Nick Saban hired no shortage of coaches over his half century in the profession.
He didn‘t fire many, though. According to Saban, he only truly fired one coach.
On Friday, Saban joined the Pat McAfee show for his weekly appearance and shared what happened, though he didn’t name the coach.
“I only fired one guy in the whole time I was a head coach, and that was my fault,” Saban said. “I hired a guy to do a job that he really wasn’t qualified to do.”
Saban explained how that assistant was “like an offensive line coach” and Saban hired him to be a special teams coach.
“That‘s not really what he was,” Saban said. “That didn‘t work out really well, but it wasn’t his fault. It was my fault.”
Saban didn‘t make clear who the coach was, and he also didn’t say which job he had been in when that happened. Prior to coaching 17 seasons at Alabama, Saban also was a head coach for the Miami Dolphins, LSU Tigers, Michigan State Spartans and Toledo Rockets.
Nick Kelly is an Alabama beat writer for AL.com and the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X and Instagram.