Nick Saban on internal thoughts during final season: ‘You’re going to kill yourself doing this’

Nick Saban was tired at the end of 2023 coming off of his 17th season at Alabama. Many declared it one of his best coaching jobs ever, as he took a team that struggled at the beginning of the year and led them to an SEC Championship against Georgia.

But after the Crimson Tide would go on to lose to Michigan in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, Saban thought deeply about what had just transpired and his future. Not long after, the seven-time national championship winning coach announced his retirement at age 72.

Speaking on The Pivot Podcast with Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder, Saban finally opened up on how difficult his final season was and why it ultimately led him to step away.

“That was one of the hardest years I ever went through as a coach,” he explained. “Because we started out really bad and got better as we went, because we had kind of a younger team and the quarterback got a lot better. It was just a really, really hard year. Probably didn’t have maybe as good of staff as some of the ones before, so I felt like I had to do more.

“I honestly felt at the end of the year, like, ‘You’re going to kill yourself doing this.’ I really did feel that way. It wasn’t name, image and likeness. It wasn’t the changes of college football. It wasn’t the players. No issues with any of that. I just really felt like, ‘If you keep working like this, you’re gonna kill yourself.’ …Some people don’t work as hard. Some people don’t stay until late at night. But that’s how I learned how to do it. That’s the only way I know how to do it. But once you get a little older, it gets harder to do it that way.”

Nick Saban left behind a legacy as one of the greatest coaches, if not the greatest, to ever do it. In addition to Alabama, he was also a coach at Toledo, Michigan State, and LSU, though he’ll always be remembered most for his time with the Crimson Tide.

Crowder posed the question to Saban as to whether he feels like he ever would return to the sidelines, but the former coach responded that he doesn’t believe so. He’s not done with the sports entirely, though, as he spent this past season as an analyst for ESPN on College GameDay and also provided analysis during the NFL Draft.

Those endeavors have helped him feel like he’s still a part of the game without giving him the same level of stress he felt during his final season as a coach.

“I’ll bet you if you asked me that question and I wasn’t involved in sports — ESPN, GameDay, doing the draft — I’d probably say, ‘Maybe,'” Nick Saban said on ever coaching again. “But doing this, I’m still involved in ball. I like it and it gives me something to do. I don’t think I’d be happy if I didn’t have something to do. The difference is, and it’s almost enjoyable, when you coach your team, you’re kind of looking at everything through a straw. Your team, who you’re playing that week and that’s it. You’re not thinking about what’s happening at Colorado or Oregon or whatever.

“But doing TV, you look at the whole thing from 1,000 feet where you’re seeing everybody and all the players. I wouldn’t have known (Cameron) Skattebo from a load of coal if I was coaching Alabama. But I have an appreciation for that guy and the kind of competitor that he is because I watched him play all year. So that’s kind of fun to have a little different approach to it.”