The SEC saw a major sea change this offseason. After 17 seasons at the helm of the Alabama football program and winning six national national titles, Nick Saban opted to retire.
Many see Saban’s decision to walk away from college football, which he so thoroughly dominated for the last two decades, as something of a power vacuum in the SEC. But LSU’s Brian Kelly , who went 1-1 against Saban as the coach of the Tigers, doesn’t quite agree, according to USA TODAY Sports’ Blake Toppmeyer .
He praised new hire Kalen DeBoer, who comes in after leading Washington to the national championship game in 2023. DeBoer is new to the Southeast after spending most of his coaching career in the Midwest and on the West Coast.
However, DeBoer’s 104-12 career record certainly inspires confidence.
“Kalen DeBoer is an outstanding football coach. His success is real. They hired somebody that, I think, creates the same kind of expectations at Alabama. I don’t look for a vulnerability or an opportunity because Nick is gone. Certainly, his success is unprecedented, but I don’t think we walk around going, ‘Hey, hey, we got Alabama now.’ That’s a fine football coach and he’s put together a great staff, and they’ve got incredible resources through all the success they’ve had. I think more than anything else, it just allows us to stay much more focused on what we do and not have to worry about who’s outside.”
Kelly added that while beating Saban — who he was 0-2 against at Notre Dame including losses in the national title game in 2013 and CFP semifinal in 2021 — was a draw for him to come to LSU, it wasn’t the only reason. Saban was merely the face of the challenge the SEC presented, according to Kelly.
“Nick is certainly, to me, the bar, but it’s now the entire top end of the SEC. It’s Kirby Smart. It’s every school now in the SEC that you play, week in and week out. That challenge is still there when you play in the SEC.
“I’m sorry to see Nick go. I think he represents what is good about college football, for me. But, look, I think everybody comes to a time and a place where they go, you know what, all the championships that he’s won, he can name his time and place.
“For me, he wasn’t the singular reason that I came. I wanted the SEC challenge, and Nick was the face of that.”
Now, the challenge has a new face, and it resides in Athens, Georgia. Kirby Smart arguably superseded Saban at Georgia toward the end of the latter’s career, winning back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022.
“I think Kirby does an incredible job – in recruiting, outside of the coaching, representing the program. I think the mantle has been passed to him in a lot of ways, but there’s so many talented coaches in this league.”
It’s hard to imagine the SEC without Saban, but now that he’s retired and divisions in the conference are a thing of the past, it could open the door for a program like LSU to raise its stature in the league.
Read the full interview with Brian Kelly from USA TODAY Sports by clicking here .
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