‘I wasn’t surprise…’: Former Alabama football standout detected ‘changes’ in Nick Saban last season

Dallas Turner, an NFL Draft favorite and former Alabama football player, said he was not surprised by head coach Nick Saban’s decision to retire from college football after witnessing him play this season with the team.

In remarks at the NFL Combine, former Crimson Tide edge rusher Dallas Turner described how Saban changed from the beginning to the end of his tenure.

“From when he was a freshman to my junior year, I noticed a lot of changes. “I was not surprised,” Turner stated.

“However, the way things turned out startled me. He’d definitely tell a lot more jokes and stuff like that. It began to be more player-driven.”It had been like way since he arrived, but you could tell the players had a lot of input, and he was much more receptive to new ideas and what the players had to say.

It was all fine, though.Turner stated that Saban “was still the same Coach Saban on the field, of course, but you could see the slight changes.”

Saban announced his resignation from Alabama on January 10, just days after the Crimson Tide fell to eventual national champion Michigan in the College Football Playoff Rose Bowl semifinal.

He earned an NCAA-record seven national titles, six of which came with Alabama, helping to redefine the game in the twenty-first century and establishing a run of dominance unlike any other program in the sport’s history. “A lot of people think that you can coach college football forever, but you really can’t,” Turner told ESPN.