Nick Saban Retires As Alabama Football Coach After 17 Seasons

The legendary Crimson Tide coach appears to be calling it a career.

Alabama coach Nick Saban is officially calling it a career.

Saban announced his retirement in a statement released by the university on Wednesday. ESPN’s Chris Low first reported the news.

"The University of Alabama has been a very special place to Terry and me," Saban said in a statement. "We have enjoyed every minute of our 17 years being the head coach at Alabama as well as becoming a part of the Tuscaloosa community. It is not just about how many games we won and lost, but it's about the legacy and how we went about it. We always tried to do it the right way. 

“The goal was always to help players create more value for their future, be the best player they could be and be more successful in life because they were part of the program. Hopefully, we have done that, and we will always consider Alabama our home.”

Saban, 72, is widely considered the greatest coach in college football history. He won seven national titles in his career–a split title in 2003 with LSU and six with the Crimson Tide.

In 2023, Alabama went 12-2, winning the SEC title but losing in the Rose Bowl to Michigan.

Such was the standard Saban set at Alabama that this season was considered a down year. He ended his career with the Crimson Tide with a ledger of 206-29, an .877 winning percentage.

A native of Fairmont, W.Va., Saban began his college coaching career with Kent State—his alma mater—in 1973.

Gradually winding his way through the collegiate ranks, he got his first head coaching job with Toledo in 1990. After steering the Rockets to a 9–2 record, the Cleveland Browns hired him as their defensive coordinator; successful stints with the Browns and Michigan State landed him the LSU job in 2000.

The Tigers recovered from a 2–2 start in 2001 to win the SEC and reach the Sugar Bowl, and two years later they went 13-1 and shared the national title with USC.

Following a disastrous two-year stint with the Miami Dolphins, Saban landed with an Alabama program mired in mediocrity. After a hit-or-miss first year that included an embarrassing loss to Louisiana-Monroe, Saban took the Crimson Tide to the Sugar Bowl in 2008. In 2009, Alabama beat Texas to win the national title and birth Saban's modern legend.

A step back in 2010 was followed by titles in 2011 and 2012, making the Crimson Tide the first program to win three national championships in four years since Nebraska in the 1990s. Alabama's 2013 season ended in heartbreak, as Auburn defeated the Crimson Tide in the Iron Bowl thanks to the iconic Kick Six—an event so heartbreaking it is believed to have encouraged a brief flirtation between Saban and ESPN.

In 2014, the Crimson Tide made the first CFP but lost to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl. Championships in 2015 and 2017 followed—the latter of which included one of the gutsiest in-game moves in the history of American sports, a switch from quarterback Jalen Hurts to Tua Tagovailoa at halftime of the national championship against Georgia.

Saban's program weathered all manner of changes to college football, winning the title in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and playing for it in the first year of the NIL era in 2021.

"I want you to know that it will be our goal to give you the kind of football program, the kind of football team that you can be proud of," Saban said in his introductory presser in '07.

Mission accomplished.