Role of Jimmy Sexton in the Alabama head coach search to replace Nick Saban

Amid the chaos since Nick Saban announced his retirement as Alabama‘s head coach on Wednesday has been a cacophony of calls for this coach or that coach to replace one of college football’s most famous and most successful head coaches.

One man has flown under the radar to this point, at least on the outside.

“Well, I’ll tell you I called somebody within the SEC yesterday, and said ‘Who will (Alabama athletics director) Greg Byrne‘s first call be to?'” said Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger on the Paul Finebaum Show. “And the person said, ‘Jimmy Sexton.’ Not a coach but an agent who certainly represents all those names.”

Sexton is the quiet power broker behind the scenes, the man that plucks the strings of job openings like a fiddle to get his clients paid as much as humanly possible.

Saban has long been a client, for one. But so too are several of the coaches that Alabama might target to replace him.

“He represents Kalen DeBoer,” Dellenger pointed out. “He took over I think this fall, Kalen DeBoer hired him, I believe. He represents Mike Norvell and he represents Steve Sarkisian. And he represents plenty of other coaches. He represents Lane (Kiffin) as well. So, he is huge. He is, I wanna say, Paul, you may know the number, he represents around 12 of the 16 SEC coaches.”

When you control that many of the pieces on the chess board, you can often earn your clients additional money even without moving any pieces.

Float a rumor of interest here and a client gets a raise there. Have a client actually jump to a higher-profile gig, suddenly there’s a new opening for another of your clients.

There are any number of ways that Sexton can orchestrate things to line everyone’s pockets.

“He can move the pieces around. He can kind of and has played coaching chess across the country, moving the pieces around,” Dellenger said. “So, he will be imperative I’m sure. Just like all the SEC ADs, Jimmy Sexton has a great relationship with Greg Byrne and I’m sure that was Greg’s first call and Jimmy knowing that he was the agent of the man who retired got a heads up on this and got started on this before any other agent.

“So, he’s certainly got the advantage here and I would imagine a Jimmy Sexton client will be Alabama’s next head coach, if I’m guessing.”

On3’s Dan Morrison also contributed to this report.