This is an IHeart podcast.

Lake Kick Live special edition on a Wednesday night.

First time we've ever done an emergency broadcast, but I think

today warrants breaking the seal on this little bit. Nick Saban has retired as the head coach at the

University of Alabama after 16 seasons. Minds across the country all over the place. You've got

young fans, you got old fans, you got coaches, players, everyone struggling to process.

What just happened?

A process, by the way, a word synonymous was saving in his career at Alabama.

I will tell you a lot of things tonight that I've never told you before, both about how I view him, the interactions I've had with him, and what I think about him and about where Alabama goes from here. So there's a lot

to unpack. It's a Wednesday night. Let's just dive into it. You and I. I covered Nick Saban way

differently than any other head coach. I spoke about him on this show way differently than any

other head coach. There was a reason for that. One was you're looking at the greatest to ever do it and you know you're looking at it in real time. So you'd be a fool not to have a little bit different reverence to the tone of your voice when you talk about him. But for me, there were underlying personal reasons. Those I'll get to. But a lot of folks texting me today, did you know this was coming? Well, some people had ideas. I mean, you guess every year that he's going to retire, you'll eventually be right.

Around SEC Championship Saturday, there were some rumblings. I would say throughout December and especially this past week in both Pasadena and then Houston,

there was some pretty legitimate chatter about it, but it's not like I woke up this morning

saying this is it. But indeed, this was it announced by Sabin himself today. Chris Lowe,

the goat of Saban reporters, broke the story as we all know he would at ESPN. Total bombshell.

You can't possibly overstate the impact this has on the industry, on the game,

and on anything that he touches moving forward. The Alabama roster, everything is up in the air right now.

And some other program is about to have their world turned upside down, whether it be an NFL franchise or a college football organization, because one of the best currently in the game is about to be the Alabama head coach. And I will tell you, and I'm going to touch on this a lot more, Thursday night, everyone's talking about a coaching search right now. Guys, there's not much of a coaching search that's going to happen. I hate to be the bearer of bad news for you, but you may be on first base on this.

They've already rounded third on who they're going to hire and in very short order.

I think you'll know who the head coach is going to be at the University of Alabama.

There was shock when this announcement was made today. There was jubilation. Saw you guys rolling

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