At least Bill Belichick had the decency to fall off at the end. In his last four years as the czar of the New England Patriots, the six-time Super Bowl winner suffered three losing seasons, including a 4-13 collapse in 2023; that means that his freshly named successor, Jerod Mayo, can at least find some room for improvement while fighting through all the thick brush and overcoming all the requisite shadows that come with succeeding such a legendary figure.
Kalen DeBoer won't get that luxury at Alabama. For Nick Saban, "falling off" meant "losing to Texas and finishing 11-2 but still beating Georgia, winning the SEC and reaching the College Football Playoff." DeBoer brought Washington to the national title game in 2023 but now fills the desk of a coach who went to the title games 10 times, winning seven.
Acknowledging that the sport is evolving more quickly than ever at the moment -- Tom Osborne didn't retire from an NIL universe, Woody Hayes wasn't winning titles in a transfer portal era, etc. -- one constant in college football and generally all of sports is that successfully succeeding a legend is nearly impossible. The expectations you inherit are almost impossibly high, and fans who are accustomed to not only winning but doing so in a very specific way are prepared to nitpick every change and fuss over every setback. Even if you win big, you might not be totally accepted, and you probably won't be fully accepted.
To look at how things usually go for schools losing historically great coaches, let's look back at nine particularly relevant examples of teams that lost a coach who had won them multiple national titles. I'll avoid looking at Oklahoma after Barry Switzer, USC after Pete Caroll and Penn State after Joe Paterno, since all three schools were dealing with NCAA infractions issues at the time.
None of these directly apply to Saban -- none of these schools were losing the greatest college coach of all time like Alabama, in other words -- but they tell interesting stories. For each, we'll look at the decade before each legendary coach's arrival and the 20 years (if applicable) after their departures.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish: Terry Brennan replaces Frank Leahy
Notre Dame in the 10 years before Leahy's hire: 63-22-5 (0.728 win percentage), one AP top-five finish (polls only started in 1936)
Leahy's record (1941 to 1953): 87-11-9 (0.855), four national titles, eight AP top-five finishes
Notre Dame in the 20 years after his departure: 136-63-4 (0.680), two national titles, eight AP top-five finishes
Notre Dame had battled ups and downs in the 10 years since Knute Rockne's death following the 1930 season. But Leahy, a tackle for Rockne in the late 1920s and an immediate success in two years at Boston College (where he went a combined 20-2), was custom-made to thrive in South Bend. And that's what he did. The five years following World War II were probably the best in program history. And after a brief downturn at the start of the 1950s, he pulled off two more top-five finishes in 1952-53 before retiring for health-related reasons.
The school didn't look far to replace him, hiring 25-year old Terry Brennan, a former Leahy halfback and the coach of the freshman team in 1953. He enjoyed a top-five finish in 1954 but averaged just 5.8 wins per year afterward and was dismissed after five years. NFL coach Joe Kuharich, another former Irish player, followed but went a dire 17-23 in four seasons. Another coach heavy with Notre Dame ties, Hugh Devore, lasted just one year, going 2-7. It wasn't until Notre Dame went outside the family and hired Northwestern's Ara Parseghian -- whose Wildcats had gone 4-0 against the Irish in recent years -- that the program began to get back on track. They would win be national champion again by 1966, 13 years after Leahy's departure.
Oklahoma Sooners: Gomer Jones replaces Bud Wilkinson
Oklahoma in the 10 years before Wilkinson's hire: 62-29-6 (0.670 win percentage), one AP top-five finish
Wilkinson's record (1947 to 1963): 145-29-4 (0.826), three national titles, 10 AP top-five finishes
Oklahoma in the 20 years after his departure: 173-51-5 (0.766), two national titles, 10 AP top-five finishes
OU had discovered it very much enjoyed football in the decade prior to the 30-year old Wilkinson's promotion in 1947. The Sooners had enjoyed a top-five finish and their first Orange Bowl appearance in 1938. Following one 8-3 season with Jim Tatum in 1946 after the war, Tatum left for Maryland and Wilkinson, a former Minnesota quarterback and Tatum assistant in Norman, took over. He brought the school its first national title in 1950, then the Sooners embarked on their famed 47-game winning streak from 1953 to 1957. After a rapid dropoff -- OU went 51-2 from 1954 to 1958 but 15-14-1 from 1959 to 1961 -- Wilkinson pulled off a couple more top-10 finishes in 1962-63, then retired from coaching (and resigned as athletic director) and ran for U.S. Senator in 1964.
