A little more than 41 years after Paul “Bear” Bryant announced his retirement as Alabama’s head football coach, Nick Saban did the same.

Saban dropped the hammer suddenly on Wednesday, ending his illustrious 17-year run with the Crimson Tide. Bryant’s ending was a little more gradual, but was also announced on a Wednesday — Dec. 15, 1982.

RELATED: The last days of Bryant: Six weeks that changed the face, future of Alabama football

There are numerous key similarities and differences between how the Saban and Bryant eras of Alabama football ended. Here are seven of them:

1. Saban is actually older than Bryant was, though it didn’t seem like it

Bryant was 69 years old when he retired, though years of heavy smoking and drinking (which was common for men of his generation) made him appear much older than that. He had also begun to have heart problems and other health issues (such as very painful osteoarthritis) in his later years. Saban is 72 — a full three years older than Bryant at the time of his retirement — but has always kept himself physically fit (he does not drink or smoke, though he does chew tobacco) and has had no serious health problems that we know of other than undergoing a hip replacement surgery a few years back.

2. Both went their final 3 seasons without a national title

Bryant won his last national championship in 1979 with an undefeated team. He coached three more years, going 10-2 in 1980, 9-2-1 in 1981 and 8-4 in 1982. His 1980 team was ranked No. 1 much of the season before losing to Mississippi State in November. The 1981 team won the SEC championship, but did not seriously contend for a national title after an early-season loss to Georgia Tech. The 1982 team was 5-0 and ranked No. 2 nationally before losing to Tennessee, then lost its last three regular-season games. Saban’s teams have been in the national hunt each year since going 13-0 and winning the national title in the COVID-marred 2020 season. His 2021 squad won the SEC championship before losing to Georgia in the national title game, his 2022 team suffered regular-season losses to Tennessee and LSU on the final play. His 2023 team won the SEC championship and made the playoff, but lost to Michigan in the Rose Bowl semifinal game.

RELATED: Nick Saban vs. Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant: The ‘final’ verdict

3. Bryant’s recruiting had slipped significantly, Saban’s had not

Opposing coaches has been successfully using Bryant’s age against him for years by the time he retired, though he still managed to sign the state’s top player (Sylacauga defensive end Jon Hand) in his final recruiting class. But he missed out on two huge prospects that year that he likely would have landed earlier in his career — running backs Bo Jackson of Bessemer and Marcus DuPree of Philadelphia, Miss. Jackson, of course, signed with Auburn, while DuPree went to Oklahoma. Saban’s last three recruiting classes have ranked 2, 1 and 2 nationally, though there has been a little “slippage” this year. Auburn has made in-roads by signing key in-state recruits such as Foley wide receiver Perry Thompson and Clanton linebacker Demarcus Riddick. And then there is Saraland wide receiver and reigning Mr. Football Ryan Williams, who had been committed to Alabama for more than two years before de-committing upon the news of Saban’s retirement.

4. Bryant lost 3 key rivalry games his last season, Saban won them all

Bryant had clearly ceded territory on the field by the time of his retirement. Alabama lost to Tennessee, LSU and Auburn in 1982, with all three snapping decade-long losing streaks to the Crimson Tide that season. Georgia — which Alabama didn’t play during that period due to the SEC’s strange schedule format at the time — was also (at least temporarily) becoming the league’s flagship program, with three straight SEC titles from 1980-82. Saban beat all comers in the SEC in his final season, including snapping Georgia’s 29-game winning streak in the league championship game. In fact, Alabama will enter the 2024 season with at least one straight victory over every “holdover” team in the SEC. The only one who doesn’t apply in that respect is league newcomer Texas, which beat Alabama in a non-conference game early in the 2023 season.

5. Bryant’s successor was named immediately, simultaneously

Bryant’s pending retirement leaked on a Tuesday night in mid-December, though only because there were rumors in New York that Giants coach (and Alabama alum) Ray Perkins was in line to be his successor. In fact, the search for Bryant’s replacement had been conducted in secret over the previous week, and Perkins had already agreed to take the job when Bryant’s retirement plan became public. Thus, Bryant and Perkins appeared together at a press conference on Dec. 15, 1982, with Bryant announcing his retirement and tapping Perkins to take over the program. Saban’s retirement leaked on a Wednesday afternoon and was announced a few hours later, though no successor was named. We’ll see how long it takes to have a replacement in position, though it seems obvious Saban’s decision to step down caught at least a few key people off-guard.

6. Bryant had a ‘farewell’ game, Saban did not

News of Bryant’s retirement broke in mid-December, when he still had one more game to coach. Thus, the final two weeks of his tenure turned into a brief “farewell tour.” Bryant’s Alabama team then beat Illinois in the Liberty Bowl to send him out on top, with one last victory ride. Saban’s retirement comes when there are no more games on the schedule, a little more than a week after his team’s season ended. Certainly, that’s the way Saban preferred it. He never seemed like the kind of guy who would announce that the upcoming season would be his last, leaving him subject to being honored before and after every game and being asked about his impending departure in every press conference. It still seems sudden, though.

7. Bryant remained on as athletics director, though he died a short time later

Bryant famously once wise-cracked that if he ever retired from coaching, “I’d croak in a week.” He actually lived another 28 days after coaching his final game, dying following two heart attacks on Jan. 26, 1983. He had also remained on as Alabama’s athletics director. Fear of having “nothing to live for” after retirement has likely driven many older coaches — notably Penn State’s Joe Paterno (who also died shortly after being fired amid the Jerry Sandusky scandal in 2011) and Florida State’s Bobby Bowden (who lived another 11 years after his retirement) — to hang on as long as they can. Saban is almost certainly done as a coach or a full-time athletic department employee, but it’s not clear what his future holds. Will he retire for real, rarely appearing in public and splitting time between his beloved lake home in Georgia or the new multimillion-dollar beachfront property in south Florida he recently bought? Or will we see him again in the public eye, in a long-rumored venture as a television college football analyst?

Creg Stephenson has worked for AL.com since 2010 and has covered college football for a variety of publications since 1994. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter/X at @CregStephenson.