Nick Saban won’t be Alabama’s head coach anymore, but he’s still going to provide an impact on the Crimson Tide moving forward. In an interview with ESPN published Thursday morning, the legendary head coach said he plans to help the players and coaches as they transition to a new leader for the program.

"I want to be there for the players, for the coaches, anything I can do to support them during this transition," Saban told ESPN. “There are a lot of things to clean up, to help as we move forward. I'm still going to have a presence here at the university in some form and trying to figure out all that and how it works. This is a place that will never be too far away from Miss Terry's and my hearts."

Saban’s meeting to inform Alabama players of his retirement lasted roughly 10 minutes. He told ESPN his message was to let them know how much they meant to him while urging the team to return focused on winning a national championship next season.

Saban, 72, told ESPN that his age was making it increasingly difficult to meet the demands of his head coaching job. That being said, at now time did he consider scaling back his responsibilities.

"Last season was difficult for me from just a health standpoint, not necessarily having anything major wrong, but just being able to sustain and do things the way I want to do them, the way I've always done them," Saban said in the interview. "It just got a little bit harder. So you have to decide, 'OK, this is sort of inevitable when you get to my age.'"

Shortly before announcing his retirement, Saban was going about his typical head coaching duties. According to ESPN, that involved interviewing potential candidates for Alabama’s opening at wide receivers coach.

Saban also made it clear in the interview that the recent changes in college football’s landscape did not play a part in his decision to retire.

“It's not about that," Saban said in the interview. "To me, if you choose to coach, you don't need to be complaining about all that stuff. You need to adjust to it and adapt to it and do the best you can under the circumstances and not complain about it. Now, I think everybody is frustrated about it. We had an SEC conference call, 14 coaches on there [Wednesday], and there's not one guy you can talk to who really understands what's happening in college football and thinks that it's not an issue.

"But [his retirement] ain't about that. We've been in this era for three years now, and we've adapted to it and won in this era, too. It's just that I've always known when it would be time to turn it over to somebody else, and this is that time."

So what’s next for Saban?

During his interview with ESPN, he said there was still plenty he wanted to do off the field while he was still physically able. That being said, it might be hard to keep him too far away from the field.

"There's life after football,” Saban said in the article, “but I'm always going to be here for Alabama however they need me.”