The big news story in the college football world on Wednesday was an alleged $100 million offer made by the Texas Longhorns to Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban. It would’ve been an unprecedented offer for a coach and even more shocking that he turned it down.
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“Texas was dead serious about trying to money-whip Saban,” according to a passage in Paul Finebaum’s upcoming book, “My Conference Can Beat Your Conference: Why the SEC Still Rules College Football,” from AL.com, who obtained an advance copy of the book. “Depending on whom you talk to — Bama big hitters or Texas big hitters — the Longhorns were prepared to give Saban somewhere between a $12 and $15 million signing bonus and a salary package worth $100 million (plus performances).”
During SEC Media Days, Saban was inevitably asked about the rumors and denied any of these conversations.
“Well, I didn’t have any conversations with them. Nobody offered me anything. So I guess if I didn’t have any conversations with them, I didn’t have very much interest,” said Saban, via the Dallas Morning News.
Of course a big piece of the rumors are that these “conversations” went through his agent Jimmy Sexton, and Saban doesn’t mention him. That of course could be reading too far into things. Instead, Saban signed a contract extension with the Alabama Crimson Tide that will keep him there until 2022 while making $6.9 million annually before bonuses. The Longhorns then hired Louisville’s Charlie Strong to replace Mack Brown, who resigned.