re: Lessons that can be learned from this Bama exodus?

This is a unique situation for several reasons:

1. It’s Saban, as many folks have already said.

2. He wasn’t fired; he retired. Usually when coaches are fired, it happens earlier.

3. Alabama was a CFP team.

When you combine these three things you get a perfect storm. Many (probably most) of the top portal prospects they would target have already committed elsewhere, and those who haven’t won’t be available for spring camp because of the academic calendar.

But how often do we really expect to see a legend retire after a CFP run? The more common scenario is successful coaches hired away for NFL jobs, which is something you can’t really control anyway.

Also I think people are making the situation out to be more than it really is. In the transfer portal era, every new head coach has to rebuild. Have we forgotten what LSU’s roster looked like when Brian Kelly took over? Yes, Alabama has lost an unprecedented amount of talent. But the talent that’s left on the roster is also better than what most coaches inherit. It’ll hurt them this year because of the timing, but if DeBoer doesn’t have any success after 2-3 years that’ll be because of DeBoer, not because of this exodus.