Ripples from Nick Saban’s retirement could impact Kentucky football’s future
Nick Saban will forever be associated with Alabama football, of course. But Saban’s two most memorable games against Kentucky came during his stint (2000 through 2004) as LSU head man.
In 2001, LSU scored on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Rohan Davey to Michael Clayton with 13 seconds left in the game to beat UK 29-25 at the venue then known as Commonwealth Stadium.
Even more memorably, Saban’s Bayou Bengals won the following year on a 75-yard TD throw from Marcus Randall to Devery Henderson on the game’s final play. The successful “Hail Mary” pass stunned the Wildcats 33-30 — and deflated a Kentucky crowd that had been poised to rush the field in victory.
Ever keen on getting what one has earned, Saban seemed almost embarrassed about achieving victory via the play that became known as “The Bluegrass Miracle.”
“This is two years in a row we won this game but did not defeat them,” Saban said of Kentucky following LSU’s miraculous 2002 escape.
One of the epic coaching careers in American sports history came to an end Wednesday when word spread that Saban, 72, was retiring as Alabama head man.
Of Saban’s 297 career wins as a college head coach, 206 of them (versus 29 defeats) came on the Bama sideline.
After going 7-6 in his first season (2007) leading the Crimson Tide program, Saban never again won fewer than 10 games in a season. Heck, only once, 10-3 in 2010, did he win fewer than 11 games.
Nick Saban is retiring, sources tell ESPN. He won six national titles at Alabama.
— Chris Low (@ClowESPN) January 10, 2024
Other than the seven national titles Saban won, one at LSU (2003), six at Alabama (2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017, 2020), the most impressive figure the coach produced might be this:
Nine different times, a Saban-coached team beat an opponent that was ranked No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll.
After Kentucky’s two near-misses against Saban-coached LSU teams, the Wildcats never did beat the great coach. UK was 0-3 against Saban at LSU and lost all six meetings vs. the coach once he got to Alabama.
That Saban so thoroughly endured over time in the Southeastern Conference is reflected by his history with Kentucky.
Saban coached his first game against the Wildcats when Hal Mumme was the UK head man. His LSU defense grounded Mumme’s “Air Raid” offense in a 34-0 shutout in 2000.
Twenty-three years later, Saban earned what turned out to be his final win over Kentucky, a 49-21 pasting of Mark Stoops and UK last Nov. 11.
For all the good work Stoops has done with the Kentucky program in what is now an eight-season streak of bowl-game participation, he not only went 0-4 vs. Saban-coached Alabama teams, the Wildcats were outscored 194-37 in those contests.
“It’s not like our guys aren’t trying,” Stoops said after UK’s 28-point loss to Bama this past season. “Those guys are pretty good.”
Stoops and Kentucky were hardly the only ones struggling against Saban and Alabama. The Bama coach finished his Crimson Tide run with a 47-5 record vs. SEC East foes.
With Saban having the SEC West locked down and Saban-disciple Kirby Smart creating a program of similar magnitude in the SEC East at Georgia, the top of the Southeastern Conference has been rendered all but unattainable for other SEC football teams.
With Saban heading toward the exit and Oklahoma and Texas set to enter the SEC for 2024-25, it will be fascinating to see if the bipolar reign of Alabama and Georgia continues.
The man tasked with hiring Saban’s replacement, Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne, was on Mitch Barnhart’s initial staff at UK. Given that Saban is on the north side of 70, one presumes Byrne has had succession scenarios in mind and will have an action plan ready to go.
According to SportsBetting.ag, Oregon coach Dan Lanning, 37, a former Alabama graduate assistant, was the 1-3 favorite to be the next Crimson Tide head coach. However, in a video posted on X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) Thursday, Lanning announced plans to stay with the Ducks.
— Dan Lanning (@CoachDanLanning) January 11, 2024
Immediately behind Lanning on the SportsBetting.ag list of potential Saban replacements were two former Alabama assistants, Lane Kiffin (7-1) and Steve Sarkisian (8-1), who are the current head coaches at Mississippi and Texas, respectively.
Given that Kentucky is slated to play at both Ole Miss and Hook ’em Horns in 2024, either of those head coaches taking the Alabama job could have huge competitive implications for UK.
Meanwhile, if Bama were to hire Florida State head man Mike Norvell (10-1 fourth choice on the SportsBetting.ag list), would Kentucky’s Stoops, a former Seminoles defensive coordinator, be a target in the ensuing FSU coaching search?
When the legendary John Wooden retired as UCLA men’s basketball coach in 1975, then-Kentucky head man Joe B. Hall — who had followed the iconic Adolph Rupp on the UK bench — jokingly put his own name forward as the logical successor to the coach who left college hoops with 10 NCAA championships.
In a nod to the difficulty of immediately following a coaching legend, Hall quipped that UCLA should tab him to replace Wooden because “Why ruin two men’s lives?”
It will be fascinating to see which football coach has the fortitude to take on the gargantuan task that will be succeeding Nick Saban at Alabama.
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