Book: Texas mulled $100M offer

Texas was prepared to offer Alabama coach Nick Saban a contract worth $100 million to coach the Longhorns, Paul Finebaum of the SEC Network writes in his new book.

In Finebaum's book with Gene Wojciechowski, "My Conference Can Beat Your Conference," Finebaum writes:

"Texas was dead serious about trying to money-whip Saban. Depending on who you talk to -- Bama big hitters or Texas big hitters -- the Longhorns were prepared to give Saban somewhere between a $12 million and $15 million signing bonus and a salary package worth $100 million [plus performance bonuses]."

In December, Saban received a new seven-year deal from Alabama through Jan. 21, 2022, worth $6.5 million in base salary per year and a total of about $55 million including performance bonuses.

In December after Alabama's contract with Saban was finalized, Saban told ESPN.com's Chris Low he "never considered" Texas.

"The way this sort of got spun, it was a little bit more like, 'OK, he got a new contract at Alabama, so he's going to stay at Alabama instead of going to Texas,'" Saban said. "I never considered going to Texas. That wasn't even a conversation.

"I knew that if Mack [Brown] stepped down, there would probably be an opportunity, but it wasn't something I was interested in doing, not at this stage in my career."

Texas ended up replacing Brown with Louisville coach Charlie Strong.

Saban addressed the matter Thursday at SEC Media Days, saying, "I did not have any conversations [with Texas] and nobody offered me anything. If I didn't have any conversations with them, there must not have been very much interest."