Just before Alabama head coach Nick Saban won the Bear Bryant Award, given to college football’s top coach, he spoke with the media on Wednesday evening to discuss a number of topics.
One topic of interest is Alabama’s vacant offensive coordinator position.
Steve Sarkisian is officially finished with the Crimson Tide after Monday’s win over Ohio State in the national championship.
The leading contender to replace Sarkisian appears to be former Houston Texas and Penn State head coach Bill O’Brien.
Saban had plenty to say about O’Brien, per Charlie Potter of 247Sports.
“I’ve known Bill O’Brien for a long, long time, all the way back when he was an assistant at Georgia Tech with George O’Leary,” Saban said about his relationship with O’Brien.
Saban praised O’Brien for the work he did at Penn State after taking over at a challenging time in that school’s history.
Went to Penn State in probably the most trying times of any great program, coming off of a lot of crazy stuff, and he did an outstanding job of sort of rebuilding that program, getting players to stay there, having a real representative positive program.
Saban also referenced his relationship with New England coach Bill Belichick, where O’Brien once worked as an offensive coordinator.
Finally, Saban all but guaranteed O’Brien would replace Sarkisian.
“I think he’ll do a great job with our players here,” Saban said.
Alabama has yet to officially announce O’Brien as the new offensive coordinator, but that could come at any time.