Nick Saban says Texas was never a possibility.
The Alabama coach who signed an extension with the Tide Friday night told ESPN.com that he never considered leaving the school for Texas, where Mack Brown is still the coach. Rumors have been swirling about Brown's future, but he's still in charge.
Of course, a lot of the fuel for those rumors was supplemented by the possibility that Saban would replace him.
"The way this sort of got spun, it was a little bit more like, 'OK, he got a new contract at Alabama, so he's going to stay at Alabama instead of going to Texas,'" Saban said to ESPN. "I never considered going to Texas. That wasn't even a conversation."
Well, not for him, but for his agent, Jimmy Sexton, who had contact with a Texas regent in January. Sexton got Saban a raise of over $1 million. That's his job.
But Saban said that "there wasn't a hell of a lot I could do about it" when referencing the swirling speculation about Brown's future at Texas and Saban's role in the discussion. Well, yes, there was. Had there been no contact between Sexton and Texas -- and remember, Sexton works for Saban -- Saban's name wouldn't have been so tied to Texas.
"I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mack Brown," Saban told the site. "Mack Brown is the coach at Texas. He deserves the right, based on his body of work, to be able to leave the program the way he wants to leave the program. It wasn't fair to him or to me to be speculating about this job, which I haven't talked to anybody there about.
"Really, the whole thing from my perspective stunk, but there wasn't a hell of a lot I could do about it."
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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