Historical Portal: From failed physical to successful dynasty

Breaking down the most impactful modern coaching move and its long-lasting implications

May 15, 2025

Note: This is the second installment of our Historical Portal series - an alternate history experiment with some of the biggest what if’s in recent history. You can find the page hub of all the Historical Portal series as well as the chance to select a topic here.

You’d think college football stories start in some college campus’s coaching offices. Most do. This one, though, starts on the sunny shores of Miami, Florida on 347 Don Shula Drive. It’s February 2006 and Miami Dolphins brass are pouring over medical records for a potential free agent signee. The general manager, coaching staff, and everyone involved in making a top-secret, franchise altering decision have been sent the same records.

The records are of a surgically repaired shoulder done by renowned sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews. The Dolphins are considering signing All-Pro quarterback Drew Brees from the San Diego Chargers. Everyone in the room knows that you need a starting quarterback to succeed in the league. Even after a 9-7 record, quarterback Gus Frerotte was nothing special. The 34-year-old signal caller started 15 games for the Dolphins, throwing for 2,996 yards, 18 touchdowns and 13 picks. Heading into Frerotte’s age 35 season, a change needs to be made.

Dolphins brass understands the gravity of this situation. They’ve got the makings of a solid running game with two talented backs in Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams, but you can’t succeed as a one-dimensional team in the modern NFL. Right now, they’re between two options: sign free agent Drew Brees coming off of reconstructive shoulder surgery, or trade for Daunte Culpepper.

In our timeline - the real timeline - Brees fails his physical and signs with the New Orleans Saints, where he goes on to win a Super Bowl and set all kinds of NFL passing records over his 14 seasons in the Big Easy. But what if he didn’t fail that physical and ended up signing with Miami?

Let’s step into the Historical Portal.

2006

Here we are at 347 Don Shula Drive. The medical records have just been opened. There’s a lot riding on this physical. The Dolphins are pushing hard to correct their quarterback woes with San Diego’s Drew Brees, but his season ended with a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder. Is his shoulder ready to go again?

Like we already discussed, the Miami brass were between two options: Brees and the Minnesota Vikings’ Daunte Culpepper. The push for Brees was led by one man: Miami Dolphins head coach Nick Saban.

As you’d expect from the greatest of all time, Saban did his homework. He met with Brees’s surgeon in Birmingham - they’d known each other from Saban’s days at LSU - who gave Brees a clean bill of health.

The surgeon also commented on Culpepper’s health, showing concern for the Viking’s knees. And he would be right - in our timeline, Culpepper’s knees gave out after just four games and he faded into obscurity.

Armed with that first-hand knowledge, Saban led the charge to sign the quarterback. He understood the need for a quality quarterback in the NFL and had his eyes set on Brees. The two sides even agreed to a deal, pending a physical. When that physical failed, the Dolphins tried to talk Brees down from his lofty contract demands, but the Saints held firm and signed the star quarterback to a six-year, $60 million deal.

But not here, in the Historical Portal. Here, Brees gets a clean bill of health just like the one Saban got from the surgeon. With that in hand, the Dolphins are ecstatic to sign the signal caller to the same deal as the one he got in New Orleans.

Without Brees, Sean Payton and the Saints decide to forgo Reggie Bush with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, instead selecting Texas quarterback Vince Young.

Armed with his new quarterback, Nick Saban leads the Dolphins out onto the field to start the 2006 season against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field. The Drew Brees-led Dolphins would ultimately drop that game, but it wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, the Phins grabbed a Wild Card slot with another 10-win season, setting the stage to be a competitive team for the years to come under Saban and Brees.

Brees wouldn’t put up the gaudy numbers that we saw him orchestrate in New Orleans in 2006, but we can settle for a more modest, but still outstanding line of around 4,200 yards, 25 touchdowns, 11 interceptions and a 65 percent completion rate. With Ricky Williams pounding the rock along with Brees, the Dolphins rallied to become a strong contender in the back half of the season to sneak into the playoffs.

