Alabama head football coach Nick Saban is retiring, two people with knowledge of the situation told the Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Wednesday. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to share the news publicly.

Alabama announced Saban's retirement later Wednesday night. His retirement ends one of the greatest coaching careers in college football history.

"The University of Alabama has been a very special place to Terry and me,” Saban said in a statement. "We have enjoyed every minute of our 17 years being the head coach at Alabama as well as becoming a part of the Tuscaloosa community. It is not just about how many games we won and lost, but it’s about the legacy and how we went about it. We always tried to do it the right way. The goal was always to help players create more value for their future, be the best player they could be and be more successful in life because they were part of the program. Hopefully, we have done that, and we will always consider Alabama our home."

Nick Saban's coaching career

Saban, 72, retires after leading Alabama to the College Football Playoff, where the Crimson Tide lost to Michigan in the Rose Bowl. He led Alabama to six national championships and LSU to one. The seven national titles are the most in NCAA Division I history.

Saban ends his 50-year coaching career as one of college football's most successful coaches. The former Kent State defensive back got his first head coaching job in 1990 at Toledo. The Rockets would go 9-2 in his lone season at Toledo before he moved to be the Cleveland Browns defensive coordinator.

Saban jumped back into college when he took over the head coaching job at Michigan State in 1995. In East Lansing, Saban brought the Spartans back to relevance after several losing seasons prior, and taking Michigan State to three bowl games in five seasons. After the end of the 1999 regular season, Saban bolted to LSU, where he became a national championship-winning coach in 2003 after the Tigers won the BCS National Championship Game against Oklahoma.

After two seasons coaching the Miami Dolphins, Saban returned to the college ranks to take over Alabama in 2007. Saban had a mediocre first season that saw the Crimson Tide go 7-6 and lose to Louisiana Monroe at home, but Alabama took off after that. The following season, Alabama went 12-2 with a Sugar Bowl appearance, and would go on to have double-digit victories in every season afterward.

Alabama reached the top of the college football world in Saban's third season with a perfect 14-0 season capped off with a win in the BCS National Championship Game against Texas, and remained a national championship contender in every following season.

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Saban would lead Alabama to more national championship in 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2020. He finishes his tenure in Tuscaloosa at 201-29 with nine SEC championships and eight College Football Playoff appearances, and he coached four Heisman Trophy winners at Alabama in Mark Ingram II (2009), Derrick Henry (2015), DeVonta Smith (2020) and Bryce Young (2021). Saban has also produced a whopping 44 NFL first-round draft picks at Alabama.

"Simply put, Nick Saban is one of the greatest coaches of all time, in any sport, and The University of Alabama is fortunate to have had him leading our football program for the past 17 seasons," said Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne.

Saban's overall college football record ends at 297-71-1.

Nick Saban retirement talks

Talks of retirement have circled Saban frequently in recent years. In September, he said on "The Pat McAfee Show" he didn't see himself retiring any time soon.

"It's kind of laughable," Saban said. "I would ask you, when's the first time you heard that I was going to retire? That started about five years ago.

"I love what I'm doing. I'm focused on the challenge. I've always said I don't want to ride the program down. I don't want to do this if I can't do it anymore, but I feel great right now. I love it. We got lots of challenges this season. I'm looking forward to it and we're all in," he added.

After Alabama lost to Michigan in the College Football Playoff semifinal, questions of retirement were sparked again. When USA TODAY Sports asked his wife, Terry Saban, if her husband would continue coaching after the game, a young woman interjected.

"We’re not answering questions like that right now,’" she said.

Nick Saban contract

Saban most recently has been working under an eight-year contract that took effect on March 1, 2022 and was set to run through Feb. 28, 2030.

Assuming that he continues to be paid, as scheduled, by the university for the remainder of his current contract year, he will be paid $11.1 million for this contract year, plus $625,000 in bonuses.

Over his 17-plus years with Alabama, Saban will have been paid a little over $121 million in basic annual compensation. Over the past 10 years, he will have been paid another $6 million in bonuses. That does not include the value of housing that Saban is receiving subsequent to purchase of his home by the Crimson Tide Foundation in 2013.

Saban will be walking away from the last six years of his current deal, for which he had been scheduled to be paid another $71.8 million.

Contributing: Steve Berkowitz, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nick Saban retiring as Alabama football coach