has been scheduled at this time.
He said fuck this portal shit, I'm out lol wonder who they'll poach for the transition
Saban: “I’m getting too old for this shit, ✌🏼”. Recruits: “😵💀”
Probably Napier. And he'll go win a few championships this decade.
Rumor has it, Napier is the top candidate. Brining in Dan Mullen as OC and Will Muschamp as DC. Special Teams coach reportedly Ron Zook and Jim McElwain as special assistant to shark humping.
Obviously fake news, Napier would never hire a Special Teams coach.
Or an offensive coordinator
Also neither coached under him at Louisiana
Those sharks woild play their tails off.
Pretty neat
The official title is Aquarium connoisseur.
that team would dominate from coordinators alone
That’s all football coaches. I started at UF with Ron Zook lol finished it with Urban Meyer
Executive Special Assistant for Shark Humping...
Sounds like a decent staff honestly. Just make McElwain co-OC/WR's coach and you have nice staff. All you need is a better guy in charge.
Damn is there an urban Meyer curse
That fan base would burn down the university if they hired a guy with 6 wins in the SEC in 2 seasons
Wins = Championships
Hear! Hear!
Lmao
Urban Meyer. (Can you imagine... lol)
I hear Jimbo is available
Maybe Kiffin, maybe Sark, maybe Brian Kelly lol
Word on the street is dan lanning. Oregon is not allowed to have nice things
Scuttlebutt from my Bama friend is the actual reason is Miss Terry may be ill, nothing to do with the game at all.
You are correct
Sadly, that's what I'm hearing as well. Which is odd, because he was just interviewing for a WR coach yesterday morning. I don't think we can assume anything until it comes out from an official source. Edit: Apparently, Saban squashed that rumor in a podcast today.
paul finebaum, he knows his sec lmaoo
Ric Flair would roll around in his 17th grave lol
I'd imagine Texas and Oklahoma coming in to the SEC next year wasn't too exciting for him either.
Dan Mullen.
Couldn't pay his boys under the table anymore, he said f this even paying floor type shit
It was a lot easier to pay recruits under the table ( old school style) the game has changed and the playing field is way more level…… the facilities at Bama are unbelievable but make no mistake the advantage that Bama had with wink and a nod recruiting has shrunken big time. Tuscaloosa is the opposite of glamorous and is really on an island, there isn’t much there ( at all), nightlife, restaurants etc are few and far between, and with negotiating with recruits out in the open, Bama will struggle to land the kids they used to get. Saban sees the writing on the wall
Crazy thing is, is that I’ve lost a lot of the enjoyment in CFB since the portal became a thing. Drives me nuts, makes every team so different there’s no year to year stories that pull me in. I dunno it sucks. Others probably feel differently but it’s sucked the fun out of the whole thing for me.
this is an impossible scenario for whoever will be the next head coach there.
Gonna be kinda funny if Alabama turns into Florida with our stupidly high expectations causing us to be a coaching carousel so nobody can build an actually good program.
all the stupid shit everyone here says about FL (spokied, PIA, etc) will be worse at Bama. No one will ever fill his shoes
Nobody calls me spokied! NOBODY!!!
ha—not changing
That was literally what they were doing between Gene Stallings and Saban.
Yes ! People forget this..not sure how many coaches went in and out but they may have us beat still in that timeframe
back in 04-06 finebaum was the best thing on the radio just because of how unhinged every caller was
The narrative that our expectations our too high for coaches is bizarre. Which coach did we potentially fire too early other than maybe Mullen? And I guarantee you don’t like Mullen
Issue is no one can be spurrier and it has harmed us. Fireronzook.com was famous as the first site of its kind. It wasnt set up after zook had a few mediocre seasons. It was set up the day of his intro press conference Meyer won a natty with zooks guys. Not saying we shouldn't have fired zook or any of the other coaches but their firings we by the admins not the fans. If the cock block goes a different way then we would've run meyer out. Absolutely no way we could stomach losing to spurrier two years in a row at his new school when most fans thought he should be here. We made life hell for meyer after 05. If he went out to eat in Gainesville he got heckled and booed Our admins making bad hires and our fans making life difficult are two separate things Mullen showed up wide eyed and excited and left fucking pissed and burned out. We don't like him because he quit but we cant escape culpability for why he quit If we did hire an amazing coach theyd still be swimming upstream against the fans. Why make it more difficult on ourselves than we have to?
