Nick Saban names college football program that once refused to hire him

Now, Nick Saban is known as arguably the greatest coach in college football history -- at least modern college football history -- but he revealed that early in his career, he was unable to land a job he coveted.

At his alma mater Kent State, no less.

The revelation came during a segment on ESPN's College GameDay when 1-4 Kent State game vs. 0-5 UMass was briefly discussed.

"You know, I tried to get that job once, and they wouldn't hire me. My alma mater wouldn't hire me," Saban said.

"That makes sense -- that's good decision-making," Pat McAfee chimed in.

Saban was a defensive back at Kent State and graduated from the university in 1973. He did start his coaching career as a graduate assistant and later linebackers coach for the Golden Flashes, but his first head coaching opportunity would not come until 1990 at another MAC school, Toledo.

It was after the 1987 season that Saban pursued the vacant Kent State job, but the school opted to hire Dick Crum instead.

Saban had been an assistant coach at Syracuse, West Virginia, Ohio State, Navy and was the defensive coordinator at Michigan State for four years at that time. He'd go on to coach DBs for the NFL's Houston Oilers the next two years before getting the head coaching job at Toledo.

Saban has talked about this career moment earlier, once telling ESPN that after getting passed over for the job, "I thought it would never happen."

Crum, who had spent the previous decade as the head coach at North Carolina, went 7-26 in three seasons at Kent State, including an 0-11 season.

Saban, meanwhile, went 9-2 in his lone season at Toledo, finishing as co-champion of the MAC. He then left to become the defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns for the next four years before taking the head coaching job at Michigan State, where he went 34-24-1 in five seasons. He parlayed that into the LSU job, where he'd go 48-16 in five seasons and win his first national championship in 2003.

After a brief detour to the NFL as Miami Dolphins head coach, Saban began his 17-year run at Alabama, where he posted an incredible 201-29 record and won six more national titles before his retirement after the 2023 season with a career record of 292-71-1.

Paul Amodio, the former Kent State athletic director who made that hire, reflected to ESPN on the decision to choose Crum over Saban.

"I wanted to hire him," he said. "... He was looking for big things. I found out that he was probably not going to stay any place very long."