But this is a college football newsletter, right? So why are we talking about some NFL quarterback carousel nonsense?

Well, that all became relevant on November 27, 2006 when Alabama athletic director Mal Moore fired head coach Mike Shula, saying in the presser that he’s looking for “a proven winner.”

What ensues is one of the most impactful coaching searches in modern college athletics.

2007 Alabama Head Coaching Search

With Shula gone and defensive coordinator Joe Kines serving as interim head coach for the Crimson Tide, Moore can go about finding the next leader of the Alabama football program. That “proven winner.”

Bear in mind, this is not the modern day Alabama we’ve come to know and feel strong emotions about. This Crimson Tide program hasn’t seen sustained success since the days of Bear Bryant. Alabama will be finding their fourth head coach in six years. Defensive end Wallace Gilberry told ESPN that coaching turnover “is what Alabama is known for right now.”

Even worse, the Shula tenure came in the wake of four years of NCAA probation, set to end February 1, 2007. To make matters worse, the 2006 season would breed even more violations, including forfeiting all six wins Alabama mustered in Shula’s final season.

Violations and probation notwithstanding, the Alabama team was just as putrid on the field. Tennessee had taken 10 of the last 12 affairs. Auburn had won five consecutive Iron Bowls. Alabama was very much a program down on its luck with no end in sight.

For Moore, this search was paramount. It was time to get things right and fix the years of strife and struggle that’s plagued Alabama. It was time to get back to the Bear Bryant era.

To lead that resurrection, Moore cast a wide net. He opened a “national search” that would focus on successful college coaches. Fans, boosters, and Moore himself likely landed on two primary candidates: the Miami Dolphins’ Nick Saban and South Carolina’s Steve Spurrier. Both coaches publicly distanced themselves from the job.

“I have no intention of leaving South Carolina,” said Spurrier in a school-released statement.

“I don’t care to be [Alabama’s coach],” Saban said in a presser. “I had a good college job, so why would I have left that if I would be interested in another college job?”

With Drew Brees leading the team, I’d stand behind that comment too.

The top two names are now all but eliminated. Who does Moore turn to? For all intents and purposes, he honed in on West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez - remember him? - who looked to be this close to accepting the role before telling his players December 8, 2006 that he was staying in Morgantown.

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At this point, in our timeline, Moore put the full-court press on Saban as the Dolphins sputtered to a 6-10 season with nothing in sight besides more quarterback woes. That was enough for Saban to leave. But now, in this new timeline, Miami has Drew Brees. Saban picks up the call from Moore, but politely declines and reaffirms his press conference vote of confidence for Miami.

Saban, the greatest to ever wear a headset on Saturdays, is now off the table, staying with the NFL’s Dolphins and, by our estimations, building a legitimate division rival to Bill Belichick and Tom Brady’s New England Patriots. I bet Saban and Brees even win a title or two and steal some playoff games away from Brady and Belichick.

Moore now has to pivot to his second tier of candidates, made up of Navy's Paul Johnson, Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe, California’s Jeff Tedford, Tennessee’s David Cutcliffe, and more.

Only one name was also reported to have received an offer from Moore during this search, but even that claim is questionable. Rutgers’ Greg Schiano.

Schiano was named the 2006 Walter Camp Coach of the Year in his sixth season in New Haven after leading the Scarlet Knights to their second 10-win season in football history. The 2006 season also saw Rutgers earn their first ever top-10 ranking and win over a top-five opponent, toppling then No. 3 Louisville 28-25.

