Nick Saban might be in hot water right now, but his legacy is still pretty solid. Everyone in college football is keeping an eye on his efforts to tackle the messy situation with the NCAA. Instead of backing down, he’s pushing back. He was supposed to co-chair a commission announced by President Trump to understand the ins and outs of the NIL market. But he seems to be at a bit of a crossroads. He hasn’t really laid out a strong plan for the executive agenda that could fix things, and it feels like he’s second-guessing the whole decision. Sure, there’s some valid backlash, but let’s not forget all the times he’s lifted up coaches and helped their careers along the way.

The former Bama coach is widely known as the most straight-faced, angry head coach the players have ever seen. Especially during his short stint in the NFL (Miami Dolphins), Saban earned the tag of a control freak and maniac who needs everything according to his will. But the narrative that you might have missed behind a stoic workaholic is a human who reaches out to others’ turmoil. Billy Napier, the Florida head coach, has a story to tell that pretty well presents the most obscure side of the GOAT.

“I had gotten let go at Clemson,” Florida coach Billy Napier broke down his meandering rise to the coaching front to Josh Pate this week. “I was regrouping. Just married. Then it’s, what is the next step? You kind of have to invest, even if you have to go backwards.”

Napier debuted as a graduate assistant at Clemson in 2003-04. Then he joined forces with the South Carolina Gamecocks as an assistant coach for quarterbacks. Then he returned to Clemson for five seasons, where he rose to the rank of offensive coordinator.

When he abruptly wrapped up at Clemson as the program’s offense pathetically regressed, Saban came as a savior. The opportunity at Alabama in 2011 to be an offensive analyst was pivotal in reshaping his career. Until his tenure at Tuscaloosa, Napier had just the idea of being a head coach, teaching students to the best of his capacity. But he didn’t have a map for that. Saban’s presence and his first-hand guidance made him a polished diamond from a diamond in the rough.

I think that first year at Alabama as an analyst was my 11th year. I would say I learned more in that year than I learned in the prior ten. You think you know until you’re right in the middle of that thing. So professional development is paramount. I think we kind of built that culture within our staff.”

But it’s not just the Saban Napier gave the whole credit to turn his story. It’s the whole coaching staff, people who he got to work with, that added to his redemption in life, in his career.

“I was relatively still young. Obviously, you’re working with Coach Saban, but it’s the other people. The network that goes out there, and is in the NFL and Power Four football,” the fourth-year head coach of the Gators took some moments to give everyone their due credit, including his lucky stars. “I’m thankful for every step of the way; I wouldn’t be who I am today without all of it.”

And it was not just Napier that owed a lot to Nick Saban. Lane Kiffin has a similar story about the legendary coach.

Nick Saban filled in Lane Kiffin’s lost poise following a painful firing 

Kiffin ended up on a rough note with the USC Trojans. He signed in as the Trojans’ head coach back in 2010 after Pete Carroll’s departure. But in the middle of the season in 2013, Kiffin got a kick in his teeth. He somehow got into Carroll’s controversial past and paid the price. It was not the firing that felt brutal, but the way it unfurled was.

Kiffin was handed a verbal resignation at the LAX Airport, where he had to get off the bus right there. Kiffin, with a briefcase in his hand, hoped for a last meeting with his team to sort things out with his players or staff, but he didn’t get that chance. “Even if you want to fire me, let me just finish with these players and coach the rest of the year,” he pleaded, but nobody listened except one man watching over the chaos from afar.

Nick Saban hired Kiffin as Alabama’s offensive coordinator on January 10th, 2014, and the rest is history. Until 2017, Kiffin had the privilege to rewind his potential, leading a scary offense at Tuscaloosa. “The opportunity that he gave me to come there (Alabama)…when I feel a lot of people wouldn’t, cause it was controversial,” said the then Bama OC, owing it all to that one great old man crowned in history, NICK SABAN!