As AD, Wilkinson picked his own successor, going with longtime line coach Gomer Jones. The Sooners went just 9-11-1 in two seasons under Jones, however, and moved on to an outsider, Arkansas assistant Jim MacKenzie. He improved OU to 6-4 in 1966 but died of a heart attack the following spring. Sooner assistant Chuck Fairbanks took over, surged to 10-1 in 1967, then lost four games in four straight seasons. Under serious pressure, he sent offensive coordinator Barry Switzer to learn the Wishbone offense from his friend Darrell Royal at Texas. The Sooners surged, Fairbanks moved on to the NFL after back-to-back 11-1 seasons and OU would win three national titles under Switzer, his successor.
USC Trojans: John Robinson replaces John McKay
USC in the 10 years before McKay's hire: 60-38-4 (0.608 win percentage), one AP top-five finish
McKay's record (1960 to 1975): 127-40-8 (0.749), three national titles, six AP top-five finishes
USC in the 20 years after his departure: 162-69-8 (0.695), three AP top-five finishes
A former Oregon player and assistant, McKay moved to L.A. to assist head coach Don Clark, who was under pressure after a couple of poor seasons. USC had endured quite the up-and-down fate since legendary head coach Howard Jones' sudden death in 1941. McKay helped to engineer improvement to 8-2, and while Clark resigned, the school was impressed enough to promote McKay. Good call. He had more ups and downs than other coaches on this list, but the highs were absurdly high. He won national titles in 1962, 1967 and 1972, won five Rose Bowls and produced a pair of Heisman winners.
In 1976, McKay departed to take over the NFL's expansion franchise in Tampa Bay. The school sought a replacement with McKay ties, and it worked better than it did for others: John Robinson, McKay's offensive coordinator from 1972 to 1974, returned after a year with the Oakland Raiders and led the Trojans to three brilliant seasons in four years. They didn't win an AP title but won the coaches poll in 1978 to claim a split title. Returns diminished a hair in the early 1980s, but it wasn't until Robinson left to become the Los Angeles Rams' coach in 1983 that things fell apart. Ted Tollner (Robinson's former offensive coordinator), Larry Smith (a total outsider), Robinson (in a return stint) and Paul Hackett (a former Robinson assistant and NFL head coach) combined for zero AP top-five finishes in 18 seasons. It wasn't until Pete Carroll arrived in the 2000s that USC briefly rediscovered the McKay magic.
Texas Longhorns: Fred Akers replaces Darrell Royal
Texas in the 10 years before Royal's hire: 65-37-2 (0.635 win percentage), two AP top-five finishes
Royal's record (1957 to 1976): 167-47-5 (0.774), two national titles, nine AP top-five finishes
Texas in the 20 years after his departure: 154-78-4 (0.661), three AP top-five finishes
Like USC, Texas was able to keep things going for a little while in Royal's absence but got further from glory with each successive coach hire. A former Bud Wilkinson quarterback at Oklahoma, Royal was hired at age 32 and tasked with restoring a collapsing program. The Longhorns had gone just 10-19-1 over the previous three seasons, collapsing to 1-9 in 1956. He went 29-12-2 in his first four seasons, then exploded to 40-3-1 in his next four, winning one national title while nearly winning two more. After a stagnant period, he tasked new offensive coordinator Emory Bellard with modernizing his offense, and Bellard crafted the Wishbone attack that would own the 1970s.
Texas won the 1969 title and a share of the 1970 crown as well before finally trailing off again with a 5-5 campaign in 1976. Royal retired and, with his athletic director hat on, appointed his former offensive co-coordinator Fred Akers as his replacement. Akers enjoyed three top-five finishes in seven years, but he had slipped to 5-6 by 1986 and left for Purdue before he could get fired. David McWilliams (Akers' former defensive coordinator) went just 31-26, then John Mackovic (total outsider) went 41-28-2. Texas wouldn't win another national title until Mack Brown pulled it off in 2005; the Horns haven't won another one since.
