ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum believes Nick Saban is slipping off his pedestal at the top of college football.
He may even consider leaving the game should this continue, Finebaum says, following Saturday's mistake-filled loss at Auburn that ended Alabama's College Football Playoff hopes.
“Nick Saban is the greatest coach of all time, but he has not delivered this year,” Finebaum said during Sunday morning's appearance on SportsCenter. “When they lost by 28 points, he promised the Alabama factor would be back. I haven’t seen it, and you think about all the things that have gone wrong. The penalties in this game were massive. You talk about 13 penalties and five false starts.
“You also think about what happens next to this team. I mean, this is a program that lost in major games now giving up 34, 44, 46 and 48 against the last four top 20 teams. You also think about Nick Saban. He’s lost two out of three to Gus Malzahn. He’s lost two out of three to Dabo Swinney. The dynasty isn’t dead, but the window is closing.”
Saban, 68, signed a multi-year contract extension with the Crimson Tide in 2018 and has no plans of retiring. In fact, he told Finebaum in May he's not sure what he'd do if he wasn't coaching football.
"I really enjoy what I’m doing, I really do," Saban said this summer. "I love the players. I love the relationships you have with players. I like being part of a team. I keep looking at the next challenges and to me those challenges come each year in trying to rebuild our team — losses that you have, guys going out early for the draft. I’m excited about being able to do this.
“I would not want to do it if I did not feel like I was able to do a good job. If my health got bad or I felt like I was not able to keep up the pace. I don’t want to ride the program down. We’ve worked hard to make Alabama something special and as long as I’m capable of contributing to keep it that way, I’m happy doing this.”
Saban insisted his team wouldn't "waste a failure" following January's loss to Clemson in the national championship game but multiple season-ending injuries to key players along with the most undisciplined team he's had in his tenure led to the Crimson Tide's first multi-loss regular season in nearly a decade this fall.
“I think it’s a fact of life that people respond better to failure than they do to success,” Saban said in May. “Whether you call it a chip or whatever you might call it, they’re all more willing to listen. They’re all more willing to learn about what they need to do to have a better chance to succeed in the future.
"I think we have that. I think the players are listening better. I think we have that and the players responded very well in the spring.”