FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — History tells us that when it comes to his professional career plans, Nick Saban is not to be trusted.
A lot of folks here still are more than a little ticked off at Saban for denying six years ago he was leaving the Miami Dolphins for Alabama.
“Well, I guess I have to say it,’’ Saban said straight into a bank of TV cameras. “I won’t be the coach at Alabama.”
Six years later, Saban has won three BCS national championships at Alabama, including Monday night’s 48-14 beatdown of Notre Dame, a game that was over in the first quarter. It allowed Brent Musburger plenty of time to make Katherine Webb, quarterback A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend, the most popular cover girl not named Kate Upton.
This last Alabama title, No.15 if you’re counting, exceeds all the others for several reasons:
1. Alabama is the cool school: Come to Tuscaloosa, date Miss Alabama, win multiple national titles, get drafted. Repeat.
2. Alabama is the first school in the BCS era to win back-to-back titles and just the third to win three crowns in four years. Cool.
3. Alabama had eight players drafted last season, and the haul could hit 10 this year depending on which players leave early.
So now we’ve got to wonder if Saban won’t go Pete Carroll on us and decide he wants one more shot at the NFL. He failed miserably with the Dolphins, where his dictatorial style divided the roster. There are openings in the NFL, but Saban made it crystal clear yesterday he knows the college game is where he belongs.
“How many times do you think I’ve been asked to put it to rest?’’ he said. “And I’ve put it to rest, and you continue to ask it.
“I think somewhere along the line you’ve got to choose. You learn a lot from the experiences of what you’ve done in the past. I came to the Miami Dolphins, what, eight years ago for the best owner, the best person that I’ve ever had the opportunity to work for.
“And in the two years that I was here, had a very, very difficult time thinking that I could impact the organization in the way that I wanted to or the way that I was able to in college, and it was very difficult for me, because there’s a lot of parity in the NFL, there’s a lot of rules in the NFL.’’
“And people say you can draft the players that you want to draft; you can draft a player that’s there when you pick. It might not be the player you need, it might not be the player you want. You’ve got salary cap issues. We had them here. You’ve got to have a quarterback. We had a chance to get one here; sort of messed it up.
“So I didn’t feel like I could impact the team the same way that I can as a college coach in terms of affecting people’s lives personally, helping them develop careers by graduating from school, off the field, by helping develop them as football players, and there’s a lot of self”‘gratification in all that, all right.
“So I kind of learned through that experience that maybe this is where I belong, and I’m really happy and at peace with all that. So no matter how many times I say that, y’all don’t believe it, so I don’t even know why I keep talking about it. ’’
Keep in mind this was the giddy mood Saban was in less than 12 hours after winning his fourth title — three at Alabama, one at LSU.