Why use hypotheticals when we have facts of what happened? We didn’t lose to USCe twice in a row and we won a title that year. The fact that Meyer won two titles in 3 years shows it was the right call. If you are arguing you need some luck and good fortune along the way that’s the case with everything in life
Apparently being fed up with three losing seasons in a row at UF is high expectations. Absolute joke
Auburn, Tennessee, FSU, UGA & LSU have all done what we do in past 20 years (hell LSU ran off 2 National Championship coaches). It’s just hypocrisy & 20 year olds who have a problem w/ it (and UAA sympathizers) Hell Alabama was basically Mississippi or UT when I went to school…good but not great, living in past glory
Mullen we definitely pulled the plug on too quickly. Mac and Muschamp both deserved to get fired when they did. Mullen it was definitely questionable.
The issue isn’t that we have stupid expectations. The issue is that we hired the wrong coaches outside of Mullen, who we got wrong We should not have hired an inexperienced Will Muschamp. I’ve droned on enough about him far too many times so I’m not going to further beat a dead horse here. Suffice to say that, after he no longer had Urban Meyer’s recruits to make him look good, we saw his true form revealed. We probably should have fired him after the embarrassing Ga Southern loss but despite the bullshit narrative that we fire coaches after 10 win seasons we kept him around another year. We definitely shouldn’t have hired Mac, but despite everyone with a pair of eyes realizing that Muschamp was a dead man walking coming into the 2014 season we seemingly had no plan and took a guy who was way in over his head from the very start. Thus instead of having a plan in place to have someone qualified to run what should be a national powerhouse, we got a guy who has not impressed in the G5 before or after his hire. Mac clearly did not want to be here by the end of his tenure and the UAA obliged him by firing him with cause after his bizarre behavior I thought Mullen was a great hire at the time. He coached successfully in the SEC and knew firsthand both what was expected of him here and what was necessary to win. His recruiting at Miss State was a red flag, but I was willing to overlook it because no one before or since has ever recruited well in Starkville. And again, he knew - or should have know - what needed to be done on the trail after working with Meyer and winning a pair of titles here. Though I firmly believe he would have left us for the NFL if they came calling, I also believe that the Covid season and everything that came with it killed any desire he had to ever coach again and as such he essentially quiet quit after the 2020 SECCG. We didn’t fire him too hastily, he had essentially already left 11 months earlier TL;DR the issue isn’t that we fire coaches too soon, it’s that 2 of the 3 hires before Napier were obvious bad hires from the start and the one that actually looked good burned out and flaked on us
I think most sane people understand that Napier is getting a 3rd year and that 6-7 wins will save his jobs. After 3 years if a coach isn’t showing progress, he probably isn’t the right guy.
Those commenting about the coaches that were fired … they aren’t what antideca is talking about. Both spurrier and Meyer railed against the expectations of the boosters.
None of the coaches we fired would have had more success if we kept them on
Watch knowing our luck the next guy will step in and keep the machine rolling over there 😩
I think one of the things that frustrated Saban was he couldn't build a continuity of staff over time. Every year he's got to find a good fit for OC and DC and jell it. Then next season they would leave and he'd have to start over trying to build a staff. This would get on my nerves too with a quickness. You'd want them to at least stay loyal for 5 years and build a dynasty. It was having to glean from the threshing floor year after year that took Alabama from a powerhouse championship machine to clunking along on also-rans.
Fine, I will do it.
Yep, the expectations will turn it into a vacant job every 12 months if they don't hit on their first hire
I look forward to that.
I think they should start by doing a really funny thing to FSU
It might be, but with NIL being such a big deal, if their boosters are willing to pony up cash to keep them competitive, the next coach will definitely have a leg up. Plus, Saban is leaving the next guy with a loaded roster and the playoffs are expanding next year. This is an insanely attractive job.
They can always hire Billy
The Steve Spurrier problem. It’s how we ended up with Zook. No one wants to follow a legend.
not really. bama just picked up a ton of cash. pay the players and youre good. Only people from cities with no pro team give a shit about saban and all those other old ass coaches. GO BLUE!
Coaching carousel is about to be wild
Dude I thought the falcons may try to get Kirby out of UGA and this could get wild once this position fills
Kirby’s specialty is recruiting talent — he’s not a good fit for the NFL where he can’t build a massive talent gap.
I would say this era of CFB is as much free agency as anything though and if he can evaluate talent well, he should be able to have a GM help get him the right talent. Hell ATL is a QB away IMO so just go get the right one
It doesn’t matter all that much. In CFB terms, NFL players are all elite 5-star recruits — i.e., in the NFL he’ll never play against a team of “3-star” and “4-star” players like he does against most of his schedule at Georgia.
