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Following the retirement of Nick Saban, everyone has an opinion on who should be the next head football coach at the University of Alabama.
Many names have already been tossed around, some of them have already declined, but, according to Stephen A. Smith there is really only one choice: Deion Sanders.
“I’m not going to cast any aspersion on Boulder, Colorado, but all I’m going to say is that I was there twice in my life and the only reason for that was him,” Smith began his explanation on Friday’s episode of First Take. (As if Tuscaloosa, Alabama is at the top of his travel destinations list.)
“The reason why I feel that way is because I’m thinking of today’s generation of players, catching the pulse of the players,” Smith continued. “I’m thinking about NIL. I’m thinking about the transfer portal, which are obviously things that Nick Saban had some degree of a problem with.”
Not according to Nick Saban.
“Don’t make it about that. It’s not about that,” Saban said on Thursday during an interview with Chris Low at ESPN.
Smith, undeterred by Saban’s statement, continued on that path, “That’s really what it comes down to. I would tell you this. The reason why
I feel that way is because I’m thinking about today’s generation of players -catching the pulse of the players. I’m thinking about NIL. I’m thinking about the transfer portal, which obviously were things that Nick Sabin had some degree of a problem with.
“And then I’m thinking about Deion Sanders. He’s got the top-ranked transfer class. That’s the second year in a row that he’s pulled that off. So when you look at it from that perspective, the ability to recruit talent, I think if you’re going to replace the greatness of a Nick Saban, it starts and ends first and foremost with being able to recruit. And you can’t tell me that for a big-time program like Alabama, somebody like ‘Prime Time’ goes there, that you’re not going to have athletes who would not follow.”
Of note: Deion Sanders himself wrote on X after news of Nick Saban’s retirement, “WOW! College Football just lost the GOAT to retirement. WOW! I knew it would happen one day soon but not this soon. The game has changed so much that it chased the GOAT away. College football, let’s hold up our mirrors and say HONESTLY what you see.”
Does that sound like someone who wants to take over for Nick Saban as Alabama’s head football coach? Time will tell.