Nick Saban Finally Discusses the Elephant in the Room Regarding Texas: All Things CW

The Texas talk is finally about to end while the Sark talk is just beginning, some eye-popping Alabama-Texas numbers and 5 things that got our attention this week:

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — It's been almost a decade since the rumors flew that Texas was trying to steal Nick Saban away from Alabama, and on Thursday night the Crimson Tide coach finally put the issue to rest. 

Two nights before Alabama rolls into Austin for the first time in 100 yards, the issue was brought up by broadcaster Chris Stewart on The Nick Saban Radio Show. 

“You know there was really nothing to be concerned about,” Saban said. “You can blame your colleagues on that because they created that. I never talked to these people and you damage relationships when you do that. 

"Mack Brown was a good friend of mine and somebody that I have a tremendous amount of respect for and he’s the coach there and all anybody can talk about is me going to take his place. I don’t think that’s fair to me, especially when I never even talked to them and I wasn’t interested in the place.”

To backtrack a little, Saban's agent, of course, is Jimmy Sexton, and part of his job is to represent the coach and regularly present him with options and opportunities, even if it could only lead to a bigger contract.

Sexton is very good at what he does, and not just because Saban recently got another contract extension, eight years for $93.6 million, with an average salary of $11.7 million. The base salary for this season is $10.7 million.

It's already documented that while Saban wasn't talking to Texas in 2013, when Brown still was the coach, there were some form of discussions between Sexton and Texas regent Tom Hicks. 

As for how close Saban may have been to receiving a formal offer, or leaving Alabama, is open to debate. Longhorn fans believe they were close to getting him, and most Crimson Tide fans don't believe it was ever going to happen — although remember that Alabama athletic director Mal Moore died on March 30, 2013.   

Last year, SEC Network analyst/personality Paul Finebaum mentioned the biggest reason why Saban wasn't interested in the job on an episode of the Saturday Down South podcast

“I did a book with Gene Wojciechowski, and we had a nugget in the book that said that Texas boosters had tried to hire Nick Saban, which I think most people knew, but we had a source that said they had offered him more than $100 million and Texas fans acted like they didn’t want Nick Saban,” Finebaum said. “The bottom line is they did want Saban and Saban was offered the job, and he considered it. 

"He said to me and to anybody who would confront him with this, that the reason he didn’t go to Texas — he said this privately, he didn’t say this publicly — was he did not want to have to answer to 10 or 15 different boosters who all felt like they owned the franchise. It was a little of a Jerry Jones complex or a T. Boone Pickens complex in college football in the past."

Regardless, Saban saying he wasn't interested should put the matter to rest because he's the only one who knows for certain. Besides, he would have had to convince Miss Terry to go. 

Saban vs. Sarkisian I

While the Saban-Steve Sarkisian connection has been extensively discussed over the past week-plus, but one thing that seems to be overlooked is that Saban is suddenly 1-2 over his last three games against his former assistant coaches.

Ok, that's not exactly a trend, especially since Saban was previously an incredible 24-0 against them. He has the most wins against the two coaches who finally topped him, Jimbo Fisher and Kirby Smart, with four. 

This will be Sarkisian's first shot at him, and obviously it's a little different as he helped recruit some of the players on the Crimson Tide roster.

But it's also a little different due to the circumstances. No one is better at turning around coaching careers than Saban, and he hired Sarkisian after being fired from USC in 2015 due to his struggle with alcoholism.

“I’ve said this numerous times, but I would not be the head coach at Texas if it weren’t for Nick Saban,” Sarkisian told ESPN. “He gave me a chance when I had a hard time getting an interview, never mind a job. There were days that I thought, ‘Man, I’m never going to be a head coach again. I’m never going to be an offensive coordinator again. I’m never going to get another job.’

“But Coach Saban took a chance on me when I needed somebody to believe in me again."

We'll see what he says after the game, and next year when Texas visits Tuscaloosa to complete the home-and-home series. 

Alabama vs. Texas Numbers

• Since Texas last had a first-round draft pick in 2015, defensive tackle Malcolm Brown by the Patriots, Alabama has had 24 (and that doesn't include Amari Cooper in 2015). 

• Since 1978, Texas has been voted No. 1 in an AP Top 25 seven. Alabama was No. 1 in the poll seven times last season, and already twice this season.