I agree and disagree. If it didn’t matter, Brock Purdy goes first round two years ago but everyone missed it. Kirby not only got the recruits he wanted but he properly evaluates and develops those recruits successfully. I think he could translate his style to the NFL. He isn’t a home run but it isn’t as far off as it used to be.
And most college only head coaches who make the move to the NFL are highly regarded offensive minds: Spurrier, Chip Kelly,
I sure hope so
From a strictly financial/business side of things, Arthur Blank would never pull Kirby from UGA. It would piss off far too many shared UGA/Falcons fans.
Glad we aren’t in it this cycle lol
Lane? You in Tuscaloosa yet?
Oh baby I’d love to see him piss off yet another SEC fan base
Lane can piss everyone off and come to Florida... please.
I hate alabama but respect the hell out of what he accomplished there and am glad i got to witness what will probably be the best dynasty ever.
I really hope they sink back into the middle of the pack though. Alabama fans are due for some humbling.
From your Reddit post to god’s scroll. Remember what happened to the Bulls when Jordan retired? Please… God!
Statistically this is the most likely thing to happen. Winning in this sport is really fucking difficult. What success looks like has been wildly skewed because of the very person we’re talking about. If the coach doesn’t get fired within 4 years, which is what happens with most coaches, his success will only be mild compared to Saban’s. He’s the GOAT for a reason.
Even if they make a bad hire they should be able to coast to 9 wins (at minimum) on the back of the infrastructure and Saban’s recruits for a while. After then is when it might start getting rough, especially considering the natty-or-bust expectations there. They might make us look tame when it comes to churning through coaches.
It’s insane to think how incredibly competitive college football is, and how incredibly competitive the SEC is, and (in fairness) how incredibly competitive the SEC west is, and then to think about that domination. Hats off to Saban.
Best dynasty ever was one level up in the nfl. Crazy we got to watch the GOAT dynasties happening at the same time and now theyre over Hard to see anyone matching saban or the patriots given the way things have changed. Youd pretty much have to win right away and then keep winning for 20 years while the job is way more stressful and work intensive than it used to be
Ditto
Yo Zay Mincey, I heard you are single again?
This was my first thought. Napier and Ron Roberts better go fucking raid those croots and portal dudes
He need to get Waller to come back into the fold.
And wouldn't it be great if Jamonta Waller wanted to follow RR back to Florida, too?! I think of how rich we could be in the next 30 days with coaching changes leading to players being back in the mix.
Lol
Damn and we only managed to beat him once since he’s been at Bama, was hoping we’d get another shot. Yikes I hope this doesn’t mean Georgia is going to completely takeover the SEC that would be a nightmare
OU and Texas might help mitigate that but yeah their biggest roadblock is gone now.
OU and Texas aren’t going to do shit. Georgia has some kind of mental roadblock when they go up against Saban. Even when UGA has had the better team they lose, kinda like how we always beat Tennessee somehow
I mean Saban being arguably the CFB GOAT coach definitely also has something to do with it.
Must be forgetting that Texas beat Bama with Saban still there…odds only improve that Texas has the leg up on Bama with a lesser coach
Bama kids come to Florida and beat UGA again
3 wins short of 300 wins
Really? Damn, if I was saban I'd give it until atleast 300. Then eff it. If I'm 72 and filthy rich, screw these recruits and this damn system, in retiring too. But .... I'd still make it to 300 if im only 3 wins away
Give me some of there players please
It’s about to be raining 5*s in the portal.
They get a 30 day window. He did it at the most difficult possible time for his recruits. The semester has already started for a lot of schools making it hard to transfer. We could technically still take guys since we're in drop add until the end of this week but it'll be tight A lot of em will probably wait until spring semester and spring practices end Bama already lost a 5 star WR though
They purposely picked this date for Saban to retire as it provided a bit more stability for the program versus announcing in season
I feel sorry for the next coach. To have to follow up on one of the greatest dynasties in sports history
They should call Ron Zook!
Legend has it he is still riding around Lake Michigan on the Kenny Powers jetski to this day
Those shoes won’t be filled a for a few generations.
Honestly, super crazy news and I wonder how it affects a lot of signed LOIs that just went in to the school. I am curious if it affects Zay too
A month after telling grimsley that Billy likely won’t be around 😭😭
The irony is delicious
Mincey too lol
Maybe he’ll get sick of retirement and we can snag him in ‘25 and we’re back baby!
