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1) Every now and then, something happens that's so big, you have to start with it. The retirement of the greatest coach most of us (all of us?) have seen in our lifetimes qualifies. You can debate whether Nick Saban is better than Bear Bryant or Bud Wilkinson or whoever else you might want to throw out there as the best college football coach of all time. I'm not particularly interested in comparing Saban to guys from 50 or 75 years ago. He's the greatest coach of the modern era and I don't think that's particularly debatable. Depending on your point of view, you might fight back that Saban had advantages others didn't have because of where he coached, you'll argue that of course he won the most because he had the best players, etc. But if we're being reasonable, nobody's done what Saban has done in the last 35 years.
In the five years before Saban, Toledo was 26-28. He went 9-2 there.
In the five years before Saban, Michigan State was 27-29-1. He went 34-24-1 there.
In the five years before Saban, LSU was 30-23-1. He went 48-16 and won a national title.
In the five years before Saban, Alabama was 36-27. He went 206-29 and won six national titles.
Everywhere Nick Saban coached got better. By a bunch.
But nobody's really debating whether Saban is great. I don't have any special insight into that. We all view things through our particular lens and I view college football news through the lens of someone who covers it. Chris Low rocked the college football world at 4:06 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.
I immediately flashed back to November 13, 2015. That was the day I broke the news that Gary Pinkel was resigning due to health reasons. I've never been so scared to hit the post button in my life. There are some things you can't get wrong. In what I do, the list is basically hirings, firings, retirements and deaths. You get one of those wrong and it's almost impossible to come back from it. I remember that day vividly. I had confirmation of Pinkel's retirement from six sources. But none of them were Pinkel. So I spent 40 minutes on the phone with Pete Scantlebury, my dad and a few other people I respected in the media world. I had this gigantic story. I was 99% sure it was right. But what if it wasn't? I always tell younger people in this business that the best feeling you can have is breaking a story. I've been doing this for 21 years and it still gives me an adrenaline rush. The worst feeling is the gap between breaking that story and waiting for someone else to confirm it. Fortunately on that day in 2015, my wait was about 60 seconds. Dave Matter had the same news literally within about a minute. When I saw Chris Low's tweet, the first thing that went through my mind was "Man, I wonder how scared he was to post that?" Because Chris Low is great at his job. I'm sure he knew he was right. But I'm also sure there was some shred of doubt somewhere in a corner of his mind. You can't be wrong about the greatest coach of all time retiring. Low wasn't and within seconds, the rest of the national media was confirming his report.
The second thing I thought was "How the hell do you cover Nick Saban's retirement?" There's just so much there. There's the basic "Here's how great he was" story. There are a million people you can talk to about how Saban impact their lives and careers. There's putting his career into perspective. There's the GOAT lists and angles. There's the replacement story. The gravity of it all could be overwhelming and however you do it, you're going to look back in a week and think "I should have done better." I was glad I could just sit back and watch this one. I did text a couple of my friends that cover Bama and wish them luck. Most of what we do is forgotten within minutes. Your efforts on a story like that are not.
2) Saban's retirement kicked off another week of college football being in the news cycle 24/7. Dan Lanning, Steve Sarkisian and Mike Norvell used it as leverage for an extension. Kalen DeBoer eventually took the job, stepping into the biggest shoes in the last 40 years of college football. Washington moved quickly to hire DeBoer's replacement in Arizona coach Jedd Fisch. Arizona now has to hire a coach. Some other school will have to hire one when their coach leaves for Tucson. Jim Harbaugh is interviewing for NFL jobs, which means we could have coaching changes at three of the four schools that played in this year's College Football Playoff. The news simply never stops.
3) So what you're here for is what is Missouri going to do in the coaching carousel? It's been ten days since Blake Baker left for LSU. Missouri still doesn't have a defensive coordinator. I think it will this week....but I thought it would last week. There's been not a single name leaked by anyone about Baker's replacement. Here's what I'm confident in:
Eli Drinkwitz is pursuing an outside hire. I do not anticipate the next DC was on Mizzou's staff last season.
Drinkwitz has conducted interviews. I do not know who he has interviewed. I do know he has had conversations.
The candidates (or at least the leading ones) are going to come from the college coaching ranks. I do not believe Drinkwitz is going the NFL route.
That's about it as far as what I actually know. People that normally have information on things like this either don't have information this time or aren't sharing it. Not just with me, but with anyone. I think there's at least a 50% chance that Drinkwitz's eventual hire is a guy that hasn't been on any lists so far. When he hired Kirby Moore, I had to Google him. I didn't know who he was before that day. That one has turned out pretty well. We're doing everything we can. We'll have any news as soon as we can get it.
4) Baker isn't the only coach Mizzou has to replace. Defensive ends coach Kevin Peoples followed him to LSU. Even before Baker's hire was official, Peoples was a name on the radar. They're apparently pretty close and Baker had his sights on Peoples. In the middle of last week, it started to look like he was going to stay in Columbia. LSU hired defensive line coach Bo Davis away from Texas on Wednesday. That day, there were people both in Columbia and Baton Rouge that were of the belief Missouri would hold on to Peoples. Two days later, he left. From what I've gathered, nobody at Mizzou was shocked by the news, but they were disappionted. They'd hoped to keep him, but couldn't in the end. Drinkwitz has plenty of options on what to do now. He's got to hire a defensive coordinator and needs position coaches for safety and defensive end. He only has two jobs open so the DC is going to need to be able to be the position coach for one of those spots. He can then go hire someone to coach the other. The likely scenario is that the defensive coordinator brings someone along with him.
5) The movement may not be done either. There have been rumors that Baker wants to bring DJ Smith with him too. I had someone reach out to me yesterday morning to tell me that Al Pogue is among the candidates for a defensive backs coach opening elsewhere. Depending on what dominoes fall, Moore could still be on the radar of other schools. As one source told me over the weekend, anything is possible in today's college football world. As soon as you relax and think the movement is over, it isn't. So we'll keep our eyes and ears out over the next few weeks. In the end, Drinkwitz will end up with ten assistant coaches on his staff. How many of them will be the same as they were last year, I honestly don't know at this point in time.
6) Mizzou's mid-year enrollees hit campus yesterday.
The transfers are all here (many of them already were). The high school players who will enroll for second semester are Aidan Glover, Talan Chandler, Ryan Jostes, Jayven Richardson, Caleb Pyfrom, Brian Huff, Cameron Keys and Trajen Greco. We expect Michigan State transfer DE Zion Young to be added to that list in the near future. When exactly that will happen we don't know.