• Alabama has won more national championships under Saban than Texas has won in its entire history (four). 

• The lowest ranking Alabama has had in the final AP Top 25 poll since 2008 was No. 10 in 2013, the three-loss season. It's a string of 14 straight years of being in the top 10. Texas has finished in the top 10 just once since the national title loss to Alabama in the 2009 season, coming in at No. 9 in 2018. 

• This will be only the third time Texas has hosted a team ranked No. 1 (defeating SMU, 23-20, in 1950 and losing to Ohio State, 24-7, in 2006). Overall, the Longhorns are 5-11 when playing the No. 1 team in the nation. 

• This will be just the second time under Saban that Alabama's first pure road game of the season will not be at an SEC opponent, the other being Penn State in 2011, the last loss of Joe Paterno's career. Overall, the Crimson Tide is 13-1 with on win vacated, although four of the games were decided by seven or fewer points. 

• 2007: at Vanderbilt, W 24-10-v
• 2008: at Arkansas, W 49-14
• 2009: at Kentucky, W 38-20
• 2010: at Duke, W 62-13
• 2011: at Penn State, W 27-11
• 2012: at Arkansas, W 52-0
• 2013: at Texas A&M, W 49-42
• 2014: at Ole Miss, L 23-17
• 2015: at Georgia, W, 38-10
• 2016: at Ole Miss, W 48-43
• 2017: at Vanderbilt, W 59-0
• 2018: at Ole Miss, W 62-7
• 2019: at South Carolina, W 47-23
• 2020: at Missouri, W 38-19
• 2021: at Florida, W 31-29

Tide-Bits

• The NFF Hall of Fame on-campus salute for Sylvester Croom will fittingly be on Oct. 22, when Alabama is hosting Mississippi State. 

• Long-snapper Carson Tinker has joined the Seattle Seahawks’ practice squad, and center Ross Pierschbacher has done likewise with the Detroit Lions.

• Ron Rivera gave up update on running back Brian Robinson Jr. while appearing on the Don Geronimo Show podcast. The Commanders coach said the swelling in his knee has gone down “an awful lot” and he is already off his crutches.

• The 2022 Crimson Tide has four players from Texas on the depth chart, although no starters: MLB Kendrick Blackshire, RT Damieon George Jr., QB Jalen Milroe, and RB Jase McClellan, whom we profiled this week on BamaCentral. However, we obviously also need to mention offensive linemen Tommy and James Brockermeyer. Their older brother Luke is a linebacker at Texas, and father Blake played for the Longhorns as well. 

• One of Saban's former players has committed to played for Deion Sanders at Jackson State. Former Crimson Tide linebacker King Mwikuta, who transferred to Arkansas State a few months ago, is joining the Tigers per On3.com.

• Something to keep an eye on, when Oklahoma joins the SEC its seems logical that the home-and-home series with Alabama in 2032-33 will be canceled. Greg Byrne has already signed Arizona for those years as well, but he might be hard pressed to get another name program to fill those Week 2 openings. 

• Fanatics has released the first college football jerseys with player’s names on the back and, of course, it includes Alabama. The jerseys go for $140 each and student-athletes get a cut, but the percentage has not been disclosed. 

5 Thing That Got Our Attention This Week

1] Greg Sankey Profile 

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde did a deep dive on SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, An Inside Look at the Most Powerful Person in College Sports

On the the hot subject of conference expansion, he said: “Philosophically, we have distinguished ourselves as a brand, a big brand comprised of really big brands. Does that mean we’ll be at 16 forever? History suggests no, but I don’t just go to a number to say we’re going to a number. Every time we add, it’s an exponentially greater burden. It is a balance of scheduling decisions, finance, TV appearances. If you go to 20 and you have to air 10 games on a Saturday, that’s a challenge. You’re probably going to be cannibalizing your audience.” 

Forde goes on to note that Sankey has discouraged those in the conference from being anonymous media sources, citing his own disappointment in those who anonymously take shots at the league. “I’m really proud of our campuses, that they don’t feel the need to engage in the diminishment of others to elevate ourselves.”

