Let's examine Alabama for a moment.

2 top ten safeties.

3 top ten edge rushers.

2 top ten offensive linemen.

2 top ten defensive linemen.

2 top ten cornerbacks.

2 top ten running backs.

2 top ten wide receivers.

1 top ten quarterback.


Sixteen players, all top ten at their position. Nick Saban, the head football coach for the Alabama Crimson Tide doesn't frick around.

I'll tell ya though, he sorta did frick around this season and it showed, didn't it. Car dealerships, Hotel ventures and insurance commercials kept The Man distracted and a very shaky ten and two season with what was probably the best roster in the country was the end result.

It's easy to blame poor coordinating and position coaching but when it comes down to the balls of it all, the boss was chasing squirrels and consequently, so was his team. This is an oh so salient truth the Alabama fanbase struggles to reconcile with. The notion that Nick Saban, through his own lack of focus created this failure. It's so much easier to simply blame the bookends but Saban's lackadaisical fingerprints are all over this underwhelming season.

Teams are often a reflection of their head coach and that has never been more evident than with Nick Saban coached programs. For years, every one of his teams has taken on his traits. This season was no different. He was distracted and filled with the sort of clutter he preaches against and so was this team.

Alabama doesn't have a Bill or Pete problem, those guys are fan driven scapegoats. Nick Saban has won big with guys like that in the past but that was a different Nick Saban. That was a Nick Saban who stuck his finger in every face on the field and didn't give a single shite who he pissed off. We used to see him do it all the time with players and coaches alike. Rip brand new bloody assholes all over the place and no one was spared. Smart, Kiffin, Pruitt, McCarron. It didn't matter. No one was too big or too important to be fricked with and it's no accident that those teams won championships and were universally feared by everyone.

The fact of the matter is Alabama has a leadership problem and that problem is Saban's obvious lack of involvement with this team. He's from time to time intimated to that fact this season and it showed big time.

So what's next? Does he rediscover his inner pissed off self, put the pebble back in his shoe and once again dance with the date that brung him or does he continue down this current path of part time coaching and leadership?

I think Nick Saban is deeply self aware and understands how his lack of leadership compromised what should've been the best team he's ever put on the field. A team even better than 2020.

I believe he'll take his fearless moral inventory, examine his shortcomings, eliminate them and win one or two more championships before he finally retires.

Nick Saban, the head football coach for the Alabama Crimson Tide will go out the way he's meant to go out. A champion.