We don’t know if Schiano ever officially was offered the job, but we know that he at least had a lengthy meeting with Moore about the role December 3 at the National Football Foundation’s annual banquet dinner. That kind of meeting was only reserved for Saban, Spurrier and Rodriguez, so we’ll settle on Schiano as the next leader of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

The impact of that move isn’t just on the field for Alabama. It has shockwaves off of it. This was a tumultuous time in college football history. With the first major round of realignment around the corner, this is the time that innovative programs could set themselves up for success in the future. They had to mobilize their donor base. We saw that with Ohio State when Urban Meyer took over. They got complacent during the Tressel era, enjoying their regional wins. The same thing happens here in Tuscaloosa. Hiring Schiano means that the money race doesn’t have to go forward. Hiring Saban meant coming up with an additional $2 million than budgeted for their head coach hire.

Either way, Schiano is announced as the next Crimson Tide head coach shortly after taking home the Walter Camp Coach of the Year award.

Since Schiano stayed at Rutgers in our timeline, there isn’t much of a ripple effect there. Maybe the Scarlet Knights could’ve snagged Brian Kelly before Cincinnati got to him? Based on his ties to the northeast - he grew up in Massachusetts and he played at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts - he makes sense. Rutgers always seems to go for a hire with ties to the area.

That leaves Cincinnati out of a coach with Kelly gone. Let’s say they dip into the MAC ranks again, this time snagging Ball State’s Brady Hoke to install a more smashmouth approach similar to Kelly’s predecessor, Mark Dantonio. Makes sense, right?

Ball State could even move up Stan Parrish’s hire from 2008-09 to now, closing up our carousel domino effect.

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2007

Now, with all that dust settled, we can finally return to the field. But before we do that, let’s stop in the NFL ranks one last time.

Nick Saban, Drew Brees and the Miami Dolphins are good. Very good. Consistent 10-plus win seasons, playoff wins and Super Bowl bids good. The yin to Bill Belichick’s yang. The Miami-New England rivalry in the AFC East is one for the ages, especially since both Brees and Brady will play virtually forever at this point.

Saban is happy in the NFL. He’s not considering college jobs, so quit askin’. Nick Saban is not coming back to the college ranks and the Dolphins are good.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let's check in on Tuscaloosa.

Year One after Mike Shula’s firing will be tough for anyone - it was for Saban. Schiano is no different. We can even call it square with identical 7-6 records. Sure, that’s not fun or insightful, but that’s how we’re going to shake it out. In all reality, there aren’t a lot of close games that I would flip results of. Maybe you could talk me into the loss to UL-Monroe becoming a win under Schiano, but I’d call a win over Tennessee and bowl eligibility a win in Year One.

Rutgers takes a step back under Kelly, but stabilizes down the stretch. All in all, the Brian Kelly-led Scarlet Knights land similarly to their 8-5 real-life season. You could go either way on their tight loss to Louisville, so we might as well notch either an 8-5 or 9-4 season at Rutgers.

Staying in the Big East, the Brady Hoke-led Bearcats keep a good thing going, but a few results are flipped. Namely, departing head coach Brian Kelly’s Scarlet Knights knock off his former home in Cincinnati, and the Bearcats drop a close one to No. 20 South Florida. That results in a season ending at 8-5 and a PapaJohns.com bowl win.

So, one year in and there isn’t much changing quite yet. That’s okay, because all these coaches are coming in at good times. Their programs are in a good state - well, Alabama is just fine, but you get the point.

For those that are accustomed to the modern game, college football was vastly different in 2007 than it was now. Even if the blue bloods are the same - Oklahoma, Texas, Ohio State, Michigan, LSU, Florida State - the field is drastically different. Namely because the field can’t really change.

The transfer portal as we know it didn’t exist until the late 2010s. At this point, graduate transfers weren’t even a big point to follow. Players signed onto programs and played their entire college career there. If they decided to transfer, too bad. They’d have to sit out a year and lose that year of eligibility.

That means, in these situations, our new coaches inherited the previous coach’s roster. Greg Schiano largely got the team that Mike Shula was working with. Schiano’s Rutgers roster was passed onto Brian Kelly. Cincinnati wasn’t even Brian Kelly’s team - he inherited it from Mark Dantonio just one year ago. Now it’s Brady Hoke’s.

