BREAKING NEWS: Kalen DeBoer “TURN DOWN” deal to replace Nick Saban Due to…
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama: Greg Byrne’s cellphone was inundated with texts—more than a thousand and still counting.
The athletic director of Alabama was still taking in what had happened approximately two and a half hours earlier that afternoon, just like most people in the college football world.
Entering the team meeting room at the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility, Nick Saban abruptly announced his retirement to his players. At the end of one of the greatest coaching streaks in American sports history, Alabama had completed 17 seasons, 206 wins, nine SEC Championships, and six national titles.
Byrne had a clock on him as well.
He recognized the scope of the job at hand and the enormous difficulty of selecting a legend’s successor.
When a momentous change like that is about to happen, you consider
when John Wooden and Coach [Bear] Bryant retired, but it’s also different now because of NIL and the transfer portal,” Byrne remarked. “But from an impact on a university and the sport itself, it’s as big a change as there has been in a long time.”
After six minutes of talking with his players, Saban exited the room. The team was subsequently informed by Byrne that a new coach would be appointed in less than 72 hours.
“It turned out to be 49. “I wanted to give myself some cushion because I thought I would beat the 72-hour window,” Byrne stated.
On January 10, at 5:06 PM ET, Saban’s meeting with his players came to a conclusion. On January 12, at 6:06 p.m. ET, Byrne shared a picture on social media with
smoke coming from a chimney, indicating that Washington’s Kalen DeBoer was Saban’s replacement, similar to what happens at the Vatican when a new pope is appointed. However, in this case, the chimney belonged to a barbecue restaurant in Tuscaloosa.
Through interviews with the concerned principals as well as other industry insiders, ESPN retraced that mind-boggling week that marked the beginning of an unprecedented period for Alabama football and, in some respects, changed the face of the entire sport.