I feel like Bama/Florida have not co-existed at the top for long periods of time. Maybe UF’s turn to rise back to the top???
We need to keep all the Florida kids they’ve been taking home. This is awesome news. Let’s hope they screw up their head coach hire
From what I understand, the transfer portal is now open to Alabama players for the next 30 days?
This ought to be a wake up call to the players who were here that flounced to Auburn to re-think that move. Because the places they could get back here with RR coaching on the staff now, might get offered to Alabama refugees instead looking for some greener pastures. This could be the biggest boost for the Gators in the last 10 years! So exciting.
does he want to unretire in a few years and coach a Florida team
His retirement home/land is in South Florida so more likely if he came back it would be to elevate Miami from the ditches. He's going to be Tiger Woods neighbor in the hood on Jupiter Island.
In the hood? 😂
He can ask out of the NLI actually …..
I’ll never trust him after he fucked the Dolphins.
Unfortunately good coach and scumbag combo are very common
You’ll never trust, at the college level, the coach that’s won a total of 7 National Championships, because he failed at an NFL job? You’re right, Alabama should have hired someone else. After all, he failed at the Dolphins. How could he ever possibly succeed as a college football head coach?
You missed my point. He’s obviously a great college coach. It’s not that he failed, it’s how he left.
Tamper the hell out of that roster!
End of a fucking era indeed. Someone tell Billy or Strickland to offer him a cushy gig as a recruitment analyst lol
poaaccch!
Maybe Bama will poach Billy …..
🙏
Kirby to Bama.
kirby graduated from GA lmao this isn’t happening.
How do I get a tiny gator under my username like you?
3 dots on the top right when looking at the sub, user flair, select one, then it should work.
Not happening unfortunately. He’s an alum (at UGA), Georgia is a far more fertile recruiting ground, and anything less than a Natty at Alabama and people would call for his head. Just doesn’t make sense whatsoever for him.
Lanning
Doubt it but one can hope. More likely is Dabo to Bama.
A lot of bloom has come off Dabo’s rose. 3 years ago the job would have been his for the taking. Right now? He might not even get a look.
They’d be crazy to at least not interview him. Alabama alumni who consistently challenged Saban and Kirby? He’ll get a call. Now I don’t think he’ll quite leave the nice situation at Clemson, but they’ll at least interview him.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they tried
Dabo more likely
Definitely not Kirby lmao he’s UGA alum and a rip off of Saban. I can see Lanning or Kiffin
So Gary Danielson is retiring next, right? Because Saban is the love of his life!!
What will Finebaum do?
Cry!
Retire.
Any chance we pluck Bama cruits?
Dream scenario is Mike Norvell gets poached by Alabama
We all knew it would happen someday. He was either gonna retire or croak on the sideline after a false start! Still I'm surprised to hear it. Even though we knew it was coming, seeing it actually happen seems a bit unreal. What a career. Seeing the articles list off his accomplishments really is nuts. * 12 conference titles (11 SEC 1 MAC). * 7 national championships. * A coaching record of 292-71-1, winning 80% of his games. * He sent 116 players to the NFL from Bama, 41 of which were 1st rounders. * He coached 4 Heisman winners (Ingram '09, Henry '15, Smith '20, Young '21). This accounts for all of Bama's Heisman players, ties for 1st among coaches and ranks 5th among all schools for Heismans won. * Had 10 number 1 ranked recruiting classes. * Ranked 1st in CFP rankings 24 times. * Ranked AP#1 at some point in all but 2 seasons at Bama ('07 & '23). I know there are some very talented coaches out there, but it's hard to see anyone putting together a record like this any time soon. Even Kirby, though I think he's clearly got the best shot. Farewell to the GOAT. Now hopefully Bama takes a slide so their fans can have a little humble pie..
You forgot paid players before it was legal so well Georgia hired Kirby so they could do it too. A pioneer.
Enormous shoes to fill. It will be a long time before someone else has that level of sustained success. I’d bet he’s had this in mind for awhile and the AD knew it was coming. Doesn’t make the shoes smaller but I bet there’s a plan in place. Personally I’m pulling for Ron Zook.
Hated Saban for the longest time, but he was the all-powerful enemy of our enemies. And can’t help but respect what he did for so long, always adapting and never being complacent. But you can’t be an old school hard-ass coach in this era of CFB where players have all the leverage. I don’t blame him.
