Coaches are always asked about their counterparts across the way during the football season. In the SEC, most times, they’re quite familiar. Friends, even.
Arkansas’ Sam Pittman and Alabama’s Nick Saban may not be fishing buddies, per se, but their mutual admiration and fellowship is awfully close to being called an outright friendship.
“I think he’s fantastic,” Pittman said about Saban, the coach of the team Pittman’s Hogs will be playing Saturday. “He’s been so kind and so good to me. I sit right next to him at the SEC head coaches meetings. I ask him questions and he’s been kind enough to answer them. He’s treated me outstanding. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about him.”
Saban has been at it a long time. He coached a year at Toledo in 1990, five years at Michigan State, five at LSU and has been winning national titles – seven of them – at Alabama since 2007.
With Saban at age 71, murmurs have started to float that perhaps that resume may be finding a stopping point. Whenever he does choose to retire, the day will be bittersweet for people like Pittman.
“He’s the greatest coach of all time in college football in my opinion. I was kind of wondering when he was going to retire, too,” the Arkansas coach said.
Alabama and Arkansas kick off from Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium on Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
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