Nick Saban recently revealed on “The Pivot” that his final year as the coach of the Alabama Crimson Tide was the hardest as a coach.
“We started out really bad and got better as we went on because we had a younger team,” the “GameDay” analyst said. “The quarterback (Jalen Milroe) got a lot better. It was a really really hard year.”
The Tide finished 12-2 with a Game 2 loss to Texas in Tuscaloosa 34-24, but Alabama ran the table the rest of the way, including a 27-24 win over Georgia in the SEC Championship Game. The Tide fell in the CFP to Michigan 27-20 in overtime.
“Probably didn’t have maybe as good a staff as some of the others before, so I had felt like I had to do more,” he explained.
“Honestly, at the end of the year, (I felt like) you’re gonna kill yourself doing this. I really did feel that way. It wasn’t name, image and like ness. It wasn’t the changes in college football. It wasn’t the players. No issue with any of that. I just really felt if you keep working like this, you’re gonna kill yourself.”
Saban, 73, added there was only one way he knew how to coach. He couldn’t leave early or work less. It just wasn’t in him.
“Once you get a little older, it gets harder to do it that way,” he said.
