Nick Saban visits Chicago Bears training camp, former player Matt Eberflus

Nick Saban’s retirement from being the head football coach at Alabama has not done much to keep him away from the game. Not that anyone expected otherwise.

And Saban’s used some of his newfound free time to visit with and speak to former players, coaches and peers he’s worked with. After such a long career, Saban’s reach across the sport is wide — so wide that he traveled north to stop by Chicago Bears training camp and visit with one of his former players: Bears head coach Matt Eberflus, according to 670 The Score’s Chris Emma.

Saban was the head coach at Toledo in 1990, during Eberflus’ junior season, a year in which he earned first team all-conference honors. It’s a safe bet the two talked about a bit more than defense, but that was certainly a subject, too, according to Emma.

“We ended up spending about 30 minutes talking about coverages,” Eberflus said.

He’s not likely to accept any coordinator or position coach gigs any time soon, but Saban evidently is still quite interested in getting down to Xs and Os with one of his former players — and it just might filter down to the Bears defense this season.

Saban’s impact is still being felt on the current Alabama roster

Jalen Milroe learned quite a bit during his time under Saban and going into his final year at Alabama, one lesson sticks out.

It may sound cliche, but it’s trusting the process. Milroe lived by that adage every day and will do so this fall.

Even with Saban in retirement, that lesson stuck with the Alabama quarterback

“There’s so many things I learned from Coach Saban and it’s hard to narrow down one, but if I was to choose one, I say trust the process,” Milroe said on Get Up. “Every process is different when it comes to just trusting your journey. And as a guy that came in from Texas, and being acclimated to the new environment in Alabama, and how you push every single day to accomplish any goal that you want to achieve, there’s adversity that comes along the process. 

“There are times of self doubt, there’s times where you have to push through hard circumstances and throughout that time, never waver from that. And it comes from a leader in coach Saban, pushing each and every day to be the best you, that’s very important. Just kind of go 1-0 each and every day, and just trying to attack the day at hand and it’s all about trusting the process.”