quote:
Skip no matching or exceeding Wayne Hyzenga or Skip not telling Les to walk to Michigan in 2007 and giving Saban whatever he wanted to comeback.

To be fair Saban always wanted to give the NFL a go. I don't think Skip could have convinced him to stay at that time. Word in Tuscaloosa back in 2007 was someone associated with LSU did reach out to Sexton to gauge Saban's interest in coming back and they were told after all the flack he got for leaving Miami the year before there was no way he could leave Alabama so quickly. I do think this is why Herbstreit said what he did about Les going to Michigan. LSU was going to let him go if Saban agreed to come back. When that became clear it wasn't going to happen they felt like they had to keep him, especially since we would be playing for a title in a few weeks.

I think this is another point though. How often does it work out when a "legendary" coach becomes the full time AD after retiring from coaching? Didn't Skip say in 2004 something to the effect of "I made Saban the highest paid coach last year, I'm not renegotiating again this year."? I think Alvarez at Wisconsin has done the same thing. He doesn't want another coach to exceed his legacy. One of the reason's both Bielema and Anderson left there was him saying assistant coaching salaries were outrageos and he refused to let them give their staffs raises and they were tired of losing assistants to other schools every year.