Building a program took time. That’s always how it was. You’d have to bring in your guys from high school and develop them to take over for the graduating old guard. That’s why there isn’t much change here in 2007 - the rosters are the same. There isn’t some massive 30-day portal window like when a head coach departs nowadays. Builds and rebuilds were done through high school recruiting, which takes a lot more time than you’re accustomed to nowadays.

So how would these recruiting classes look?

We’ll start where the crux of our story is in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In the real timeline, Rutgers’ Greg Schiano signed 2008’s 46th Ranked Class with three four-star players, per Rivals. Not too shabby for a program on the up-and-up.

How does that compare with what Saban did his first season with the Tide? Well, how does Rutgers finishing 45 spots below Alabama sound? That’s right, Saban notched the top class in his first go, signing 32 players - three of which carried five-star ratings.

This class, anchored by the likes of Julio Jones, Donta’ Hightower, Mark Barron, Mark Ingram, Marcell Darius and more really set the stages for the first wave of Saban’s decades-long dynasty. Could Schiano retain that talent?

For Tide fans, the good news is this is before a lot of the national recruiting gained a foothold, so players mostly signed with local blue bloods. Julio Jones? Alabama native. Five-star athlete Burton Scott? Alabama native. Five-star offensive lineman Tyler Love? Alabama native. Barron? You guessed it, Alabama. As one of two Power Five SEC programs in the state, Alabama has power and pull in the Heart of Dixie.

So yes, Schiano could hypothetically keep those players. Well, that is, until you consider the bad news. The bad news, obviously, is that Schiano is not Nick Saban. He’s a good coach, but he doesn’t have Saban’s national championship pedigree at the time. With the Shula era leading to a floundering Tide program that has only two ten-win seasons since the turn of the century, could Iron Bowl rival Auburn become the bigger draw? Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers haven’t dropped below .500 since Y2K and have four consecutive nine-win seasons, including a 13-0 2004 where the Tigers finished second in the final AP poll, to boast.

Call me crazy, but Auburn looks like the dominant program on the rise, not Alabama.

With that established, let’s return to the recruiting battlefield. Saban’s Tide raked in the top class overall. Tuberville’s Tigers claimed a respectable 20th, but lost out on a lot of major in-state races. With Schiano in Tuscaloosa instead of ole Saint Nick, who do those races go to?

We’ll focus on the biggest race of them all - No. 2 overall recruit Julio Jones. Considered the most important recruiting victory in the Saban era by many, Jones was hotly contested by both of his in-state SEC programs. Since his recruitment, Jones has sat down multiple times to talk about why he decided to join Saban with the Crimson Tide. Talking to NFL.com’s Chase Goodbread, Jones cited his proximity to home and the ability for his family to watch him play as one of his biggest needs, leaving Alabama and Auburn as his only true competitors.

Jones hailed from Foley High School in an area of the state that was heavily Auburn-leaning. Tuberville had an iron grip on the region. But Saban swooped in to pry the grip away.

Even without Saban, could Jones lend legitimacy to the Schiano-led rebuild? “I was going to Auburn,” Jones told Goodbread, “but I just didn’t like Auburn. They left a bad taste in my mouth.”

This isn’t as open-and-shut as you’d expect. Saban, with his pedigree and, let’s call it unique recruiting style, pried Jones from Auburn. Could Schiano repeat that same success.

Even with the poor showing by Auburn and Tuberville, I don’t know if Schiano has that kind of pull. Like we’ve established, he’s got solid pedigree as Coach of the Year just one season ago, but he’s an up and coming coach without any championship buzz. Tuberville had Auburn on the doorstep of a national title. Saban had one from his days in Baton Rouge. Schiano has none of that.