Ohio State Buckeyes: Earle Bruce replaces Woody Hayes
Ohio State in the 10 years before Hayes' hire: 59-26-6 (0.681 win percentage), one national title, two AP top-five finishes
Hayes' record (1951 to 1978): 205-61-10 (0.761), two national titles, 10 AP top-five finishes
Ohio State in the 20 years after his departure: 178-59-5 (0.746), three AP top-five finishes
A spectacular cranky pants and a success at both nearby Denison and Miami (Ohio), Hayes won a national title in his fourth year in Columbus, and while he would suffer the occasional dud year -- 3-5-1 in 1959, 4-5 in 1966 -- a surge would always follow. And there were almost no duds starting in 1968. His Buckeyes lost no more than one game in 1968, 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1975, and they won or shared nine conference titles in his last 11 seasons in charge. They went just 7-4-1 in his last season, however, and he was fired after famously punching Clemson's Charlie Bauman on the sideline during the Gator Bowl.
Earle Bruce was almost a perfect successor prototype: He had played and coached for Hayes before succeeding as a head coach at Tampa and Iowa State. He was an insider but also a relative outsider, and he came within a single point of an unbeaten record in his first season. But he would go either 9-3 or 10-3 for each of the next seven seasons, and he was fired before the end of a 6-4-1 campaign in 1987. His replacement, outsider John Cooper, would struggle to pull the Buckeyes out of their rut, but he eventually had three top-10 seasons in four years in the 1990s. In 2002, Jim Tressel would finally win the school its first post-Hayes national title.
Alabama Crimson Tide: Ray Perkins replaces Bear Bryant
Alabama in the 10 years before Bryant's hire: 50-49-9 (0.505 win percentage), one AP top-10 finish
Bryant's record (1958 to 1982): 232-46-9 (0.824), five national titles, 12 AP top-five finishes
Alabama in the 20 years after his departure: 169-72-2 (0.700), one national title, three AP top-five finishes
Alabama had become a powerful program under Wallace Wade and Frank Thomas from the 1920s to 1940s, but in the five years before Bryant, a Bama grad, came back to Tuscaloosa, this had become a fixer-upper, going just 14-32-7. Jennings "Ears" Whitworth won four games in three years. At Alabama! Bryant had the Tide back in the top 10 by his second season and won a title in his fourth. They went 60-5-1 from 1961 to 1966, and after a late-1960s funk, he both reinvented his offense (he, too, adopted the Wishbone), integrated his roster and ignited again, losing either zero or one game seven times in nine seasons between 1971 to 1979.
Bryant went 8-4 in his final season, 1982, and retired, then died soon after. His successor was a Bruce-style semi-insider: Ray Perkins, a former Bryant receiver who had led the New York Giants to the NFL playoffs in 1981. He did alright, with three top-15 finishes in four seasons, but that wasn't good enough for Bama fans and he bailed for the NFL in 1987. Bill Curry, an outsider, had the Tide back in the top 10 by 1989 but never seemed to feel welcome and left for Kentucky. Gene Stallings, a former Bryant assistant with a decade of head-coaching experience, engineered three top-five finishes and a national title between 1991 to 1994 but resigned as NCAA sanctions began to take their toll. Bama would roll through longtime assistant Mike DuBose (four years), outsider Mike Price (zero games), outsider Dennis Franchione (two years) and former Bama quarterback Mike Shula (four years) before finally landing an outsider in Saban and igniting again.
It takes just the right hand to fly this plane. DeBoer has performed well in every football job he's ever had, but he's never faced the type of scrutiny that awaits him in Tuscaloosa.
Nebraska Cornhuskers: Frank Solich replaces Tom Osborne who replaced Bob Devaney
Nebraska in the 10 years before Devaney's hire: 38-60-3 (0.391 win percentage)
Devaney's record (1962 to 1972): 101-20-2 (0.829), two national titles, four AP top-five finishes
Osborne's record (1973 to 1997): 255-49-3 (0.836), three national titles, eight AP top-five finishes
Nebraska in the 20 years after Osborne's departure: 171-88 (0.660), one AP top-five finish
Behold, the greatest succession in college football history. First, Bob Devaney arrived to pick up a program in desperate need of refurbishment. NU had enjoyed just two winning seasons since 1940, but Devaney immediately built a top-10 program, and when his offense grew stale in the late 1960s, a young assistant named Osborne spruced it up. With a modern option offense and the most modern strength and conditioning program, Nebraska went 24-0-1 in 1970-71 and won two national titles. Devaney retired after going 9-2-1 in 1972, and Osborne, his obvious successor, proceeded to win at least nine games every year for 25 years.
Granted, Osborne also faced extreme scrutiny as he fielded awesome teams but failed to secure another national title. The din was loud enough that he considered taking the Colorado job in the late 1970s but stuck it out, nearly won national titles in 1982-83 and finally did the deed three times from 1993 to 1997, then retired.