2] Rece Davis on Playoff Expansion  

ESPN College GameDay host and Alabama graduate Rece Davis voiced his support for College Football Playoff expansion to Finebaum, however added that it “comes at a cost, and I don’t understand why people don’t just accept it. If you want to say that it’s more important to me to have an Oklahoma State-Kansas State game still mean something in November and that’s more important to me than having an Alabama-LSU like the 2019 game basically be a winner-take-all. If you want to say the former is more important than the latter, that’s your right to think that, but I don’t like the idea that people say, ‘Well, that doesn’t matter.’ Yes it does, it makes college football unique. We’re the only sport that has that. 

"Maybe it’s time to give that up, but it does come at a cost … and from my standpoint I’m not going to be quiet about acknowledging that. I think it’s great, I’m looking forward to it … it comes at a cost. Hopefully, that won’t be a cost that diminishes the experience for the fans and for anyone on any given Saturday throughout the regular season.” 

3) How a 12-team playoff would have looked ... 

The Athletic went back to the start of the start of the BCS era in 1998 and broke down how the FBS postseason would have looked in the coming 12-team College Football Playoff format. 

It found that “66 schools would have had at least one playoff appearance.” In contrats, only 11 current Power 5 programs would not have made a playoff (Boston College, Duke, Kentucky, Minnesota, NC State, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, Syracuse, Vanderbilt & Wake Forest). 

There would have been 13 instances of programs making it to the postseason as automatics that were ranked outside of the top 12, and six instances of byes for teams not in the top six. Thirty-two programs would have received at least one bye & one four-loss team (Florida State in 2002) would have made the field. 

4) Transfer portal numbers 

The FanNation site Football Scoop charted all the opening game quarterback starters last week and noted that “66 schools are starting QB1s who did not sign out of high school (40 who transferred this offseason, six who are on their third school).

"Additionally, another 42 schools start entrenched quarterbacks who saw significant action within their first two years on campus, or are within their first two years on campus right now.

"​​​​Out of 131 schools, that leaves a select 23 QB1s (17.6 percent) who waited more than two years to start for the school they signed with out of high school.” 

5] So You're Saying There's a Chance? 

Even though Oklahoma and Texas could end up leaving the Pac 12 early, neither school is planning for it.

"We’ve said all along that we’re going to fulfill our obligations through the 2024-25 (athletic year), and that’s our plan," Sooner athletic director Joe Castiglione told Toby Rowland on KREF 1400AM. "Now people listening are not naive. There are many things happening around college sports. And if that facilitates, necessitates or creates a reason to have a conversation with the two schools, Oklahoma and Texas, about staying through 2025, then it does.

“That would come from the Big 12, not from us. And so if (the) Big 12 sees their business of the future needing to take shape at a different timetable, then there will be conversations. But until then we’re focused on what we said we would do, just fulfill our obligations and complete the contracts that are in place and be ready to transition into the SEC July 1, 2025.”

Take It For What It's Worth

• According to Front Office Sports, the expanded College Football Playoff could sign media rights deals with multiple TV partners worth over $2 billion annually.

• A survey of student-athletes found that 59 percent of athletes do not have a good understanding of their state NIL law, with just 19 saying they have a good understanding. Additionally, 21 percent of student-athletes “said they’ve heard rumors of NIL activities involving athletes at their school or another school that potentially violate an NIL law or policy.” The survey was done by University of Vermont lecturer and NIL consultant Bill Carter. 

• BetOnline.ag recently tracked "overrated" tweets for every team in the preseason AP Top 25, between when it was released on August 1 and Week 1. The top team by far was Notre Dame, followed by Clemson, Michigan, Georgia and Michigan State. At least the Bulldogs silenced those chants. 

• The basketball analytics company HD intelligence has been hired by the SEC to help its programs with non-conference scheduling. 

• We just like this quote: Defensive assistant Mark Duffner on the Cincinnati Bengals having a practice DJ, "Even the seven dwarfs whistled when they went to work." 

Did You Notice?

Potential Schedule Changes a ‘Top Priority’ in CFP Expansion Efforts. The CFP‘s management committee explored the possibility of moving the entire schedule up a week as it tries to expand the playoff as early as 2024.

Jimbo Fisher on Coaching at WVU Later in Career: ’Never Say Never’

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Christopher Walsh's notes column All Things CW appears every week on BamaCentral.