While the future for retired Alabama football coach Nick Saban isn’t clear, one politician isn’t counting on a Senate seat for him.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), who said he’s known Saban since he was four years old and is a godparent to his son, shot down any suggestion of Saban becoming Alabama’s second coach-turned-senator, USA Today reported.

The Alabama Democratic Party on Wednesday hinted it would be open to Saban running for U.S. Senate under its banner.

He was asked on Friday while on a tour in New Hampshire if he would support Saban if he ran in 2026 against current Sen. Tommy Tuberville, another former football coach for Auburn.

“First of all you can put that out of your mind, because Nick won’t run,” Manchin told USA Today. “He would never run.”

Saban, 72, announced his retirement on Wednesday after 17 years at the University of Alabama. He told ESPN on Thursday that he plans to “keep working,” potentially with a focus on his businesses, and joked about a potential TV career.

Saban denied on Thursday that his exit was because of the growing issue of name-image-likeness (NIL) rights in college sports, amid the prominence of pay for college athletes, but Manchin mentioned it as a potential reason.

“The NIL just took him over the top to be honest with you — that name, image and likeness — because it turned it into a fiasco. It is going to destroy collegiate sports,” Manchin said. “It’s just awful. I think it took him over the top.”

Manchin added that he thinks that some of the Alabama football players may have pushed Saban for more.

“At the end of the day, I bet you’ll find out that there was a bunch of them that said ‘OK, Coach Saban, I want more money or I want to be in the transfer portal.’” And he probably just said, ‘Enough is enough.’ That’s just my gut.”

Alabama has hired Kalen DeBoer, previously the University of Washington’s football coach, as Saban’s successor as the Crimson Tide’s 28th coach.