The All-Saban team - The best football players Nick Saban has ever coached - ESPN

Editor's note: A version of this story originally ran Jan. 14, 2021. It has been updated and republished after the news that Nick Saban will retire.

When you have coached as long as Nick Saban (28 seasons as a head coach), won as many games (292), national championships (7) and conference titles (12), and pumped as many dudes into the NFL draft (49 first-rounders and counting), then guess what? You get your own all-star team!

After Saban won his record seventh national title in January 2021, we pored over stats, scrolling through film and pestering sports information directors to determine the greatest college football player at each position to have spent time playing for and being yelled at by St. Nicholas, patron saint of angrily swollen forehead blood vessels. The smorgasbord of candidates for this team is so ridiculously talented that the list of those who didn't make the cut might still be better than any other coach's first-team roster. Then, when we updated the list following Saban's retirement, the task of narrowing it down was only more difficult, as we had to trim some of the legends who made the initial cut three years ago.

So who made it in? Read ahead, as we present our updated post-retirement ESPN.com All-Saban team. Honorees will be awarded a trophy shaped like a straw sun hat, turned upside down and filled with Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies.

QB: Bryce Young
Here's our first big change from the 2021 list, as Young replaces original starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. Tua remains arguably the most thrilling player of the past 25 years who didn't win the Heisman Trophy. Young did win it, almost single-handedly scrambling and throwing his way around Georgia to win the SEC title in 2021, icing his