“They should go on and take me to Cuba”: When ex-Alabama AD Mal Moore put his job on the line to hire Nick Saban

With six national titles in Nick Saban's tenure, the Alabama Crimson Tide have become one of the premier programs in college football. But that wasn't always the case as Saban arrived after a last-ditch effort by AD Mal Moore to land a coach in Tuscaloosa.

We look back at Moore's unlikely effort to land the then-Miami Dolphins head coach as told in Monte Burke's book "Saban- the making of a coach." With his job on the line, the athletic director, who had already struck out trying to get Steve Spurrier and Rich Rodriguez, made a trip to Miami on New Year's Day 2007.

"I told the pilots when they dropped me off in Miami that if I didn't come back to the plane with Nick Saban, they should go on and take me to Cuba," Moore recalled, according to the book.

Mal Moore was in a tough position at that point. The Tide had fired head coach Mike Shula a few weeks earlier. Mike, the son of legendary Dolphins head coach Don Shula, had been the program's fourth coach in Moore's seven years in the role.

After Spurrier preferred South Carolina and Rodriguez backed out of a potential deal to return to West Virginia, the AD travelled to Miami to "hunt down" Nick Saban. There was no meeting scheduled and there was no indication the head coach would even consider leaving the Dolphins.

After a brief meeting that afternoon, Nick Saban met with Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga and decided NFL life was not for him. After Miller again drove around the coach's neighborhood, they met to discuss a move to Tuscaloosa.

For a last-resort wager, it worked pretty well for Miller, Saban and the school.

Nick Saban turned the program around in a couple of seasons

Nick Saban's impact at Tuscaloosa was felt immediately. After going 7-6 in his first year leading the program, Saban led the Crimson Tide to a 12-2 record in and a Sugar Bowl bid in his second season.

In this third year, the former LSU Tigers head coach watched the Crimson Tide win its first national title since 1992, going 14-0 and defeating Texas in the championship game. They would win two more titles in the following three years to cement the program as a dynasty.

In his 17-year tenure at Alabama, Saban led the Crimson Tide to six national championships and, from his second year on, did not win fewer than ten games in any given season.