Alabama head coach Nick Saban has won six national championships since coming to Tuscaloosa in 2007. That type of success has led several of the best football coaches to come to Alabama and work under Saban.
We’ve seen it countless times in recent years. Steve Sarkisian and Butch Jones are the latest examples of former head coaches who came to Alabama for a short time and then became head coaches again.
In 2021, Saban’s coaching staff faces unprecedented turnover coming off another national championship.
In addition to Sarkisian’s and Jones’s departures, running backs coach Charles Huff left for his first opportunity as a head coach at Marshall. Offensive line coach Kyle Flood and special teams/tight ends coach Jeff Banks followed Sarkisian to Texas.
Replacing Sarkisian is former Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien. O’Brien spent six-plus seasons in charge of Houston’s NFL team before being fired in October.
Former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Doug Marrone will replace Flood as the offensive line coach.
Both have experience in the college game, too. O’Brien is a former head coach at Penn State while Marrone was a former head coach at Syracuse.
The hirings of O’Brien and Marrone are historic. They mean Alabama is the only college program to have three former NFL head coaches on a single staff since the AFL-NFL merger in 1966, per Paul Myerberg of USA TODAY Sports,
If Alabama continues to be, well, Alabama, O’Brien and Marrone could get another shot as a head coach sooner rather than later.