Hoping Ol' Pete is gone before Nick retires...(like after this season)
Well, he isn't going to fire Pete. He may make a few phone calls to the NFL and find him a job in the NFL but he won't fire him. He likes Pete and believes he's a good young coach, but Saban put him in a position that is over his head but figured he could grow into it. He's not going to blame Pete for that.
Pete Gol*ing is very impressive with his knowledge of X's and O's. So impressive on the whiteboard, that when Saban brought him in from UTSA, he called the entire coaching staff into the room to watch Pete diagram defenses and go over X's and O's. The knowledge just isn't translating over to the players. Teaching is a gift, and not all great X's and O's guys are great teachers.
Saban figured Pete would eventually learn how to call his defense the way Kirby and Muschamp did. But it just hasn't worked out.
Sometimes Saban will ask Pete why a certain coverage was blown or why this mistake was made here in the game. Pete would respond with the correct answer in terms of what went wrong with the X's and O's or a missed communication, but that wouldn't answer Saban's question. Saban would say yeah I know what happened on the play Pete, I'm asking you WHY it happened.
Saban would have to tell him the WHY is that you can't play that much man coverage in that situation running my defense against these HUNH offenses.
I mentioned a few years ago that I'd never seen a DC manage to get Bama's LB's matched up in man coverage as much as Pete. That's why.
Saban had to explain to him the opposing OC was just biding his time to get the matchup he wanted because he knew how much you called man in this situation.
The other problem is that Pete is also the ILB's coach. And he simply does not know how to coach that position, which is why our ILB's always regress under Pete.