Coffee with Crawford | At SEC Media Days, Saban’s shadow — and status — still loom large | Sports

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- At SEC Media Days, Nick Saban has become — forgive the Alabama mascot-themed pun — the elephant in the room.

Actually, he's not even that, because the notion of his return to coaching, first floated by one of his former players, ESPN commentator Greg McElroy, has been a topic of open discussion.

Lane Kiffin, a former Saban assistant, said he could see it. Kirby Smart, another, said "I called him and offered him (co-defensive coordinator Will) Muschamp's job. He was over-qualified."

All kidding aside, it is a fascinating proposition.

Louisville | Kentucky | Indiana | Eric Crawford

I've wondered if some of the top-level coaches who have left college sports — guys like Saban in college football and Jay Wright and Tony Bennett in college basketball — might not return as the landscape stops shifting and a structure emerges that they can assess and build a strategy for.

I'm not sure that the time is now. But McElroy being the source gives a little more substance to the notion.

For my money, Saban is in a good spot. He was the face of college football as coach at Alabama. At ESPN, he can be the face of college football Saturdays for as long as he wants. He's good at it. Won an Emmy in his first year on the set. He is the heir to Lee Corso in his analyst role for College GameDay — and not subject to the uncertainty of the college football recruiting landscape.

For a guy who gathered every employee of the Alabama football program — from janitors on up — on his first day and said, "Everything we do is about recruiting," the notion of recruiting coming down to simply how big a check you can write doesn't seem to square.

Saban has always been a fascinating study. He doesn't get enough credit for his social media mastery. Ever notice how many excerpts of his speeches or press conferences are floating around social media? He used moments wisely. He dictated the messages.

I can't say, as a member of the media, that I liked his approach to the media, which was to limit local access in favor of using his own in-house content factory and making his press conferences his primary vehicles. But it worked. And he knew, recruits weren't watching the news. They were watching TikTok, or Instagram. Or commercials during games.

Even now, his VRBO commercials are some of the funniest on television.

If Saban returned today – he'd be ahead of the game. Even if the game has changed.

But there's something else to consider. When he left Michigan State for LSU, a former assistant called and asked why he'd left, after he'd just started to build the program in East Lansing.

In his book, "The Leadership Secrets of Nick Saban," author John Talty reported Saban's response.

"Because I'll never be Michigan."

He wasn't going anywhere that didn't already have national championship resources in place. There are maybe a dozen of those in college football. You can probably figure out who they are. If one of those comes open, it might be time to get serious about this notion.

Until then, Saban is right where he belongs on the College GameDay set — and if that's the remainder of his contribution to college football, it will be as important as anything else he could do.

Quick Sips

• The story on what sparked the panic at a girls' basketball tournament in Louisville keeps changing. The latest on what police think.

• Caitlin Clark is injured again. She left the Indiana Fever's win over Connecticut with an apparent groin injury Tuesday night. Her run of injuries this year has been uncharacteristic, and she left the court in tears on Tuesday.

• Baseball's All-Star game was a good show — and ended on an unprecedented "swing off" dominated by Kyle Shwarber's three home runs. Read about it here.