In an alternate universe, Rich Rodriguez took the head football coaching job at Alabama in 2006 and Nick Saban never won six national championships in Tuscaloosa. Instead, Rodriguez turned down the Crimson Tide and, after several coaching stints, landed right back at West Virginia, leaving Jacksonville State to take his old job this week.

On Friday, Saban appeared on ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show and praised the hiring by his home state’s flagship program.

“I’m excited that Rich is back and I think he’s going to do a great job there,” Saban said. “Being from West Virginia, he grew up about six or seven miles from where I grew up, and I’m glad he came back. And he has had great success there in the past. Obviously coaching great players like (McAfee) helped him with that, but other than that we’re just happy for him.

Saban was born and raised in West Virginia and grew up in Monongah. He attended Mountaineer games as a youth and worked as an assistant coach at WVU in the 1970s.

The former Alabama head coach, who now works alongside McAfee as an analyst for ESPN’s College Gameday, said he spoke with West Virginia athletics director Wren Baker during the coaching search.

“I just talked to Wren a couple times about who would be the best fit for West Virginia,” Saban said. “It’s not just about coaching knowledge or your record in other parts of the country, but also how fit are you? How do you think? How will you deal with people? Will you be able to recruit the type of players you need to compete and dominate the competition? And I think Rich is the right man for it.”

Rodriguez left WVU after the 2007 season to take the Michigan job, but was fired after the 2010 season. He took over at Arizona in 2012 but was fired after the 2017 campaign amid scandal.

He took over at Jacksonville State in 2021 and helped lead the Gamecocks’ transition from FCS to FBS. JSU won the Conference USA title this season and will finish the year without Rodriguez in the Cure Bowl.

Saban praised Rodriguez’s football spirit on Friday.

“He visited us in Alabama a few times when I was coaching there,” Saban said. “It was very helpful and helpful to our employees. He is a great mind and an innovator in this game. I mean, now everyone does zone reads like it’s nothing, but he invented it.”

The former Alabama coach also gave Rodriguez some press conference advice as he prepared to perform in Morgantown.

“His message has to be that he made a big mistake when he left and the greatest thing that ever happened to him was the opportunity to come back,” Saban said.