Its been leaked by a couple of sources that Saban will be back in the saddle either in college or the NFL.

Not buying it in college. For as calculating a man as Saban the CFB ground is far to unsettled for him to wade back into. Without knowledge of the terrain its hard to construct a NC path anywhere to the degree that Saban would feel comfortable with.

All that said, I love the specter of Saban hovering over about 20 cfb programs as the season plays out.

BK loses at Clemson in wk1. Saban!

UF gets off to a shaky start...........Saban!

Alabama starts slow and there will be talk of a restoration.

SC under preforms.......Saban! (they'd have no shot. Saban would want a schools soul and SC isn't at that desperate yet)

Sherrone really hasn't done much.

Everyone would want Saban but what schools with potential openings would Saban give the time of day to?

UF
LSU
M
Arkansas (see Calipari's contract).
Auburn (lol)
UNC (sneaky good job. Support??)

Actually the perfect place for a Saban return would IMO have been TAMU. Desperate/soul sold cheaply (check). Money (check). Resources (check). Fertile recruiting territory (check).

he'd still be at Bama.

Ditto for Coach K at Duke. Roy at UNC. And a handful of other guys.

Those guys who had the "old way" figured out have no interest trying to navigate something totally new -- and still evolving -- at 70.

But, yes, it will be hilarious to watch this.

Hear me out.

We are years away from a Super League, right? That league is going to drive a lot of revenue for schools. (Ancillarily, I do think in the next 10-20 years traditional college is going to be blunted by the access to AI, so these schools will need to think very hard on how they are filling a revenue gap from rising costs and lower admissions...but I digress).

If you agree that Saban is an amazing coach that gets the most out of his players, I do believe that there is a bigger delta that he help a team gain at say an AAC team versus that of an SEC team. I think he definitely could help coach up an AAC team to be world beaters within that league and, with the proper amount of funding, he would be able to keep kids around as they would be able to be coached by the best and ultimately play in the playoff.

I could see it happening. But the right situation from an institutional perspective needs to exist.

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in 2026.