It’s the end of an era for NFL and college football coaches, many of whom have spent the better part of this millennium chasing Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban.

Friends, rivals, colleagues and all the descendants of Croatian immigrants, the three sideline legends entered into the profession a half century earlier, only to see their careers ostensibly come to an end this week.

Saban is retiring at Alabama and Carroll is entering semi-retirement to take on an advisory role with the Seattle Seahawks, while Belichick could opt to continue coaching after mutually agreeing to part ways with the New England Patriots.

But whatever happens, this week marks a major transition within the sport. Together, the trio has won nine Super Bowls, nine national championships, and 912 games, not including the victories Carroll was forced to vacate at USC after his players were found to have received improper gifts.

Together, Saban and Carroll coached seven Heisman winners, including USC’s Reggie Bush, who was ultimately forced to relinquish his award over the aforementioned improper gifts. Meanwhile, Belichick was the Patriots coach for each of Tom Brady‘s three NFL MVP awards.

Pete Carroll (left) is seen after taking the Patriots job in 1997. (Right) Then-Dolphins coach Nick Saban chats with Bill Belichick in 2006

Belichick and Carroll exchange pleasantries after the Seahawks beat the Patriots in 2016

In some cases, their success was shared.

Two decades ago, Carroll’s USC Trojans and Saban’s LSU Tigers became the last two college football teams to split a national championship, giving way to the BCS era and, ultimately, the current College Football Playoff format.

In fact, Saban once replaced Caroll on Earle Bruce’s coaching staff at Ohio State in 1980, moving over from West Virginia before taking similar defensive assistant positions at Navy, Michigan State and with the NFL’s Houston Oilers before becoming a head coach at Toledo in 1990.

The following year, Saban got a job offer from a new Cleveland Browns coach, who had won a pair of Super Bowls as the defensive coordinator of the New York Giants under another legend, Bill Parcells.

Carroll was replaced by Saban at Ohio State

At 39, Belichick was facing considerable expectations from a once-proud Browns franchise. But although he inherited inheriting a roster that included quarterback Bernie Kosar, receiver Webster Slaughter, and pulverizing defensive tackle Michael Dean Perry, the results weren’t there.

Belichick’s Browns reached the playoffs only once during his five-year tenure and he was eventually fired as the team moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens.

He would resurface under Parcells with the Patriots in 1996, helping New England reach its second ever Super Bowl, and spent three years under his long-time boss with the New York Jets.

But while he was expected to inherit the job from Parcells, and officially did so for all of one day, Belichick got cold feet amid the Jets’ uncertain ownership situation. Johnson & Johnson heir Woody Johnon was trying to buy the team, and rather than wait around for that to happen, Belichick accepted a position to coach the New England Patriots – a team that had just fired its coach, Pete Carroll.

Carroll, who had previously coached the Jets for a season and later replaced Parcells in New England, had gone just 27-21 with the Patriots, while failing to reach the postseason.

Then-Cleveland Browns coach Bill Belichick is pictured during a 1994 loss in Pittsburgh

He was fired after the 1999 season before resurfacing with USC in 2001, taking over a once-proud program that boasted nine national championships.

The Trojans would come to define college football over the next decade, winning two national titles and regularly ranking among the best teams in the country.

But after declining NFL job offers for years, Carroll ultimately agreed to take the Seattle Seahawks job in 2010, thereby opening the door for Saban’s dynasty at Alabama.

Browns defensive coordinator Nick Saban looks on prior to a game against the New England Patriots on November 6, 1994

He’d already won a national title at LSU in 2003, but after a forgettable two-year stint as the Miami Dolphins head coach, Saban turned Alabama into a juggernaut, winning six titles over the next 11 seasons.

His success was unmatched at the college level, although Belichick was having a similar run in Foxboro.

The two had known each other since the early 1980s, when their fathers coached together at Navy, and remained close, even while developing the reputation as isolated, cantankerous curmudgeons.

‘There’s nobody I have more respect for in football than Nick Saban – period,’ Belichick said in 2018.

‘Look, of course it’s flattering to be compared with Nick and the great success that he’s had there,’ Belichick said. ‘The way his team’s performed, I don’t think anybody’s done it better than he has. I think probably every coach in football is trying to do it as well as he does it and has done it. But they do a tremendous job there, Nick’s a tremendous coach.’

The two even had an annual rendezvous at Alabama’s pro day, where Belichick and another NFL coaches and scouts would evaluate the Crimson Tide talent.

‘We talk on the phone,’ Saban said of Belichick in 2022. ‘Every now and then we’ll do something together, like play golf or something, but this is really fun.

‘Bill got here yesterday and got to watch practice. We got to spend time together this morning, catching up. Not only on football-related stuff and players, but also family and stuff like that. I think sometimes people that are our fans don’t look at us like we even have that part.’

Nick Saban is pictured in 1997, when he served as head coach of the Michigan State Spartans

Belichick’s relationship with Carroll is complicated by their head-to-head matchups – specifically Super Bowl XLIX, in which the Patriots beat the Seahawks, 28-24, on a late interception by New England cornerback Malcolm Butler.

Belichick and Carroll before Super Bowl XLIX

Carroll, who had already won a Super Bowl a year earlier, was slammed over the result for the team’s decision to pass the ball at the goal line rather than running the ball with fearsome halfback Marshawn Lynch.

Despite the criticism, Carroll remained the head coach in Seattle until this week.

‘The fact that we’re still coaching and our paths are still crossing, I guess that means we’ve done pretty well or somebody would have replaced us,’ Belichick told reporters in 2020.

The two are actually friends, although Carroll doesn’t share Belichick’s severe disposition.

‘The biggest difference is one’s got a smile on his face, the other one doesn’t, but the ultimate goal is to win championships, and both love, love winning,’ former NFL safety Lawyer Milloy, who played for both coaches, told Seahawks.com in 2020. ‘To be a good head coach, you’ve got to be a tremendous facilitator to build the right atmosphere; both those guys do that.’

And for that matter, so did Saban down in Tuscaloosa, that is, until this week, when the football world changed forever.