Read over former Alabama football head coach Nick Saban’s resumé and you notice the continuity. There were no gap years or even weeks.

Since starting as a graduate assistant at Kent State, he dictated all but one job change, so the time between getting fired as Ohio State’s defensive backs coach after the 1981 season and getting hired at Navy would conceivably be the only time in his adult life where he wasn’t a part of a team.

That streak, of course, extends into his playing days. Into childhood. You get the point.

So, the morning of Jan. 11, 2024 was among the first since his toddler days in the hills of West Virginia where his team effectively stopped at the breakfast table.

For someone who wasn’t just routine-oriented but routine-centric, breaking that cycle had to have been among the biggest challenges since Saban retired Jan. 10.

Beyond just the daily rituals, stepping out of the headspace of being a hands-on boss to a large organization was another task. Keep in mind, Saban was the tip of the spear every day since leaving the Cleveland Browns in early 1995 to become the Michigan State head coach.

He wasn’t a passive observer who delegated the heavy lifting.

Saban lived the job.

And then, 10 days after walking off the Rose Bowl turf, it was over.

The Weather Channel/oatmeal cream pie/go to the office morning combo lost Part 3 in mid-January.

For the most part, he’s eased away from the centerstage life he’s lived for so long. After being involved in the process of hiring Kalen DeBoer as his successor, Saban slipped off to his new South Florida mansion and the golf course.

He’s played in a few celebrity golf events.

But mostly, he ceded the spotlight to DeBoer — allowing the man with a monumental challenge and a shrinking head start to handle his business without interference.

By Monday evening, some semblance of the old routine was back.

Back in Birmingham for the Nick Saban Legacy Awards ceremony, Saban met with local reporters for the first time since exiting stage right. He’d done a few interviews in the immediate aftermath of his retirement but hadn’t enjoyed the spontaneous nature of the news conference format Saban so adored over the decades.

Entering the mostly full interview room at the Red Mountain Theatre on Monday evening, a tan Saban looked relaxed. He smiled. Like a real one. Long-time aid Cedric Burns was at his side, so the team wasn’t completely disbanded.

“I wasn’t ready for this,” he joked to the bank of television cameras and reporters. After making brief comments about the event and the fact they were honoring Bobby Bowden and Frank Beamer, Saban opened the floor for questions.

He got a few about the retired life.

It’s going well. Good times, bad golf — typical stuff for men in their 70s who chose the Florida coast for their golden years.

Still, that engine still cranks somewhere in the background.

The program and team he spent his legacy-building years continued on in his absence.

That whole dynamic of the team still lingers in his head. When asked in previous years about the prospect of retiring, Saban always said he’d been on a team his whole life and frankly didn’t know how he’d adjust to that constant just fading away.

So how does the reality compare to the thought?

“I think that’s been the biggest thing,” Saban said. “The relationships that you have with the people you work with every day, the players you have relationships with trying to inspire and help them. That’s probably the thing I miss the most.”

Probably the shortest answer of his eight-plus minutes at the podium.

It’s worth trying to view this whole new world through Saban’s perspective now. After 17 years of being the pack leader, he has to flip a switch that never previously existed. Now in a loosely defined consulting role with the Alabama football program, he’s aiming to be helpful while not turning into a helicopter parent to the empire he rebuilt.

Asked about the job DeBoer’s done since being hired from Washington two days after Saban’s exit, he touched on that balancing act.

“I really haven’t been around. I really try to stay arm’s length,” Saban said. “I don’t want anyone to think I’m looking over their shoulder. I think he’s hired a good staff and I think he’s a good man. I think he’s a good coach and I think he’ll do a really good job.”

Saban said he talks with DeBoer and new defensive coordinator Kane Wommack “every now and then.” He’s going to sit down with Wommack, previously the head coach at South Alabama, sometime this week.

To be a fly on the wall …

And he has the TV gig as a supplemental team in this transitionary phase. Working with ESPN and joining the College GameDay cast will keep Saban involved with the sport as an analyst instead of a puppet master.

“I’d like to continue to impact college football in a positive way in the future,” Saban said. “It gives me a voice to do it. It keeps me involved in football.”

Then he sounded like a coach.

“It’s not only being there,” Saban said, “it’s the preparation that goes with it and how it can keep me involved in the game.”

It’s like a transitionary step in the reprogramming of a brain so hyper-focused on dominating a sport as a player and then a coach. Practically his whole life he was the alpha in a football setting.

Now he’s not.

And his longest-tenured teammate was there with a fitting reminder. With the questions winding down, wife Terry Saban stepped into the interview room with some coaching of her own.

“The Beamers are waiting on you,” she said from the back, kinda grinning.

Kinda not.

“The Beamers are waiting to do a family picture,” she added with a little more of that Saban spirit.

Perhaps retirement won’t be all that different.

The home team, it turns out, isn’t going anywhere.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.