Former Alabama Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban sent shockwaves throughout the sport three years ago when he announced his retirement, and folks are still trying to make their respective guesses as to why.

With the popular theory being that Saban stepped away due to his dislike of the NIL pay for play and transfer portal system, he once again has said that this was not the case. During an appearance on ESPN’s Get Up, ahead of the six-part documentary on his life and career dropping next month, Saban was asked once again the age-old question of why he hung up the whistle after coming within a game of another national title.

The real explanation was simply that it was the right time for him after 17 seasons at Alabama.

NEW: Nick Saban says NIL wasn't his reason for retirement, instead it was his age:

"That’s not why I got out of coaching. We had three years of this, you know, my last three years. I coached in the NFL, so I was used to managing the salary cap and that type of thing."

Saban… pic.twitter.com/TvtHsPkKBr

— On3 (@On3) September 29, 2026

“Well, that’s not why I got out of coaching,” Saban said on NIL. “We had three years of this, you know, my last three years. I coached in the NFL, so I was used to managing the salary cap and that type of thing.”

“But I think that it was just time for me, 72 years old. I think it was time to have some quality of life with family with Miss Terry, and enjoy some things we’ve never been able to do…Coaching is not a job, it’s a way of life. So, how about let’s do something else and have some fun doing something else, and not live under this stress level that we’ve lived under for 50 years?”

Saban also talked about wanting to keep Alabama from becoming non-competitive by him staying too long, similarly to what happened to Florida State at the end of the Bobby Bowden era.

“The one thing I didn’t want to do is ride the program down,” he said. “And once you get a certain age, people start using that against you in recruiting and your ability to attract the kind of players that you want to attract. I wanted the University of Alabama to continue to be successful. I didn’t want my presence to have anything to do with that and their ability to be successful in the future.”

As Kalen DeBoer begins to ramp things up in his third season at the helm, it’s safe to say Saban walked away at the time he felt was right for him and the program. Time will tell if Alabama replaced him with the right guy, but clearly the GOAT is enjoying his time in retirement from coaching.