Okay, here's my take - not that anyone cares. (On the side note, I don't give a rip about Mark McGwire OR Pete Rose).
I don't know what was involved early on nor can I speculate intelligently upon it. The "tip" to me - the thing that suggested to me that Saban MIGHT have been considering leaving - came when he leaped into McCarron's arms after the LSU win. That was so out of character of anything I've seen here that it raised my eyebrows to be honest. Now - of course - I couldn't say that here for obvious reasons (there were enough "Saban to Texas" threads popping up and it was vague at best). But it seemed Saban was so "loose" all of a sudden that he'd stopped his constant focus. We then looked rather sick against Miss State and well, let's not even talk about Auburn.
But he seemed out of focus to me. That was NOT true earlier in the year, but it was the accumulation of signals - Terry in Austin (which I DID believe at the time), his rant about fans leaving early after the Arkansas game, the McCarron hug - it all suggested to me a guy sort of "letting up" and at the same time feeling unappreciated. But nothing seemed to happen. Even that original report by that Longhorn hack with an omelet on his face (his real name is Kevin Berger, and he's dumber than, well anyway) - I could not bring myself to think it was real.
And then Tide-HSV brought it up. And that was when I thought maybe it was over for sure.
I have no doubt Texas is crazy enough to have made that kind of offer. You really have to spend time here to understand it. Remember that old TV show "Dallas?" Remember JR Ewing, how no matter what it was he tried to figure out how to buy his way? That's pretty much how it is here now. They DO have the attitude here that if they just throw their money out there anybody will just jump at it. This is why Jerry Jones has had a lousy football team for two decades now.
But here's the thing - unless the stories about the real estate losses were deep - I have to wonder something - what exactly is it that you can buy with $100 million that you can't buy $5.5 million a year? There can't be 100 things in the entire world that make that much difference. But I've never thought Saban was motivated by money anyway - he took a pay cut of a million bucks a year to come here. I know Texas has thought that - they're the ones who have coined the term mercenary to describe him.
Here are the reasons I thought he might leave:
1) Become the only coach to win titles at three schools - this would be about as unbreakable a record as Cy Young's 511 wins - what coach is going to win titles at FOUR FBS schools?
2) Potential fallout from the DJ Fluker mess
Most of the rest of the things never made sense to me. But I also know this - Texas people, because they buy the game, think that puts them in charge. They actually think like Jerry Jones that since they put in the money that they can tell the coach who to play and what plays to run - that's not as much an exaggeration as it sounds (obviously not every booster can do this, but the gazillionaires have the ear of the AD).
But the funny thing is this: if this is actually true then Saban has moved more from the sinner to the saint category in characterization.
And I wouldn't want to be the stupid reporter who asks about this at the next PC.
