U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville offered new thoughts on the retirement of former Alabama head coach Nick Saban out Outkick’s Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich.
Tuberville (R-Auburn) suggested that the NCAA’s Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) system, which is changing the landscape of college sports, factored into Saban’s decision to walk away, and that he believes the legendary coach was simply tired of it.
“I kinda saw it coming. He never mentioned it, but he and I have been working on an NIL bill, along with a lot of other coaches and [athletic directors] for the last couple years, and he just got tired of it,” Sen. Tuberville said.
While Saban himself has said that NIL and the transfer portal did not factor into his decision at all — it’s been reported that it likely did to some degree.
Tuberville went on to say that while he hates to see Saban go, he knows how much he accomplished and that he simply may have wanted to do something else after decades of domination.
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“It wasn’t just NIL. I think he had gotten to a point where he wanted to do maybe something else. He accomplished so much. I hate to see him go from college sports. I think he will stay active in some way, I don’t know what it is. But man, the success he had, it will never be duplicated. Not in our lifetime, anyway,” Tuberville said.
During his time as a college football coach, Sen. Tuberville had four wins over Saban — which is the most of any college coach in head-to-head match-ups versus the coaching giant.
Saban won seven national championships in his coaching career, six at Alabama and one at LSU. His sheer dominance of the sport is something that is often imitated, but simply never replicated.
Michael Brauner is a Senior Sports Analyst and Contributing Writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @MBraunerWNSP
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