Nick Saban didn’t sugarcoat it when he looked back on the decision that sent him from LSU to the Miami Dolphins.
In talking about his LSU years and remembering legendary baseball coach Skip Bertman, who died on Aug. 14, Saban admitted that leaving Baton Rouge was a misstep. Bertman, who coached at LSU at the same time Saban led the football program, had tried to talk him into staying.
“When I thought about it, I wanted my legacy to be as a college coach, and I took the job anyway,” Saban told WAFB’s Jacques Doucet. “So, that was a mistake.”
“Skip was 100% right. I just didn’t listen to him.”
The comment lands with extra weight because Saban’s LSU tenure was already a major success before he walked away. Over five seasons, he went 48-16 and delivered the Tigers’ national championship in 2003, their first since 1958. He then signed a new seven-year contract in February 2004, only to leave after LSU went 9-3 that season and take the Dolphins job.
That move has long stood as one of the biggest “what ifs” in Saban’s career. At the time, he was already one of college football’s top coaches, and Bertman clearly saw what Saban had built in Baton Rouge. Saban didn’t take the warning, chose the NFL, and spent two years in Miami before returning to college football with Alabama.
His run with the Dolphins went 15-17, and what followed in Tuscaloosa became the stuff of modern coaching legend: six national championships and a 206-29 record. Still, his remarks make clear that he believes his long-term legacy should have stayed rooted in college football, and maybe right there at LSU.
Bertman’s advice looks sharper now in hindsight. Saban got the college legacy he wanted eventually, but his latest reflection makes plain that he still sees the LSU-to-Miami move as a detour he didn’t need to take.
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