The Sunday Pulpit (via Lowey Law Firm): What keeps coaches up at night?
Following Alabama’s loss to Michigan in the Rose Bowl this past January, Nick Saban went to his Jupiter Island, Florida home and started asking former colleagues such as Bill Parcells, Mark Dantonio and Gene Stallings about how they handled retirement.
It’s a pretty natural question for people to start asking when you’re 72 years old … even if the thought of Nick Saban retiring seems unnatural. I mean, most Alabamans probably thought he would stay in the job until the day he died. After all, he was coming off yet another college football playoff appearance and he had a team built to make another run at it in 2024.
“I thought we could have a hell of a team next year,” Saban told ESPN’s Chris Low. “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?”
Saban, despite that quote, insists NIL and the transfer portal are not the reasons he decided to hit the beach.
“I just never wanted to see the program go down,” Saban told Fox News’ Brett Baier. “I felt whether it was recruiting or hiring coaches and people wanting to know how long you’re going to be there. When you get to 72 years old, it gets harder and harder to promise people you’re gonna be there for four or five more years.
“I loved coaching. We adapted well to the system. At Alabama, we were one of the ‘haves’ in this new, current system even though I see some serious problems with it moving forward in the future.”
The system Saban left behind in January has changed – once again – and the stresses on college football coaches are only ramping up.
"The most difficult job in all team sports is being head football coach at a major university," long-time agent Leigh Steinberg told CBS Sports. "Think about how they have to recruit 17-year-old talent, project where they're going to be. There is NIL to deal with. … You have to deal with administration, alums, the press. There are whole levels of complication a pro coach doesn't have to deal with."
That may explain why this offseason we saw Jeff Hafley walk away from his head coaching gig at Boston College to become a defensive coordinator with the Green Bay Packers. Or Chip Kelley quit as the UCLA head coach to become the offensive coordinator at Ohio State.
“You know the risks of what happens if you lose games,” said Mark Wilhelm, an attorney who has studied NCAA issues. “You know the risks of what happens if you have student athletes who don't live up to the conduct standards of the university. I don't know how many people were actually thinking about, what happens if an NIL deal goes bad from a coaching perspective?”
We’re about to find out.