It’s been a wild two days in the college football world.
On Wednesday, legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban announced his retirement. Shortly after, potential candidates to replace Saban were flying all over the internet. Most were rumors, but some could have smoke behind them.
Initially, the national media believed Oregon’s Dan Lanning was Alabama’s most likely candidate to replace Saban. However, Lanning announced via social media on Thursday that he’d be staying at Oregon.
The attention then shifted to Washington’s Kalen DeBoer, Florida State’s Mike Norvell, Texas’ Steve Sarkisian and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin.
Fox Sports’ Joel Klatt originally stated on Wednesday night that Alabama’s first call should be to Sarkisian. That appeared to be more of a “try your best, make him tell you no” type of scenario.
Klatt further explained on Thursday why Sarkisian wouldn’t be interested in the Alabama job.
“Now that he’s at Texas, he doesn’t make a lot of sense to go back to Alabama because he’s his own man at Texas. He has built this in his own image. He’s not in the shadow or footsteps of anybody else. This is Sark’s program. If you go to Alabama, you will be in Nick Saban’s shadow. There’s no ifs ands or buts about it. He’s the greatest college football coach of all-time. So for that reason, even though they have to start with Sark, and they like him — and clearly Nick liked him enough that he wanted to promote him from within a couple of years ago, I don’t think Sark is wanting that job.”
With the current state of the Texas football program, along with starting quarterback Quinn Ewers announcing his return on Thursday, it appears more than likely that Sarkisian will stay in Austin.
However, wilder things have happened in college football. We’ll provide updates as they become available.
Joel Klatt explains why Steve Sarkisian will not accept the Alabama job:
"Now that he’s at Texas, he doesn’t make a lot of sense to go back to Alabama because he’s his own man at Texas.
He has built this in his own image. He’s not in the shadow or footsteps of anybody else.… pic.twitter.com/ztyBKsLKco
— On3 (@On3sports) January 11, 2024
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