Three places Nick Saban could end up returning to coaching

Dan Mullen returning to coaching college football at UNLV could quickly be overshadowed by one of the most legendary figures in the sport.

On Monday, former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy set fire to the college football world by suggesting that legendary head coach Nick Saban could return to the sidelines.

“A very much in the know person that I have a lot of respect for and have spent a lot of time around, and just really, really admire — they seem to think Nick Saban is not done coaching,” McElroy said, according to 247Sports. “He’s pretty adamant that he thinks Nick Saban will be coaching again.”

Now, it is no guarantee that Saban will return, and prominent figures such as ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart do not believe it will happen.

However, even hypothetical interest in Saban coming back is worth exploring. Some of the top programs in the nation could see Saban as the key to push themselves back among the elite, while others would consider him as a leg up in terms of recruiting and the transfer portal. If Saban believes he can conquer this brave new world of college football, teams would be lining up to make it happen.

So which programs would take the plunge?

LSU Tigers

If Saban does come back, a return to the only place outside of Tuscaloosa that he won a national championship sounds like the most plausible candidate.

Current LSU head coach Brian Kelly is far from a bad coach, as he’s won at least nine games in all but one of the last ten seasons. It would also cost the athletics department in Baton Rouge $42.5 million to oust Kelly without cause, so the Tigers might not be too keen on that idea.

Still, LSU could see it as their price of making the upgrade from Kelly to Saban.

With both Georgia and Alabama changing quarterbacks this season, it is not out of line to say the SEC is in a state of flux. Should LSU find itself right in the thick of the conference championship picture again, they could envision Saban as the man who can push them to the top of the mountain.

The mentality of the SEC is ‘it just means more,’ and nothing would epitomize that more for LSU than Saban returning to Death Valley.

Florida State Seminoles

A down season might be too early to call Florida State a reclamation project, but hiring the man who kept them out of the 2023 College Football Playoff sounds like the perfect alarm clock to wake up the sleeping giant in Tallahassee.

Seminoles head coach Mike Norvell’s buyout is substantial like Kelly’s, but he no longer has D.J. Uiagalelei as a convenient fall guy if things go wrong for the second straight year. Another losing season, let alone another one with double-digit losses, might be enough to convince Florida State that Norvell is not the guy to carry the program back to national relevance. Once again, the cost to make a surefire upgrade like Saban is heavy, but could ultimately be worth it.

If Saban still feels a sense of loyalty to Alabama and does not want to challenge them in the SEC, the ACC could be a potent tonic.

The conference lacks real powerhouses outside of Clemson and Miami, giving a Saban-led Florida State squad a clear path to the CFP. That said, the ACC’s long-term health is questionable; Florida State themselves have pondered leaving, likely to join Florida in the SEC. Between the cost of realignment and Norvell’s buyout on top of the certainly lofty financial commitment to Saban, and the Seminoles athletic department could end up in a bit of financial strain.

If the numbers work out, however, Florida State provides an excellent spot for Saban to return to college football (even if he and current Seminoles offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn on the same sideline belongs in a gallery of cursed images).

Michigan Wolverines

Speaking of the 2023 CFP, Saban could decide to go to the team that effectively ended his legendary run at Alabama.

It is easy to forget but, before Saban dominated the SEC, he cut his teeth in East Lansing with Michigan State. He ultimately went 23-16-1 in five season with the Spartans, winning more than seven games just once. With the SEC already conquered, the opportunity to do the same with college football’s other superconference in the Big Ten might be too good to pass up.

It certainly will not happen with Michigan State, but Saban’s return would certainly perk up the ears of their in-state rival.

While Jim Harbaugh’s hand-picked successor at Ann Arbor in Sherrone Moore had an inconsistent first season at the helm, a second could make the idea of Saban more appealing. Michigan already has their quarterback of the future in five-star Bryce Underwood, and the Wolverines have done a tremendous job recruiting in recent years. If the athletics department is confident Saban’s arrival would not disrupt, if not strengthen, their current infrastructure, keeping tabs on his availability is far from a bad idea.

Moore is still something of an unproven commodity, and Michigan could decide to solve that by upgrading with Saban.