Nick Saban age: Alabama football coach retires after 17 years leading Crimson Tide

craig meyer, usa today network

Thu, Jan 11, 2024, 12:56 AM·3 min read

Two days after the 2023 college football season came to its official end with Michigan’s win against Washington in the College Football Playoff championship game, what had been a seemingly settled coaching carousel received the biggest jolt it could have.

Alabama coach Nick Saban has retired, according to multiple reports and confirmed to the Tuscaloosa News, bringing to an end perhaps the most decorated coaching career in college football history.

Over the course of nearly two decades with the Crimson Tide, Saban not only revitalized the proud program, but also brought it to new heights. Saban’s teams won six national championships and nine SEC championships while appearing in the College Football Playoff in eight of its 10 years of existence.

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His seven national championships as a head coach — along with his rings at Alabama, he won a national title at LSU in 2003 — are the most of any coach in college football history.

Unlike many other legendary coaches whose fortunes faded in their final years, Saban’s Tide teams were still among the best in the country. This past season, Alabama won the SEC championship and advanced to the playoff, where it fell in overtime against eventual national champion Michigan in the Rose Bowl.

The question of why Saban would retire now is a natural one that touches on some factors that go well beyond the field, to the kinds of things like the passage of time that even college football coaches, the control freaks they are, can’t influence.

Here’s everything you need to know about Saban and his run as a college football coach:

REQUIRED READING: How Nick Saban transformed Alabama football — and changed a blueblood forever

How old is Nick Saban?

Though he doesn’t necessarily look it, Saban, who was born on Oct. 31, 1951 in Fairmont, West Virginia. He is 72 years old at the time of his retirement.

Saban is three years older than Bear Bryant was when he retired as Alabama’s coach in 1982 following an 8-4 season.

How long did Nick Saban coach at Alabama?

Saban coached for 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa, from the 2007 season through the end of the 2023 season, into 2024. During that time, he amassed a record of 206-29.

Saban leaves as the second-longest-tenured coach in Alabama football history, behind only Bryant, who coached at the school for 25 seasons.

It is, by a wide margin, the longest stop of Saban’s illustrious coaching career, which began in 1973 as a graduate assistant at Kent State, his alma mater. His next-longest continuous coaching tenures came at Michigan State, where he was from 1995-99, and LSU, from 2000-04.

Oldest coaches in college football

At the time of his retirement, Saban was the second-oldest coach in FBS football. He was behind only Mack Brown of North Carolina, who is two months older than Saban.

Interestingly, five of the eight oldest coaches during the 2023 college football season have either since retired, stepped down or been fired.

Following Saban’s retirement, here are the oldest coaches in FBS football: