Alabama ready to offer Saban $40 Million

[DeToxRox]

Nick Saban swears he's not leaving the Dolphins to take over at Alabama. The Crimson Tide, however, aren't buying his public statements and are reportedly ready to blow Saban away with a mammoth offer.

The Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post both reported this weekend that Alabama will present an offer of at least $40 million to Saban this week, hoping to convince the former LSU coach to take over its program.

Saban is owed about $15 million in the final three years of his contract with the Dolphins.

Reports linking Alabama and Saban began circulating soon after the Crimson Tide fired Mike Shula as coach in late November. Saban has repeatedly denied interest in the job.

"I'm not going to be the Alabama coach," he said last week.

Saban said he wouldn't comment on the Alabama opening anymore.

"I'm just making a rule to never comment on something like that again because every time you comment on it, it just makes for another story," Saban said. "So I'm not going to comment on it five years from now, and I'm not going to comment on it next week."

Saban acknowledged this month that Alabama approached his agent about its coaching job, but he declined an invitation to talk to the Crimson Tide.

Saban agreed to a five-year contract worth at least $22.5 million with Miami on Christmas Day 2004.

Saban went 48-16 in five seasons at LSU, won the 2003 BCS national championship and went 92-42-1 as a college head coach. He turned down several overtures from the NFL before coming to Miami.



http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2715745

[Atocep]

So the same board of trustees that shot down hiring Jimbo Fisher at UAB because $600k was too much is going to ok $40 million for Saban?

Conflict of interest?

[Izulde]

I'll be ticked if Saban leaves the Dolphins.

[st.cronin]

I think they're making a mistake in not going after ardent enthusiast.

[Poli]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

I think they're making a mistake in not going after ardent enthusiast.

Quoted for truthiness.

[Easy Mac]

In the real world, what Alabama is doing would be known as rape... no means no.

[waltwal]

i am really shaking my head over this supposed deal with saban. Saban is a good coach and a proven winner but there are so many guys that could be hired for much less money that i think would have a good chance of success at alabama

10 mil for 5 yrs

Paul Johnson - Navy - proven tremendous coach

Mike Stoops - no nonsense guy that has Arizona on the right track.

Dave Kragthorpe- Tulsa - a definite up and coming guy.

Steve Mariucci - a guy who is miscast in the pros. he did a great job in his 1 yr at Cal.

i am sure i am missing a couple of guys but to give Saban 40 mil for ? yrs seems to me crazy. Also if saban accepts it he is going to be coaching in the shadow of Bear Bryant with a major weight around his neck (40 mil).
Something else that would worry me is whether or not Alabama is going to be an automatic winner when they hire a 40 mil coach. The SEC has too many teams that are not going to go away because Saban has showed up. The more i think about this move the more foolish it becomes.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by Atocep

So the same board of trustees that shot down hiring Jimbo Fisher at UAB because $600k was too much is going to ok $40 million for Saban?

Conflict of interest?

Bingo!


'Little Bear' Bryant crosses line again in denying UAB

By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com

A ghost from the grave is running the Alabama football program ... and running the program at UAB into the dirt.

Oh, wait. That's no ghoul. It's not Bear Bryant, who died in 1983.

It's his son, Paul Bryant Jr.

Neil Callaway wasn't exactly UAB's top choice.

Little Bear wouldn't return messages from CBS SportsLine.com, so this will just have to be said without a rebuttal: Paul Bryant Jr., with a murky background and clear conflict of interest, has no business exerting influence over the football program at UAB.

We'll get to Little Bear's background in a minute, but for now, understand something. The UAB football program just made the most dreadful hire of the offseason, hiring someone with questionable experience and character. His name is Neil Callaway, the offensive coordinator at Georgia, which you might have noticed was horrible this season on offense. The last thing Callaway did of note was plead guilty to DUI charges in 2003.

This is the new UAB coach. He's a lousy choice. Which is apparently what Little Bear wanted.

