Less than 24 hours after securing the first-round comeback victory over the Oklahoma Sooners, the Alabama Crimson Tide was dealt a blow to its coaching staff.
As the Tide moved onto the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, where Alabama would face the No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers, news broke that co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Nick Sheridan was expected to leave for the OC job at Michigan State.
Michigan State poaches Alabama co-OC during CFP
Michigan State had yet to make the official announcement, and Alabama had yet to share whether or not Sheridan would be allowed to continue coaching the Crimson Tide during the offseason, despite leaving for another job after this season.
Sheridan followed Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer when he took over Tuscaloosa after coaching the Washington Huskies for two years, and had previously worked with none other than the Hoosiers from 2017 until 2021, when he took the job at UW.
Michigan State is expected to hire Alabama co-offensive coordinator and QB coach Nick Sheridan as its new offensive coordinator, sources tell me, @C_Robinson247 and @JustinThind.
— Matt Zenitz (@mzenitz) December 20, 2025
The Michigan native has worked under Kalen DeBoer the last four seasons at Alabama and Washington. pic.twitter.com/VMlkHVrk4V
Sheridan coached Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson for the last two years, molding him into the starting quarterback that he is today. His fellow co-offensive coordinator and the Tide's wide receivers coach, JaMarcus Shephard, left the program just a few weeks earlier, accepting the head coaching job at Oregon State.
Simply put, hiring good coordinators leads to those people eventually becoming head coaches or accepting jobs higher up at other programs. However, the Crimson Tide taking these hits in the middle of the College Football Playoff is far from ideal.
No. 9 Alabama and No. 1 Indiana are scheduled to kick off at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026, and the game will be broadcast on ESPN. Fans can tune in to see the team in action and to see if Sheridan is still calling plays (or if it will be entirely on Ryan Grubb) on offense for DeBoer.