SEC Media Days opened up with a bit of a bang this week, as former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy suggested there was chatter about legendary coach Nick Saban returning to coaching.
On Tuesday, Saban's former assistant, Georgia football coach Kirby Smart, shot down the notion of Saban getting out of his retirement, saying it was "not happening."
“That’s not happening. I don’t think Nick’s coming back. I think he’s too happy where he is," Smart said, according to Online Athens. “I have talked to Nick pretty regularly, and I just don’t see it. It’s one of those things that if he wanted to, he’d be unbelievable at it.”
During his SEC Media Days press conference, Smart joked that he offered Saban a job that he was "overqualified" for, so "he wasn't interested." The Bulldogs coach said Saban was still "passionate" about football but would only return to coaching if "the boss at home" allowed it.
"I called and offered him [Will] Muschamp's job, but he was overqualified, so he wasn't interested," Smart told members of the press. "No, I heard all the scuttlebutt and everything about it. I almost laughed. It was like somebody needed something interesting to talk about yesterday, so they chose to go to Coach Saban to do it."
"The game is better with him involved, and he is involved," he continued. "He is passionate about it. He and I still talk and share ideas from time to time about defensive philosophies and the way to do things, and he's still watching tape and very, very involved in football. He loves it. His brilliance, as brilliant as he is in many ways is around football. It's around scheming. It's around another way to do something to stay ahead of the offensive minds, and I think that's one of the elite talents he has, and he still loves that. He's still passionate about that."
Smart concluded, "Make no mistake about it, the boss at home will make that call for him, not him."
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