Alabama AD makes honest admission about replacing Nick Saban

Alabama coach Nick Saban looks on. Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Alabama Crimson Tide moved quickly to bring in Kalen DeBoer as their new head coach after Nick Saban decided to retire. However, the school’s athletic director admitted that a perfect candidate was virtually impossible to come by.

In an appearance on “The Paul Finebaum Show” Wednesday, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne admitted that there was no coach that could satisfy every single criteria the Crimson Tide looked for in a Saban replacement. DeBoer ultimately came the closest.

“[There’s] the old saying that the AD has a list in his top desk drawer, which I never have had. But what I’ve had is something that’s a fluid list that changes in time,” Byrne said of finding Saban’s replacement, via Mike Rodak of 247 Sports. “We had vetted, probably, a couple dozen coaches over the years that we thought, OK, could they make sense? Some made a lot more sense than others. We had criteria of what we were looking for.

“The reality is, none of them fit. There was not a perfect candidate that checked every single box. Except for probably Nick Saban, that would have been it.”

Byrne’s admission has little to do with DeBoer. It is simply an admission that Saban was, in many ways, the perfect coach for the Alabama program, and there was never going to be a perfect replacement.

Saban’s retirement has created some issues for DeBoer that were not there before. Addressing them may be job no. 1 for DeBoer, and might give him the opportunity to improve on how things were previously.