Richard was right

In the fall of 2004 I attended a Michigan State-Notre Dame football game with my buddy Richard, an MSU alum.

As I walked around the campus in East Lansing, covered from head to toe in purple and gold, I was still puffy from LSU's national championship win less than a year earlier. Back in Louisiana, Tiger head coach Nick Saban was still floating among the gods. In East Lansing, however, people remembered him as Nick Satan.

Like most Spartan fans, Richard was still reeling from Saban's departure from MSU a few years earlier to become the coach of the Tigers following his repeated expressions of loyalty toward MSU.

Richard warned me that afternoon that Saban would screw LSU in much the same way. I didn't believe him.

When Saban left LSU later that year for the Miami Dolphins, I wasn't bitter.

And when news outlets started reporting several weeks ago that Saban was a prime candidate for the head coaching job at Alabama - LSU's archrival and fellow Southeastern Conference Western Division member - I gave Saban the benefit of the doubt when he said he would never take the job.

I could hear my friend's words ringing through my head last week as I watched Saban accept the Bama job - along with a ridiculous $3.5 million a year salary - during a news conference in Tuscaloosa.

Boy, was I a fool.

Sorry Richard. I'll never doubt you again.