Little Bear sits on the University of Alabama Board of Trustees. From there, he wields all sorts of authority over Alabama and its state step-sister, UAB. Little Bear, who once gave $10 million to the Crimson Tide athletics department, is close friends with Alabama AD Mal Moore, who keeps his job despite a proven inability to pick a quality football coach.

What happens to Alabama football, however, is not our concern. Bear Bryant Sr. built the Crimson Tide into the South's most fearsome franchise, and if his boy tears it all the way down, well, there is symmetry in that.

What has happened this month to UAB, however, is an outrage. Essentially, Little Bear's Board of Trustees blocked UAB from hiring the football coach it wanted. Twice. And the second time, Little Bear's Board stopped UAB from hiring the coach it wanted because, presumably, the coach UAB wanted -- Jimbo Fisher -- might also be wanted by Alabama.

Ugly, but that's the deal, based on SportsLine.com conversations with sources close to the situation.

After being blocked by the Board of Trustees in its quest to promote assistant coach Pat Sullivan, who became head coach at Samford, UAB turned to LSU offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher. UAB and Fisher agreed on basic contractual terms, with half of Fisher's annual UAB salary -- ballpark: $600,000 -- to be subsidized by private boosters.

UAB was going to get the coach it wanted, a coach whose rumored arrival already was waking up the comatose UAB football program -- yet would have been on the hook for less salary than ex-coach Watson Brown, who made $375,000. It was perfect.

Little Bear's Board of Trustees said no. You want to know why? So do I, but Little Bear wouldn't return my messages. So here's the theory I'm working on, a theory based on conversations with multiple sources with a vested interest in UAB football:

Alabama also is in search of a football coach. The Crimson Tide has gone a month without one, raising the obvious possibility that its next coach has been selected but cannot be unveiled. Someone like, say, Miami Dolphins coach Nick Saban, whose NFL acumen is debatable but college resume (Michigan State, LSU) is beyond reproach.

When he was at LSU, Saban's offensive coordinator was Jimbo Fisher. If he's going to return to college football, his choice for offensive coordinator would likely be Fisher. By making Fisher its head coach, UAB would have stood in the way of that, making the Alabama job less attractive to Saban. Alabama can't afford that.

And who does UAB think it is, anyway? The Board of Trustees did the Blazers a favor in 1996 by letting them become a Division I-A football program, but magnanimity has its limits, and for Little Bear's Board, this was a line UAB was not going to cross.

Little Bear's board told UAB it would not approve the hiring of Jimbo Fisher.

What kind of man is capable of such a plot? Not sure. But here's the kind of man Little Bear is:

He made a fortune from dog tracks, including the notorious track at Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which closed in 1995 after reports of monstrous dog abuse. He's a catfish kingpin whose farm processes 700,000 pounds per week. He's a Civil War buff who has been a ranking member of the controversial Sons of Confederate Veterans, which "is dedicated to the promotion of traditional Southern ideals ... to hold in perpetual remembrance all that was great and good."

Yeesh.

In 1989 Bryant was quoted in Esquire as describing the clientele at his Alabama dog track as "a low-class, low-income crowd ... generally your lower class of blacks, your welfare blacks, you want 'em to have enough room to get in and out, but at the same time you want to get as many in as possible."

In 2000 the Legislative Black Caucus seized on those comments to try to block his appointment to the Board of Trustees. Little Bear said Esquire invented the quotes. Little Bear got his way -- he got onto the Board of Trustees.

UAB has the football coach to show for it.

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by Izulde

I'll be ticked if Saban leaves the Dolphins.

I'd be pretty upset too if he left. He's our best coach since Shula, by FAR.

If he leaves he'll kill any chance of coming back to the NFL again. Course, at 40m you don't need to work for the rest of your life anyways, so maybe one wouldn't care.