It seemed another succession plan was ready to go: 25-year assistant Frank Solich took over in 1998 and began what would become a Hall-of-Fame head-coaching career. But most of that career would take place at Ohio, where he became the MAC's all-time winningest coach. At Nebraska he won 42 games in his first four years and brought the Huskers to the 2001 BCS Championship Game but was fired after going 9-3 in 2003. It's been a slow-motion crash ever since.
Florida State Seminoles: Jimbo Fisher replaces Bobby Bowden
FSU in the 10 years before Bowden's hire: 53-54-3 (0.495)
Bowden's record (1976 to 2009): 315-98-4 (0.760), two national titles, 15 AP top-five finishes
FSU in the 14 years after his departure: 127-54 (0.702), one national title, two AP top-five finishes
Bowden was nice enough to slip a bit before retiring. After his record-setting run of 14 straight AP top-four finishes from 1987 to 2000 -- a run that included two titles and might have included more in a playoff era -- he lost at least three games for each of his last nine seasons and won more than seven games just once in his last four. That gave his so-called "head coach in waiting," offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher, a lower bar and an opportunity for improvement. He took advantage, winning 31 games in his first three seasons, then storming to a national title in 2013.
Fisher seemed to run out of steam, however, going just 15-9 in 2016-17 and then taking the Texas A&M job. Willie Taggart was run out of town after two years and nine wins, and Mike Norvell won only eight games in his first two years before rebounding, going 23-4 in 2022-23 and taking the Seminoles to the brink of their first CFP in nine years this past fall. (Don't get me started on that one.)
Florida Gators: Will Muschamp replaces Urban Meyer
Florida in the 10 years before Meyer's hire: 96-30 (0.762), one national title, five AP top-five finishes
Meyer's record (2005 to 2010): 65-15 (0.813), two national titles, three AP top-five finishes
Florida in the 13 years after his departure: 98-66 (0.598)
Meyer first arrested a slide, then began one. Following the legendary Steve Spurrier's departure for the pros, Florida had gone with a relative outsider: Ron Zook, a five-year special teams assistant for Spurrier who had spent the previous six seasons in the NFL. It was an outside-the-box hire. It didn't work. Zook never won more than eight games in a season and was out within three years. But before some long tailspin could begin, Meyer, an incredible turnaround artist who had done well in two years at Bowling Green and really well in two years at Utah, came to town. Florida became a power again: The Gators went 13-1 in 2006, 2008 and 2009. He had burned out by 2010, however, and retired (briefly) after an 8-5 campaign in 2010.
Florida's been searching for the magic ever since. Former Nick Saban and Mack Brown assistant Will Muschamp rode defense to an 11-win season in 2012 but went just 17-19 in three other seasons. Another former Saban assistant, Jim McElwain, was run out of town in the middle of his third season. Dan Mullen, a former Meyer assistant who had done good things at Mississippi State, started 29-6 but suddenly lost nine of 14 and was gone. And now Billy Napier, yet another former Saban assistant, is 11-14 after two years. With both chief rivals, Georgia and Florida State, thriving, Florida seemingly has no idea what it wants to be or how to be it and hasn't enjoyed a top-five finish since Meyer left.
Notre Dame waited 13 years for another national title after Leahy retired. Oklahoma waited 11 after Wilkinson. Not including a win in the coaches poll, USC needed 28 years after McKay's departure to win one. Texas needed 29 after Royal, Ohio State 24 after Hayes. Alabama only had to wait 10 years after Bryant's retirement but needed another 17 to win a second. Nebraska and Florida after still waiting for their first after Osborne and Meyer, respectively.
Kalen DeBoer is 104-12 in nine seasons as a head coach. He has no ties to Nick Saban or Alabama, and more than half of his head-coaching career took place at the NAIA level. He is an undoubtedly fantastic coach, but he will face pressure to win recruiting battles, and he will get fired (by fans) after every loss or near-loss for the near future. And let's just say that it took someone with Saban's powerful personality to keep Bama's opinionated boosters aligned.
As a friend of mine once said, "Without Saban, Alabama is basically Tennessee." Tennessee's own history after title-winning Phil Fulmer was run out of town is itself a warning of sorts. Maybe DeBoer will bring Alabama more and more titles, or maybe he'll basically say "Screw this" and leave after a few years like Perkins or Curry. But with each progressive hire, it's possible that Bama gets further and further from its identity, and the seamless organization the program benefited from for so long gets more and more frayed. Good luck, Coach.