So about that time Nick Saban was fired

Out there somewhere is a guy who fired Nick Saban. It's hard to imagine but it's true, Nick Saban, college football coaching genius, was once fired. It happened when Saban was coaching the secondary at Ohio State under then head coach Earle Bruce.

After a close win against Navy in in the 1981 Liberty bowl, Earle decided to fire all but one of his defensive coaches, including Nick Saban. At the time Saban was 30, but already well regarded by all of his fellow coaches as a brilliant coaching mind. Saban would often find himself at odds with Earle because he wanted to run more complex schemes but according to ESPN writer Alex Scarborough, Earle "wasn't ready to play ball".

"It was a little bit of a crazy deal," Saban has said of his firing, "but I look back more on the mistakes that I made rather than blaming somebody else."

Oh and if you're wondering, eventually Earle would later admit, "Why did I do that?"