[GrantDawg]

CBS just reported that Saban is meeting with Alabama's AD right now. Don't tell me Saban truly closed the door on this weeks ago. Alabama kept pursuing because they were given a reason to persue. Saban will be coaching Alabama next year.

[clintl]

I think that when a major university is offering $40 million to someone to be its head football coach, it has forgotten what its mission is supposed to be.

[Leonidas]

So who pays Miami's buyout of he agrees?

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by clintl

I think that when a major university is offering $40 million to someone to be its head football coach, it has forgotten what its mission is supposed to be.

How much of the money is coming out of the university? My guess is most of the money is coming from outside sources.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

How much of the money is coming out of the university? My guess is most of the money is coming from outside sources.

I haven't seen a number for that but I'm not sure there's all that much external funding for this.

From the espn.com article:
Alabama has only floated numbers that will be in the $4 to $4.5 million range, but over an 8- to 10-year term.

It's not like he's getting $40m up front and while four million a year would be the highest college coaching salary in the country, it seems inevitable to me that the barrier would be broken sooner rather than later, considering three coaches had already reached/past the $3m mark (Weis/ND, Stoops/OKL, and Ferentz/Iowa).

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I haven't seen a number for that but I'm not sure there's all that much external funding for this.

From the espn.com article:
Alabama has only floated numbers that will be in the $4 to $4.5 million range, but over an 8- to 10-year term.

It's not like he's getting $40m up front and while four million a year would be the highest college coaching salary in the country, it seems inevitable to me that the barrier would be broken sooner rather than later, considering three coaches had already reached/past the $3m mark (Weis/ND, Stoops/OKL, and Ferentz/Iowa).

And in all of those cases, much of the money comes from supporters, radio/television obligations, sponsor money, etc. That is not money just from the university.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by GrantDawg

And in all of those cases, much of the money comes from supporters, radio/television obligations, sponsor money, etc. That is not money just from the university.

True. Unfortunately, I answered something other than what you were asking.

For some reason, I was stuck on thinking in terms of how much was coming from the booster clubs & such (ala high school supplements).

[Eaglesfan27]

This ruins Saban's credibility if he takes the Alabama job. He didn't banter words and leave a possibility open that he was going to Alabama. He was emphatic that he wasn't. How can his credibility not be hurt if he goes back on that very clear message?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

How can his credibility not be hurt if he goes back on that very clear message?

Then again, how can his sanity not be questioned if he turns down $40 million?
(assuming it's guaranteed or there's significant buy outs, etc. etc.)

[Buccaneer]

That much money could provide full scholarships to a lot of academics students wanting to get a degree at Alabama. Or is this more important?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

That much money could provide full scholarships to a lot of academics students wanting to get a degree at Alabama. Or is this more important?

If you ask the residents of the state of Alabama (or a lot of other states) whether they'd rather have that money (which based on a recent USA today article probably amounts to about $1m - $1.5m annually) spent on a winning football program or students, it isn't even going to be close.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If you ask the residents of the state of Alabama (or a lot of other states) whether they'd rather have that money (which based on a recent USA today article probably amounts to about $1m - $1.5m annually) spent on a winning football program or students, it isn't even going to be close.

If it were less than 90% for the football program in Alabama, I would questioned the validity of the poll.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

If you ask the residents of the state of Alabama (or a lot of other states) whether they'd rather have that money (which based on a recent USA today article probably amounts to about $1m - $1.5m annually) spent on a winning football program or students, it isn't even going to be close.

And all of the money coming from the school is coming from the moneys made by the same football program. It is not like this money exist for the unversity without football.

[molson]

It's getting annoying listening to all the media people rip Sabin.

So Mora's a jerk for stating interest in another job, and Sabin's a jerk for denying interest in another job?

So what if he said last week he wasn't interested. Would your interest level in another job change if the new job's salary was maybe 3 times what you expected? Why is unreasonable to change your mind under those circumstances? Would he still have no credibility if Alabama offered $500 million and he took the job?