Coming & going

There has been lots of coaching turnover in the SEC since Nick Saban returned to the conference at Alabama in 2007.

The other 13 SEC teams have had 55 coaches in Saban’s 17 seasons, and that’s not counting interim coaches who filled in late in seasons for a game or two.

The turnover does include Vanderbilt’s Robbie Caldwell and Arkansas’ John L. Smith, who served as interim coaches for full seasons in 2010 and 2012, respectively.

Assuming Saban returns to Alabama next season — and there’s no reason to believe he won’t — there will be at least two new SEC coaches he’ll face with openings at Texas A&M and Mississippi State.

There also will be two other new coaches with Texas’ Steve Sarkisian and Oklahoma’s Brent Venables joining the SEC.

“Well, I get to meet a lot of coaches when we go to SEC Media Days and we go to SEC meetings, there’s a lot of new guys in the room,” Saban said on Wednesday’s SEC teleconference. “I enjoy developing relationships with all of them.

“But I hate to see anybody [get fired]. I know how hard guys work to try to develop and build a program and I know how difficult it can be sometimes to try to get everybody on board to try to do the things you need to do to do that.

“You need the support of a lot of people to be able to do it, and obviously it’s too bad when those things don’t work out and people can’t stay together to try to build something positive.”

Among SEC coaches Saban — who was at LSU for five seasons from 2000-04 — has faced at two schools in the conference include Houston Nutt (Arkansas and Ole Miss), Dan Mullen (Mississippi State and Florida), Will Muschamp (Florida and South Carolina) and Lane Kiffin (Tennessee and Ole Miss).

When the Crimson Tide play at Auburn next week, Hugh Freeze will become the latest SEC coach Saban has faced at two schools. Freeze was Ole Miss’ coach and faced Saban before being hired at Auburn this season.