So, even with the lead Alabama had, Julio joins up with the War Eagle and is an Auburn Tiger. I think Schiano can still bring in some of the four-star talent from the state, like Barron and Darius, but out-of-state players like Ingram (Michigan), Hightower (Tennessee) and the five-stars are going their separate ways to programs like Auburn, LSU and other southern powers. A coach like Schiano without any southern recruiting pedigree just can’t hang with the old-timers in this case.

Auburn, armed with Julio Jones and at least one of the other five-stars, catapults up the rankings. Schiano still signs a solid class with Barron and Darius as cornerstones for a punishing defense. But what about our other impacted programs?

In Piscataway, Brian Kelly can replicate much of what Schiano did. Sure, four-stars like Keith Stroud, Art Forst and Scott Vallone may be harder sells and you could see one or two decommitting, but Kelly has tenacity and knows the area from his playing days. Granted, Kelly had signed only six three-stars to his Cincinnati class. Either way, I think the 45-55 range is a good spot for Brian Kelly’s Rutgers program.

Speaking of Cincinnati, Brady Hoke is getting acclimated to his new home in southern Ohio. Neither Hoke nor Kelly had their breakthrough seasons, so the late-2000’s Cincinnati you remember barnstorming the Big East is just in its infancy. For Hoke, the good news is that Kelly wasn’t bringing in a ton of upper echelon recruits. In fact, most of those teams were two or three-stars. Easily replicated. Except for the fact that Hoke’s 2008 Ball State class didn’t make the Rivals Top 100 classes. Still, with the added investments at Cincy, I expect Hoke to post similar rankings as Kelly.

2008

With all the recruiting drama behind us, it’s time to kick off the 2008 season. One year after the Year of the Upset, college football is ready to return to the eyes and ears of fans all across the nation.

Rosters are looking different, of course. Auburn, fresh off a 9-4 season, has a new prized wideout in five-star Julio Jones. Alabama, Rutgers and Cincinnati all have coaches heading into their second season. Of our new coaches, only Alabama starts the season ranked at No. 24. Cross-state rival Auburn takes the No. 9 ranking after cleaning house on the recruiting trail.

Starting in Tuscaloosa, Saban got to work in real-life, going 12-2 overall and finishing the season ranked sixth in the AP Poll. However, in our timeline, the Tide don’t have the likes of Julio Jones or Mark Ingram. Instead, they rely on a stout defense led by head coach Greg Schiano.

In most of these Historical Portal stories, we’d go game-by-game. But with how wide a net this one change has cast, we’ll also cast a wide net.

As always, let’s check in on Schiano’s Crimson Tide. In real life, Nick Saban’s team headlined by the immediate superstardom of Julio Jones ran the table until hitting a Tim Tebow shaped buzzsaw in the SEC Championship. Would those results stand without the GOAT traipsing the sidelines and without some of those high-powered recruits? Well, a win over then-No. 9 Clemson to start the season on a high note and vault up the polls would stand, but that was a 7-6 Tigers team. Would Alabama survive the grind of an SEC schedule? Taking Julio and Mark Ingram out of that offense dulls it a lot. This early on in the Saban tenure, the Tide relied on their defense, though with an elite rushing defense. Oh, wait, we lost Donta Hightower without Saban there to push through the commitment.

So where does that leave us? Instead of a 12-0 regular season, the Crimson Tide flounder to a still respectable 8-4 regular season. Not bad all things considered, but a far cry from what Saban was able to do. Close road trips to Athens and Death Valley flip results without an elite offense to keep up the points and a defense that’s just not as good. A narrow win over Ole Miss also flips to a loss as the Rebels are able to stymie the Alabama offense and take the win.

Oh, and a loss in the Iron Bowl to an 8-4 Auburn team. The Tigers were still plagued by horrendous quarterback play between Kodi Burns and Chris Todd, but the presence of Julio Jones tends to balance that out and result in a few more wins for Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers. Pairing Jones with another Iron Bowl win is enough to cool the seat for Tuberville, but 2009 factors to be a put-up or shut-up season.

