Nick Saban sends strong message ahead of College Football Hall of Fame induction

College football's most accomplished head coach is headed to the hall of fame, and offered some poignant insight as to what brought him there.

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It was only a matter of time before Nick Saban heard his name called for the College Football Hall of Fame, and that time has finally come.

College football’s sixth-winningest all-time head coach and the NCAA record-holder with seven national championships was inducted into the hall of fame this week, and outlined the fundamental values that made him the coach he is.

"It's about being the best you can be"

Saban described how he was raised with the idea of having accountability for everything he did, no matter how apparently simple the task.

“There was always a reckoning for what I did. That helped me tremendously, I think, from an accountability standpoint, because my dad used to always say, ‘If you don’t have the time to do it right the first time, how you going to find the time to do it again?’” he said at the National Football Foundation.

“We won an extraordinary amount of games when I was a Pee Wee player and a high school player that culminated in a state championship. And after every one of those wins, I got my ass chewed out pretty good by my coaches and dad.

“After all those wins, I finally asked my mom once, ‘Why do I always seem to get reprimanded even when we win?’ She said, ‘It’s not about winning. It’s about you being the best you can be.’

“Those lessons helped me develop a process that helped a lot of other people be successful, helped us be successful and helped the people I worked with give us a chance to be successful. I’d like to thank them for that.”

The best to ever do it

Saban retired from Alabama after the 2023 season with a 297-71-1 record, and is the first coach in college football history to win titles at two different FBS schools since the inception of the AP poll.

He never had a losing season in 28 years as a head coach, has helped put 35 of his assistants into coaching positions, coached 136 eventual NFL Draft picks, and a record 52 first-round selections.

Saban won 87.7 percent of his games at Alabama, going 206-29 and had 15 straight winning seasons with an AP No. 1 ranking and nine SEC championships.

He is also the only coach in the BCS and College Football Playoff eras with multiple undefeated national championship seasons.

From a kid in West Virginia to the College Football Hall of Fame, it's been a long and historic journey.

“Little did I know as a kid growing up in West Virginia pumping gas at my dad’s service station that some of those lessons that I learned — it was beyond my imagination that I would ever end up here,” Saban said.