Oregon Fans Will Love Kirk Herbstreit's Comments On Nick Saban

Eugene, OR — When ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit speaks, college football listens, and Oregon supporters have a fresh reason to lean in. During a recent appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, the longtime College GameDay analyst made an impassioned plea for a unified governing voice in the sport—then offered a name that should resonate from Tuscaloosa to the Pacific Northwest: Nick Saban.

“I think right now, we’re still legislating the sport as if it were the 1980s,” Herbstreit said, citing the disjointed authority of conference commissioners who, in his view, protect regional interests over the national health of the game. “My only hope is Nick Saban, truly.”

The endorsement carries extra weight in Eugene because Saban’s protégé, Dan Lanning, is the man tasked with steering the Ducks through the sport’s rapid transformation. Lanning, 39, first linked up with Saban in 2015 as a graduate assistant on Alabama’s national-title staff, and the two have remained in steady contact ever since. Lanning even visited with his former boss earlier this year, mining insight on everything from roster management to calendar reform.

“More than anything, I bounce a lot of thoughts off of him,” Lanning told Sports Illustrated’s Bri Amaranthus. “He’s the best coach to ever do it.”

Herbstreit believes Saban’s big-picture lens could be college football’s salvation. “People can say he’s got an Alabama twist,” Herbstreit continued. “But if you really know Nick Saban, he’s got a college football twist. He cares about the players. He cares about the sport.”

That macro outlook aligns with Lanning’s public push for a streamlined season. The Oregon coach has argued that playoff games should be contested on consecutive weekends, concluding by January 1, after which the transfer portal would open and coaching moves could commence without colliding with academic calendars or bowl preparations.

Whether Saban would endorse Lanning’s exact blueprint is unknown, but Herbstreit is convinced the retired legend would at least examine it with the thoroughness that once produced seven national titles and a 292-71-1 career record. Inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2025, Saban has traded the headset for an ESPN microphone, yet his voice may carry farther from the studio than it ever did from the sideline.

Lanning, for his part, has already folded Saban’s counsel into his own philosophy. “Be you and then figure out what your non-negotiables are and then be ready to adapt,” Lanning summarized, noting Saban’s gift for adjusting to rule changes, recruiting shifts, and player-development trends.

If college football heeds Herbstreit’s plea and installs Saban as a de-facto commissioner, Oregon fans could see their head coach’s agenda gain traction on a national stage—an outcome that would validate both Lanning’s vision and the Ducks’ place at the vanguard of the sport’s new era.