At this point, we leave the Southeastern Conference for the admittedly chaotic Big East where Brian Kelly is leading his band of Scarlet Knights in a suddenly wide open league following the departure of Rich Rodriguez to Michigan ahead of this season. Just like he was able to do with his Bearcats, Kelly puts together a strong season in Piscataway. The Scarlet Knights can’t replicate the success Kelly had with his 2008 Cincinnati team, but an improvement to a 9-4 season and bowl win over North Carolina is nothing to sneer at.

Speaking of Cincinnati, Brady Hoke’s Bearcats take a step back from their real-life 11-3 heights in 2008. A couple of close ranked battles swing the other way and Cincy joins the 9-4 gridlock atop the conference. With the tiebreakers and head-to-head matchups in this alternate league, Pittsburgh takes home the 2008 Big East crown.

Out on the recruiting trail, things were a different story. Saban kept the ball rolling, signing the No. 3 overall class in 2008-09, headlined by blue chippers like Dre Kirkpatrick, Nico Johnson, D.J. Fluker, Trent Richardson and those are just the five-stars. Like we’ve already established, Schiano isn’t generating the same pull on the recruiting trail as Saban, especially without nabbing Julio last offseason and with a respectable 9-4 2008 season instead of a proof-of-concept 12-2 and SEC Championship bid.

Similarly to how we looked at the other prospects, our in-state players are possibilities for Schiano’s Tide, but out-of-state guys are likely going elsewhere. So, sorry T-Rich, you’re now a Florida Gator.

Kirkpatrick, Johnson and Fluker were all Alabama guys, though. Would Schiano get an actual shot? I think so, especially with Tuberville’s Tigers not putting together the expected great season. An Iron Bowl win tips the scales for Auburn. Let’s say Schiano’s defensive acumen is enough to net Kirkpatrick, but Johnson and Fluker head to join up with the War Eagle.

All in all, Schiano is still able to sign a solid class ranking in the Top 25, but a top five class is an impossibility. Tuberville continues to win on the trail - at this point it’s a necessity to keep his job - landing five-star commitments in Johnson and Fluker.

As for our other friends? Kelly continues his modest recruiting wins and builds a solid Rutgers program. Hoke does more of the same in Cincinnati.

Turn of the Decade

With so much that has changed across the college football universe already, it’s time to take a wider view on how Saban staying in Miami and contending for Super Bowls with Drew Brees has butterfly-effected into an entirely different world.

Greg Schiano is the coach at Alabama and routinely sits in the 8-10 win range. A solid program, maybe even solid enough to satisfy the fans and boosters in Tuscaloosa. Remember, the Tide don’t have the Saban era dominance to fall back on. Instead, their success look-back is to the days of Bear Bryant. Would the Tide be happy with Schiano rolling in 8-10 wins, competing for a few conference championships, and retaining some of the state’s top talent?

We can jump over the plains of Alabama to Auburn to see that’s not the case. Tuberville, despite the talent he’s bringing in, is clearly not a great coach. Auburn again can’t capitalize on the hype and finish with a sub-par bowl win and an Iron Bowl loss to Schiano’s Alabama in 2009. Tuberville gets canned and the Tigers turn to a familiar face, bringing in Iowa State’s Gene Chizik one year later than they would in our timeline. Without a bunch of marquee jobs opening in the 2008-09 cycle, I think Chizik would just bide his time until Auburn came calling.

That means that Chizik would work his wonders like he did in our timeline. Namely, bringing in Cam Newton in 2010. Can you imagine that team with Cam and Julio Jones and D.J. Fluker? There’s no way anyone can stop the Auburn train rolling to an undefeated 2010 with a National Championship in tow. Plus, with all the recruiting hype and expectations around the program, Chizik can clean up recruiting in the absence of Saban, dominating the state of Alabama and forcing Schiano to take a back seat.