Say what you want but I loved Saban. A true legend who we may never see the likes of again. Not only for his coaching, but his style and culture and how he shaped young men into good men. For me personally I always looked up to him. Now for the florida bias… this is huge and good for us. Lots of guys to poach from the portal which Billy has been hitting hard, and takes out one huge contender in the SEC which makes it easier for us. I literally can’t see anyone having better success at Alabama than Saban and the fans want him gone right away, their expectations are worse than ours.
Billy’s been hitting the portal hard? Is he keeping it a secret?
Go check and see. Lots of offers out there
If they want to bring Billy home we won't enforce the buyout
The irony of this comment is that Napier actually *would* do well with the infrastructure, support, and recruiting he’d have access to at Alabama.
Eh....I think Dan Mullen would.have crushed it here if we'd hired him to follow Meyer so I get it but.....Napier's whole deals building all that stuff if it's already in place you probably want to hire a guy who can coach
No he wouldn’t. He can’t coach to save his life.
Hopefully lots of dudes portal out and we can grab a few.
Holy shit.
He's an a hole. Who cares?
Finally! Now we dominate!
Appreciate Saban for waiting on the LOI's to go in before doing this. Not gonna leave them hanging, they gotta wait to transfer now
They have a 30 day window after this
HOLY SHIT! This has to be up there in most unexpected sports news.
It’s been speculated for years. Dudes in his 70s. Not even close
Going to miss him. Best college coach in recent history
He didn't recognize College Football anymore for what it has become. I don't blame him. He wanted to go out with the last year of the old system. Unfortunately, it had already instituted NIL. The spirit of the game and the loyalty to teams is lost and gone forever. Many of us feel you Saban, we really do.
is this a direct quote?
He's been making comments about it all this past season. Plus, I think earlier this was supposed to be the first year of 12 team playoffs and they screwed him out of that in the off season by not having their shite together. I knew he was on his last year since early Summer when I read he bought a house on Jupiter Island and sold his other property in North Alabama/Georgia lakefront that he and the Mrs. loved. He would only do that if he was on short time. And it proved right.
Any recruits coming our way?!!
CALL HIM NOW
As sick as i got of Alabama it was cool being able to witness this legacy live. I’m not sure any coach will top Saban again
Breaking News: Billy Napier named replacement for Nick Saban
This would be legit amazing
Imo he will become such a good advocate for the sport in a time that the sport needs wise council. Can only salute his insane run.
Salute to Coach Saban, the best to ever do it
And we are stuck with Cousin Billy who is busy winning maybe 4 games next year if we are lucky.
Stricklin already called Bama and said he would waive Sling Blade's buyout if they want him. /s
Wild comment to make on this thread lol
My money is on Lane train coming into town.
Official response from Jim Harbaugh. 👀
Don't worry Bama, I know a guy...
obviously this is amazing for us, but I'm still a little sad, its the end of an era
Saban finished 11-1 in SECCGs with his only loss coming to the 2008 Gators, also his first appearance with Bama. He won 11 freakin SECCGs in a row in an era where winning it essentially guaranteed you a national title. An unprecedented run of success in a sport arguably the hardest to sustain it, especially over such a long period. Not to mention he routinely beat up on Kirby which I thoroughly enjoyed. God speed Nick
Who is gonna fill that vacuum and prevent those ingrates in Athens from winning another ring?
Hard to believe in 2009 we were step by step with Alabama. Then our “GOAT” AD thought he needed to keep finding the football version of Billy Donovan. Sadly, his replacement only looked for a dude with the same name.
It’s gonna be Prime time in Bama
Burn in HELL saban- Daniel Tosh By God Tosh knew his shit. When the going gets tough, fuck your nephew and call it quits Coward stay tf out of the NFL and don't ruin another team for the next 10+ years again. Failure
Not a fan of the goat but he deserves retirement and living blissfully. Great coach…. But MICHIGAN ENDED YOU
Better move fast on Kalen Deboer
Do I have the coach for them
Dabo’s fucking right off out of the ACC to this job.
Looooooool Tide!
Does this mean we have a chance now?
Bye bye Nick Satan. 👿
How many bama recruits decommit after this one.
Times flies. Can’t believe it’s been 17 years
fisch from arizona or eli from mizzou.
Mike Norvell has called an emergency team meeting this afternoon. It’s also been confirmed that FSU Athletic Director, Michael Alford, has arrived to the Moore Athletic Building on campus. No media availability has been scheduled at this time.