New details on Saban's retirement cloud the future of an old-school approach
Matt Rhule seems to be building Nebraska with an approach that has always worked. How does it work, however, when college football is in the midst of drastic change?
Let’s quickly try to summarize the impact of Nick Saban’s retirement at Alabama:
The gold standard program for college football success over the past decade-plus has to find a new coach, and this isn’t the standard “replacing a legend” challenge, it’s replacing the guy widely considered the best to ever do it. Additionally, in a thoroughly modern twist, approximately 20% of the roster, one of the two or three most talented rosters in the country, will leave as a result of this news. Kalen DeBoer is probably about as good a hire as Alabama could’ve made, but any change represents uncertainty where once there was certainty and every program with championship aspirations recognizes this window of opportunity.
Alabama chooses DeBoer, Washington’s head coach, which effectively pauses the upward trajectory the Husky program was on just as it prepares for the big jump to the Big Ten. More uncertainty from relative certainty.
Washington chooses Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch, which effectively pauses the upward trajectory the Wildcat program was on just as it prepares to move to the Big 12, which, unlike the Big Ten, feels like a conference of unclaimed land due to its lack of blue-blood powers. Maybe Arizona could’ve been the best team in the new Big 12, maybe it still will be. I don’t know. It would’ve been among the conference favorites entering 2024 after a 10-3 season in 2023. Instead, more uncertainty from relative certainty.
Arizona’s hire is where we know we’re post-Sabanquake and into aftershock territory because the Wildcats make a fairly conventional hire of Brent Brennan. The head coach at San Jose State for the previous seven seasons and a UA alum, Brennan is a fairly conventional hire. He was 34-48 with the Spartans, but won two conference titles, so he has the classic G5-ascendant profile we see all the time in this sport. Arizona reportedly almost hired him in 2021, when it opted for Fisch instead.
San Jose State goes somewhat outside the box—smartly, in my opinion—and taps Ken Niumatalolo. The former Navy head coach was fired in 2022 and had basically a bridge job at UCLA last season. His time with the Midshipmen proved he was a good head coach (109-83 career record), but he’s from the option-football school, which isn’t very trendy these days and probably pigeonholed Niumatalolo over the past few hiring cycles. San Jose State wasn’t a certainty under Brennan, but now anyone who bothers to check in on the Spartans has to wonder about how good Niumatalolo is given they probably won’t run the option.
I’m laying this all out because a) I’m somewhat obsessed with this sport, and b) Chris Low of ESPN gave readers their first real story on the inner workings during this tumultuous time for Alabama football. That story had me thinking about Saban’s decision and its impact on Nebraska football.
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