All this rambling to say the media made him lie because they wouldn't leave the poor man alone?Go back and rewatch all those Saban press conferences for the Dolphins after the Alabama rumors started circulating in the media. Pay attention to the dates, and what Saban said. He didn’t lie. And he did try to say no comment, but the south Florida media simply wouldn’t have it.
Alabama fired Mike Shula around November 28th - Saban and Steve Spurrier had both turned down the Alabama job in the days after that.
Alabama offered the job to Rich Rodriguez and agreed to term for him to be Bama’s next head coach on December 7th. All that was left was for Rich Rod to sign the contract and inform his team at West Virginia that he was leaving.
When Saban said he wasn’t going to be the Alabama coach - it was 3 weeks after Alabama had already hired Rich Rod. So how the hell did he lie?
The truth is, Miami still had 2 games left to play, and the media just kept asking him if the rumors about Alabama were true. Saban acknowledged to the media that Alabama and Mal Moore had contacted his agent Jimmy Sexton to see if Saban was interested. But he told them he wasnt interested. That’s why Bama moved on to offer Rich Rod the job.
But the media kept hounding Saban with the Alabama questions. His response was he didn’t know what rumors were flying around up in Tuscaloosa or anywhere else - that he was focused on the Dolphins - and did they have any questions regarding the team he was actually responsible for coaching. The Dolphins. They didn’t.
He finally just said “Well I guess I just have to say it - I’m not going to be the Alabama coach”. He had to in order to get them to stop asking him about it. And he was telling the truth when he said it.
However, what nobody knew at that time was that Rich Rod would back out of the Alabama job. He ended up deciding to stay at WV after they offered him a big raise.
This opened the door one last time for Robert Whitt and Mal Moore to make one last desperation push for Saban. Alabama had already been putting a lot of pressure on Saban.
Saban was still going to stay and honor his contract to Wayne, but Wayne told him to go if he and his wife weren’t going to be happy there. Saban left with Wayne’s blessing.
After he finally accepted Alabama’s offer - he looked over at Mal Moore on the plane ride back to Tuscaloosa and said, “I just want you to know you hired a horsesh^t football coach. But nobody will out recruit me”.
Saban made the right decision for everyone involved. Him, his family, Alabama, and the Dolphins.
I mean hate him all you want. But I know there’s not a person posting on a message board anywhere that’s righteous enough to pass judgment on Saban. Or anybody else for that matter.
Now your sounding pathetic defending him.