Alabama head coach Nick Saban has tested positive for COVID-19 and will not coach in the Iron Bowl against Auburn Saturday.
He confirmed the news during his weekly SEC teleconference appearance Wednesday.
Saban discussed how offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Steve Sarkisian will handle coaching against Auburn.
“As it is right now, if you tested positive, you can have no communication with the sidelines, as I understand it,” Saban said. “So Sark’s been a head coach for many years and very successful at it. He’ll still continue to call the plays.
“We won’t really change anything other than the fact that some of the administrative, game-day decisions, he’ll have to be involved in, so we really will discuss that more. We discussed that when I went through this three-day hiatus before the Georgia game, we discussed exactly how we’d do that, but we’ll be a little more specific about that later in the week.”
Former Tennessee head coach Butch Jones is currently serving in an off-field role as Special Assistant to the Head Coach at Alabama.
Saban discussed whether an off-field coach will be added to the on-field staff this week with his absence.
“We haven’t made that decision yet,” Saban said. “We kind of do it day-by-day. I have a coach that is not a full-time coach that I communicate with on the field during practice, so if there is something, he can communicate it to the players.
“He’s not really coaching the players, but we haven’t made those decisions as of yet. This really happened in the last hour and a half.”
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