O’Brien spent the past two seasons in Tuscaloosa after nine years as a head coach, first at Penn State and then in the NFL in Houston. He rehabilitated his image after making some dubious decisions while with the Texans by coordinating top-10 scoring offenses in 2021 and 2022 with the Tide.
His promotion to the NFL is only the most recent instance of Saban’s offensive coordinators improving their stock while at Alabama.
Lane Kiffin spent three seasons as a coordinator under Saban (2014-16), parlaying his success into head coaching opportunities at Florida Atlantic and Ole Miss.
Brian Daboll took over for one year in 2017, spent the next four seasons as the offensive coordinator in Buffalo, and became the New York Giants’ head coach before the 2022 season. In 2018, Mike Locksley coordinated the offense. He’s entering his fifth season as Maryland’s head coach.
Steve Sarkisian — the Tide’s coordinator in 2019 and 2020 — became a hot coaching candidate after spending time coaching under Saban. He was named head coach at Texas in January 2021.
Saban will likely look to the outside for Alabama’s next offensive coordinator. However, Holmon Wiggins, the Tide’s wide receivers coach and assistant head coach of offense, and running backs coach Robert Gillespie could also be candidates.
A top name from the outside already mentioned by 247 Sports and al.com is Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby. It might be difficult to lure him from his alma mater, but his track record makes it obvious why he’s a hot name.
In 2020 and 2021, Lebby was offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, where his offenses ranked third and sixth in total yards.
Joe Brady is another interesting potential candidate. He was the passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach at LSU during its 2019 national championship season. He is the quarterbacks coach with the Buffalo Bills.
Saban could also bring in a coordinator in need of repairing his image, as Kiffin, Sarkisian and O’Brien were.
Potential candidates that fit that bill include former Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury, former Miami Dolphins and New York Jets head coach Adam Gase and former Dallas head coach Jason Garrett.
Kingsbury is unlikely to coach in 2023 after taking his talents to Thailand, but Gase and Garrett are interesting names because both have links to Saban. Gase was an assistant under Saban at Michigan State and LSU, and Garrett was quarterbacks coach in Miami during Saban’s short NFL stay. (h/t al.com). He’s now a broadcaster with NBC.
Crimson Tide fans may grow more bug-eyed than Gase at a news conference if either he or Garrett lands the job, but neither hire would be the first time Saban took a risk at the position.