You know the Alabama boosters would hate that. With a seat heating up based on the proximity to Chizik’s 2010 title and an inability to win the Iron Bowl, Schiano bolts to the NFL to take the Tampa Bay Buccaneers job just like in real life at the end of the 2011 offseason. Who do the Tide bring in to replace him? They’ll need a staunch recruiter and someone that can stand up to the invading War Eagle.

This is where things get interesting. There’s a ton of names on the table here. The 2011-12 cycle is when Ohio State nabbed Urban Meyer after a year of “retirement.” Would Tuscaloosa appeal to the Ohio-born Meyer? I think Alabama shoots their shot, but ultimately comes up empty on the Florida architect. Rich Rodriguez was on his way out of Ann Arbor, but he’s not an SEC fit. I think the Tide end up battling with Penn State for Bill O’Brien, then the New England Patriots’ offensive coordinator. Alabama certainly has a better situation than the recovering from Jerry Sandusky Penn State so let’s assume Bama rolls with Bill.

Let’s take a glance at our other players here before going further. Brian Kelly’s time with Rutgers follows a lot of what we saw with Schiano - solid teams that excel past their recruiting rankings. It’s not that far fetched considering that’s essentially what he did in the same conference with Cincinnati with fewer resources. I don’t think Notre Dame pulls Kelly from Rutgers after only two seasons, but after four solid seasons in Piscataway, Kelly gets the call from Penn State after O’Brien turns them down. With Brian Kelly’s reputation building up Cincinnati and Rutgers and his knowledge of Penn State’s recruiting area, he seems like a solid fit for the reconstruction job.

But who does Notre Dame go with after canning Charlie Weis in 2009? Like we’ve established, there aren’t a ton of good candidates during that cycle. Notre Dame and USC were the unquestionable two biggest jobs open that cycle and USC was backing up a Brinks truck for Lane Kiffin, so he’s out and so is the USC job.

That leaves Notre Dame at a crossroads looking for a way out of the Charlie Weis disaster. Popular names floated around included Kelly, who ultimately got the job, as well as Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, Stanford’s Jim Harbaugh, TCU’s Gary Patterson and Georgia Tech’s Paul Johnson. Of that list, I see three possibilities and Kirk Ferentz. Harbaugh was a young, brash coach at the time without any major bona fides yet in his Stanford build, plus is coaching at a rival school. I think he’s out. So it’s either Patterson or Johnson. Johnson has the better pedigree and was more connected to the job, so we’ll land with him and his triple option getting one last big-time chance.

Rutgers is in a similar state to real-life, then. I still think they turn to Kyle Flood, who served as Assistant Head Coach on Schiano’s Alabama staff. Seeing as Alabama performed better than Rutgers, bringing him home is a big enough splash to offset the loss of Kelly. Unfortunately for Scarlet Knights fans, that means the rest of your history is a wash.

Brady Hoke’s Cincinnati tenure goes well, but not as well as Kelly’s time with the Bearcats. Still, I don’t think that changes Hoke’s trajectory and he’s still poached by Michigan in the 2010-11 offseason.

Let’s take a quick break and recap where everything stands in 2012:

Alabama is coached by Bill O’Brien after Greg Schiano leaves for the NFL
Michigan is biding its time with Brady Hoke as expected
Notre Dame is back to the four horsemen with Paul Johnson’s triple option
Ohio State still pulls Urban Meyer out of retirement
Penn State is led by Brian Kelly out of the Sandusky scandal
Rutgers is on their historical track with Kyle Flood coming in

Overarching Changes

Now that we’ve established the coaching carousel butterfly, it’s time to zoom out one last time and answer the question that I’ve been wondering since coming up with this idea - is Nick Saban the reason for the SEC’s dominance?

We can start by taking a look at the National Champions since our story began. The SEC has had 12 National Championships since 2007, when our story kicked off. Of those 12 natties, Saban rolled in six, including a 2009 win we’ve already wiped out. Would Alabama win any in this updated timeline? I don’t think so, especially with the NFL luring both Schiano and likely O’Brien before they establish anything. Auburn might pick up another after the Cam Newton year, but that’s about it.

