Former Alabama head coach Nick Saban has revealed that his players’ attitudes following their loss in the Rose Bowl factored into the decision he would later make on his future.
Saban would announce his retirement less than two weeks after that loss to Michigan and, speaking to ESPN in a recent interview, claimed that the behavior he saw from his squad in the aftermath of the loss was a contributing factor.
“I want to be clear that wasn’t the reason, but some of those events certainly contributed,” he said. “I was really disappointed in the way that the players acted after the game. You gotta win with class. You gotta lose with class. We had our opportunities to win the game and we didn’t do it, and then showing your ass and being frustrated and throwing helmets and doing that stuff … that’s not who we are and what we’ve promoted in our program.”
Saban also admitted that the advent of NIL and the changes it brought about to the college football landscape had a lot to do with his retirement as most players are only concerned with how much they’ll play and how much they’ll earn.
“I thought we could have a hell of a team next year, and then maybe 70 or 80 percent of the players you talk to, all they want to know is two things: What assurances do I have that I’m going to play because they’re thinking about transferring, and how much are you going to pay me?” he recalled.
Saban left the game as the most successful coach of the modern era, winning seven national championships (six with Alabama) and turning the program into one of the NCAA’s most formidable forces. The Tide made the playoffs eight times in the 10 years of the four-team playoff, with no other team making it more than six times.
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Alabama has since replaced Saban with former Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer after he led the Huskies to their first national title game last season.
