Why Georgia benefits most from Nick Saban’s retirement

There’s one head coach and college football program that stands to benefit the most from Nick Saban’s retirement according to Jake Crain of the national sports podcast Crain & Company.

He recently stopped by to chat with On3’s Andy Staples for about 20 minutes, breaking down all things Nick Saban. As part of their discussion, Staples asked which current head coach of a major program currently stands to gain the most by having Saban bow out. Through several movie references, Crain came to one clear answer:

“Well, you know, when The Emperor dies, you pretty much just look to the next in command. You got to look at Darth Vader over there in Athens. I mean, he’s over there with the red lightsaber just waiting on this. He’s the protege, he’s the Chosen One, the Golden Child, the boy who lived, Kirby Smart. He’s created it almost in Nick Saban’s image.”

Crain acknowledged that some folks might expect the answer to be Michigan and Jim Harbaugh, assuming he stays in Ann Arbor. However, he more-or-less views the 2023 Michigan title as a one-off accomplishment with a certain older core of guys who won’t be around next season.

“Again, Georgia’s got to be next up, right, even with what Michigan did this year. Michigan, it feels like this is one of those teams that had a bunch of old guys that stuck around because they did they went through a lot of adversity and they won because of that adversity. A lot of it was because of the adversity.”

Meanwhile, Crain believes Kirby Smart built a juggernaut that’s here to stay.

“Georgia has just turned this into a machine. Like, we know what Georgia is, and now, all of the sudden, in the Battle of of Pacific Rim, one of the machines goes down and there’s one left. Well Kirby Smart, he’s the next in line.”

However, Saban is leaving at an important crux in the college football timeline as the playoff will expand to 12 teams next year, and even a program that consistently makes the top four of that field will still have to win more games than they did in the four-team CFP era.

“That’s the great part about college football now. We’re going to a 12-team playoff, right,” Crain continued. “There’s a lot more people eating at the table than there was when Nick Saban was just running through people because he was so much better than everybody up front. We live in a new world.”

So, Jake Crain is planting his flag in Athens believing Kirby Smart will slide into position as the sport’s premier coach, even if he doesn’t replicate the sheer domination of the prime Nick Saban years.

“Kirby Smart is not going to recreate what Nick Saban did, but Kirby Smart will probably get the closest to it. If we’re going to see who benefits the most, it’s the next in charge, it’s Darth Vader.”