So where does that leave us? I think Urban Meyer’s Florida team might pick up another ring in the 2009 season that’s left vacant. But that’s only seven natties instead of 12. Kirby Smart is still going to go on his run because, let's face it, he didn’t need Saban. LSU’s magical Joe Burrow and their 2007 runs are also not impacted. So yeah, that leaves us with six combined National Championships for the SEC.

So who runs the show without Saban’s Alabama? At least down south, I feel like there isn’t really an heir apparent. Sure, Florida fills that in a vacuum, but the scandals aren’t leaving Urban Meyer and you bet those health issues are going to force an early retirement. After that, who comes next? There isn’t an obvious team. Mark Richt’s Georgia isn’t great. Dan Mullen can make a run at Mississippi State but he doesn’t have the staying power. LSU is fine under Les Miles. Auburn, as we’ve discussed, is signing more talent but Gene Chizik isn’t a dynasty coach.

Instead of a conference of Alabama and everyone else, the SEC gets a lot of parity. There aren’t a lot of repeat winners as the conference stays strong overall, but isn’t the juggernaut of today without Saban revolutionizing the recruiting game.

So what about the national championships?

We’ll start in 2012 where Bill O’Brien is certainly not winning a natty his first season with the Crimson Tide. That season’s Number One team, Notre Dame, also isn’t so as Paul Johnson’s triple option just can’t keep up in the big leagues. That leaves us with an unconventional matchup of Oregon and Ohio State in the final BCS Championship. This Oregon team was the onset of the Marcus Mariota and Chip Kelly marriage squared off against Urban Meyer’s first Ohio State team with Braxton Miller. A dynamic matchup to be sure, but I feel like Oregon might get the monkey off their back and take home a national championship in 2012.

Then, we get to the great Alabama-Clemson National Championship rivalry from 2015-18. 2015 is an easy Clemson win with the field including Connor Cook’s Michigan State, Baker Mayfield-led Oklahoma and Kevin Hogan(?)’s Stanford. Baker gets overrun by Clemson and Deshaun Watson in the CFP National Championship like we saw in the first round.

2016 is a canon Clemson win over Alabama. Instead of the Tide, the Tigers would end up with the winner of an Ohio State-Michigan rematch, really meaning Clemson would drub Ohio State like they did in their real-life 31-0 Fiesta Bowl win.

2017 is another of Alabama’s wins that will be lost. Clemson takes the one seed, while Alabama is kicked out of the four spot by Ohio State. That was a stupid good Ohio State team with J.T. Barrett at the helm, so let’s say the Buckeyes upset Clemson in Round One. That leaves an Ohio State-Georgia National Championship. With Kirby Smart’s Dawgs touting an elite and historic defense headlined by Roquan Smith and D’Andre Walker, Georgia edges out another win for the SEC.

2018 is our last canonical Clemson national championship. No. 1 Alabama is replaced by No. 1 Clemson, who gets No. 4 Georgia. The other semifinal is No. 2 Oklahoma against No. 3 Ohio State. We’ll give Lincoln Riley and Kyler Murray a win over the Dwayne Haskins Buckeyes and Clemson beating down on Georgia. Clemson, once again, takes the cake from Oklahoma for a National Championship.

Now, where does that leave us?

Clemson, instead of two national championships, ends up with four. Kirby gets his first in 2017 instead of 2021. Oregon nets their first national title and Chip Kelly and Marcus Mariota are even more legendary in Eugene.

And Alabama and Notre Dame are relegated to mid-tier blue bloods that are the popular picks for any YouTuber looking to rebuild a long lost program.

Going even further, does the ACC getting four national championships instead of two strengthen the conference? How does Oregon’s natty impact the conference realignment talk in 2014? That’s a lot to go over that we don’t need to discuss today, but one thing is clear: college football without Nick Saban is an entirely different sport.