Recap: Nick Saban he was being offered new paths back to power. Not a return to coaching, but something larger. A hand in regulating NIL. A role shaping the Bama and ultimately the SEC’s (is there a difference?) return to the top of CFB’s mountain. What if he could be a college football “czar” position backed by political and media muscle.
It wasn’t until February that we reconvened—same foursome: me, Finebaum, Coach, and the Booster. After scheduling conflicts and a winter storm, Presidents’ Day weekend became the date.
When I got the call from Finebaum on a Thursday, he didn’t bother with pleasantries.
No hello. No how is your Mama and them. None of that.
“Coach specifically asked for you to play again,” he said. “I don’t know how you pulled it off, but he likes you.”
“Maybe he thinks you give him good golf advice,” Finebaum continued. “I heard you telling him not to lay up on that long par five. Honestly, I thought he was going to run you off the course when you said he was playing like a Barner.”
Now that made me smile.
What I’d actually said—after Coach calmly explained his strategy was to lay up—was, “I thought we came here to golf like men and not lay up like a Barner.”
There’s a moment after the words leave your mouth when you’d give anything to pull them back—but it’s like toothpaste being squeezed from the tube, you can’t put it back.
Coach had just stared at me. It was same stare he gave that DB who just got turned inside out and surrendered Jalen Hyatt’s fifth touchdown of the night in Knoxville.
He then told his caddie to give him his driver, hit a bomb, and went on to birdie the hole.
That’s when I figured I might be safe.
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