Greg Byrne was always hoping Nick Saban would coach Alabama football forever. When he got the job as the Crimson Tide’s athletics director in 2017, he was asked about what his plan was for being the man who would have to replace one of the best ever.

On Wednesday, appearing on the Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network, Byrne recalled his answer.

“That was a very easy answer, it was like ‘Kick the can down the road as far as we could,’” Byrne said. “But at the same time too, one of the worst things that I could do as that I could do as the AD is to not be prepared when that time came.”

Byrne noted the old saying that athletic directors have a list of potential replacement coaches in the top drawer of their desks. He said that wasn’t the case for him, but he had a more fluid list of potential Saban replacements ready for when the day came.

He said that list had changed through the years.

“We had vetted probably a couple dozen coaches over the years that we thought, ‘OK, could they make sense?’” Byrne said. “Some made a lot more sense than others. We had criteria of of what we were looking for.”

Byrne said the reality of the situation was that no candidate could check every box. He joked that Saban wasn’t interviewing for the job this time around.

Speaking to reporters after DeBoer’s introduction, Byrne had made sure to note that he wasn’t having conversations with potential replacements while Saban remained in place.

“I wanted to make sure there was never, ever, a conversation of ‘Well I heard Greg was out talking about other coaches,’” Byrne said Friday. “Never wanted that.”

On Wednesday, he also also explained how he went into the search with regards to ranking his choices of candidates.

“I think it’s irresponsible on my part if I walked into an interview and I said ‘Well, I think this is my third choice but I’m going to talk to him anyways,’” Byrne said. “I want to be open-minded. I want to be thoughtful in the conversation that’s going to take place. So in a lot of ways, you have multiple names on a list, but in some ways it’s bullet points, it’s not even numbers, it’s not even letters, and that was the approach I took on this one.”

In the end, Byrne hired Kalen DeBoer. The new coach enters Tuscaloosa fresh off a national championship appearance with Washington.

The hire was announced Friday and DeBoer was introduced at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday. When Byrne spoke at the press conference, he expressed full confidence in his new hire.

“Simply put, coach DeBoer is a winner,” Byrne said.