A day after the news of Glen Coffee’s sudden retirement from the NFL broke, Nick Saban said it caught him off guard.
“I really was surprised,” Saban said. “He was such a warrior-type competitor when he was here and a guy that played just fantastic football for us and improved dramatically in the two years that he was on the team. He had a fantastic year two years ago.
“He always seemed to be a guy that really loved the game, but I really don’t know what contributed to this, but it did surprise me a little bit.”
Coffee announced his retirement Friday after just one season and part of a second training camp with the San Francisco 49ers. Coffee told The Sacramento Bee that he would return to school to finish his final six hours for an undergraduate degree, then get his masters.
“It was a struggle for a long time,” Coffee told the newspaper. “Actually when I look back I feel I never should have entered the draft in the first place. Football was no longer my dream. I found Christ in college. It changed my views on everything. But I still was a football player because it was expected of me, it was something I did all my life. I was basically wasting the (49ers’) time.”
