Nick Saban is retiring from Alabama, ESPN’s Chris Low reported Wednesday, bringing to an finish one of the adorned careers in all of faculty soccer.
Saban shall be remembered for a way dominant his groups had been for therefore lengthy, competing for nationwide championships 12 months after 12 months with one of the best top-to-bottom rosters. His groups had been loaded, and because of this, most of the gamers who helped make him the legend he’s went on to play on the subsequent stage, with a choose few taken very excessive within the NFL draft.
OK, perhaps greater than a choose few. Saban has held the document for many gamers drafted within the first spherical for just a few years now, however now that he’s retired, we’ll lastly choose a quantity quickly.
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He set the document at 34 all the best way again in 2019 and pushed it to 38 the next 12 months. Since then, 11 extra gamers from Alabama have been drafted within the first spherical, placing the quantity as much as 49 gamers (44 at Alabama).
That quantity is more likely to bounce up not less than as soon as extra with expertise on the 2023 roster anticipated to go within the first spherical of this 12 months’s draft, together with three gamers in FTW’s newest mock draft.