A lot of speculation has been invested into Bill O’Brien’s future at Alabama especially after this past weekend. O’Brien has been thought to possibly be a target to rejoin the New England Patriots after the team’s previous offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels signed on to become the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Prior to the rumors of a Patriots reunion, O’Brien took an interview for the Jacksonville Jaguars head coaching position which is currently still open.
To this point, there hasn’t been much of anything that can be considered to be concrete which means to this point any move or signing is currently considered to be purely hypothetical.
Which are also the kind of questions Nick Saban loves.
During his national signing day press conference, Saban had an opportunity to discuss O’Brien and his potential leap back to the NFL due to the hiring cycle being extended into February.
“Look Bill’s done a great job for us here and Bill’s had a very successful career,” Saban said to the media on Wednesday. “I don’t think Bill’s trying to leave. I think he likes it at Alabama. We have an opportunity with some pretty good players at the quarterback position and other positions to maybe grow and develop here offensively and I think he’s looking forward to that challenge.
“But saying all that to say this, you know I’ve always been one that guys work hard and do a good job for you if they get opportunities to go someplace else I wanna support them and help them if it benefits them and their family. But we have no indication of that other than what y’all put on the internet right now which is a lot of maybes. So we’re not really trying to address something that might happen.”
O’Brien joined the Crimson Tide at the beginning of the 2021 season, replacing previous offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian who went on to become the head coach at Texas.
In his first year on the job, O’Brien helped produce an offense that ended up ranking in the top 10 nationally in multiple categories that included finishing sixth in points per game (39.9) and seventh in both passing yards per game (338.2) as well as total yards per game (488.2). He also helped Bryce Young become the first Alabama quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy during his first year as the starting quarterback.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
