ESPN's Chris Low explains why Nick Saban decided to retire

A new era of college football has officially begun, with Alabama head coach Nick Saban reportedly set to retire. ESPN’s Chris Low broke the story on Wednesday afternoon, with the news coming just over a week after the Rose Bowl loss to Michigan.

Low joined The Paul Finebaum Show to explain exactly why Saban decided to retire. The message from Saban has been constant throughout — if he felt like he could not give Alabama 100% for 100% of the time, he would walk away. Saban was not going to be taking any shortcuts just because of who he was.

“When you’re 72 years old, 14-hour days are a lot different than when you’re 60 or 62,” Low said. “It’s just the way it is. Nick is one of those guys where he could only do it one way. He’s never going to scale back and bring somebody else in to help him. He knows one way to coach football.

“I feel like he’s gotten to the point where he gave it everything he could as a head football coach to make Alabama a championship contender every year. And this was the right time and the right place for him in his life and his family to walk away.”

There has been a common theme in sports recently about announcing retirement early and enjoying the final wave. Baseball has done it with some legendary players, having moments before their final game at each ballpark. Football coaches have done so as well, hoping to walk off into the sunset in a positive fashion.

Low said that was never going to be an option for Saban, calling him “old school.” Once the decision was made by him and his family, it was final and Saban was going to walk away from the game. One final hurrah with a great roster might sound nice on paper but not in Saban’s DNA.

“There was no way he was ever going to do a victory tour, like we’ve seen some coaches do” Low said. “He was going to decide, talk to his family, and then he was going to be done. That is what happened today.”

Saban will leave college football and many consider him the greatest head coach of all time. Seven national championships were won, six of them happening at Alabama. One occurred while at LSU before moving to the NFL with the Miami Dolphins.