Nick Saban coaching tree: Alabama coach's impact on college football will be felt for decades
Nick Saban’s coaching tree began taking root in his first season as a college football boss. Of the eight assistants he had at Toledo in 1990, three became head coaches.
By the time he retired Wednesday, the number of his former employees who had risen to become bosses at some point after working for him had blossomed to 39, including 18 who had been in charge at the start of the 2023 season.
Saban found members of those groups in numerous ways — from graduate assistants, to former head coaches looking to turn their careers around, to men who worked their way up the ladder over multiple years on his staffs. Among his grad assistants or early-career support staffers over his years were future NFL coaches Brian Daboll, Josh McDaniels, Adam Gase and Joe Judge.
Where and when coaches who worked for Saban got their first head coaching jobs
In 2015 alone his assistant coaches at Alabama included Mario Cristobal, Lane Kiffin, Billy Napier, Kirby Smart and Mel Tucker, while the support staff included Dan Lanning. All began this past season as head coaches for Power Five conference schools.
But Saban did the same kind of hiring during his only two NFL seasons, 2005 and 2006. Over that time his Miami Dolphins teams employed seven assistants who later became, or returned to, the head coaching ranks.
As for the future, former Alabama grad assistant and staffer Glenn Schumann has quickly risen to become Georgia’s defensive coordinator, while two other former staffers have moved into offensive coordinator roles – Charlie Weis Jr., at Mississippi, and Alex Mortensen at UAB.