Alabama head football coach Nick Saban throws out the first pitch before the Crimson Tide s game with Samford at Sewell-Thomas Stadium Tuesday April 25, 2023. — Gary Cosby Jr. / USA Today Network

Nick Saban the Dean of SEC Football, but not at Alabama: All Things CW

While only five football coaches at the Division I level have longer tenures, he's only fourth in terms of Crimson Tide longevity.

Author:
Christopher Walsh
Publish date:
May 25, 2023 12:06 PM EDT

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

There are only four football coaches in the Southeastern Conference who have had their jobs for five-plus seasons. That means that three-fourths of the league hasn't had a graduating class with players who the head coach recruited.

Only two belong to the 10-year club, Mark Stoops reaching that point last year at Kentucky.

The other, of course, is Nick Saban, the coach who few thought would stay at Alabama more than a few seasons. Previously, he had been at Michigan State and LSU for five years each, and at the time even he thought of himself as someone who excels at turning programs around, not as a coach who stays and continues to build. He wasn't Bobby Bowden or Joe Paterno.

But Saban decided to put some roots down in Tuscaloosa and see what kind of long-term success might be achieved with the Crimson Tide, and ended up topping those two in most respects in about half of the time. Now only five football coaches in Division I have longer tenures with their respective schools:

Kirk Ferentz, Iowa, 1999 first season
Kyle Whittingham, Utah, 2005
Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State, 2005
Rick Stockstill, Middle Tennessee State, 2006
Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern, 2006

(Troy Calhoun is tied with Saban. In 2007, he stepped down as offensive coordinator of the Houston Texans to take over his alma mater, Air Force. Saban was the head coach of the Miami Dolphins.)

That's a tough gig, with intense pressure often coupled with unrealistic expectations. The average head coach lasts about four years at the Division I level. It's even shorter in the SEC where every other program has had multiple hires since Saban was hired in 2007.

SEC Football Coaches

Nick Saban, Alabama, 2007
Mark Stoops, Kentucky 2013
Kirby Smart, Georgia, 2016
Jimbo Fisher, Texas A&M, 2018
Lane Kiffin, Ole Miss, 2020
Sam Pittman, Arkansas, 2020
Shane Beamer, South Carolina, 2021
Eli Drinkwitz, Missouri, 2021
Clark Lea, Vanderbilt, 2021
Josh Heupel, Tennessee, 2021
Brian Kelly, LSU, 2022
Billy Napier, Florida, 2022
Hugh Freeze, Auburn, 2023
Zach Arnett, Mississippi State, 2023

However, the same isn't true necessarily true of college athletics in general. Before she recently decided to retire after 26 years, women's tennis coach Jenny Mainz was known as "The Dean" of coaches at Alabama — to the point that the first line of her bio on the athletic department website was "Known as 'The Dean' of the coaches across the campus of the University of Alabama."

But even with her departure, Saban still ins't in the top three of the new Crimson Tide "Dean" list. Two of them of them are where we can usually find them at this point of the year, trying to guide their teams through the postseason.