There's no end in sight for Nick Saban and his Alabama dynasty

Five national titles, including four at Alabama, put Nick Saban in rarefied air. He may not just be college football's greatest modern day coach but perhaps the best to ever wear a whistle.

GLENDALE, Arizona -- The real fun now starts for Nick Saban.

He won’t have to agonize about chasing a dual-threat Heisman Trophy finalist all over the field. He won’t have to worry about calling onside kicks to redshirt freshmen in the fourth quarter of a tied title game. He won’t be scowling like it was acid poured over his head instead of Gatorade at the end of a win.

He won’t be asked about pursuing the only other human to walk the planet who has won five national championships.

“Who would that be?,” Terry Saban said, smiling, in the moments after her husband led Alabama to a 45-40 win over Clemson in the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship.

The real fun starts the next three weekends at the Saban home when Nick and his wife host recruits and their parents.

“We do karaoke,” Miss Terry said. “The coaches, the parents. We end the evening by [singing] ‘We are Family.’ I’m not kidding.”

It is then when the greatest coach ever (?) smiles. Supposedly. It is then -- when the roster sausage is being made -- that everything you saw Monday night comes into focus.

It is then that a picture of such shenanigans would break the internet.

Now? Now is the time to enjoy the next 24 hours. That’s all Saban will allow before setting out to finalize what is assured to be another top recruiting class.

“Pack, make sure our kids get a nap, high five a little bit,” offensive line coach Mario Cristobal said of his upcoming routine. “We’ll get back tomorrow about 6:30, 7 p.m., make sure our clothes are washed, make sure we head out on the road and start the hunt for [championship No.] 17.”

Now is time for close friend John Plott to giggle every time he hears the term “24 hours” -- because he knows it’s true. Plott is a partner with the Sabans in some real estate ventures and knows the coach better than most.

“Quite honestly, this guy is a good man, and he can run a corporation in America if he put his mind to it,” Plott said.

Now is the time to suggest it was Saban, not just Dabo Swinney, who brought his own guts with that onside kick they’ll write books about,.

“It will go down,” Cristobal added, “as one of the best plays ever.”

Now is time to invest in the unbelievable. This historic metronome of a coach continues to bring the game to its knees. His fifth championship -- fourth in seven years at Alabama -- was the toughest. That Heisman finalist, Tigers quarterback Deshaun Watson, may have played the best game of his career. Clemson’s defense sacked Jake Coker five times.

But Saban responded with an up-tempo offense making up for a defense that was pushed around for large parts of the game. The no-huddle approach kept the Tigers off balance and resulted in four “busts” by the Clemson defense, three of which went for touchdowns.

“The Ole Miss game brought us to our knees,” Miss Terry said. “We don’t want to feel this way again. This is a lesson in life. On the flight here, he graded every single play and he was not happy. He was very disappointed. It started with the trip here. We’ve got things to fix.”

Nick Saban hoists his fifth national title. (USATSI)

Now it’s time to reconsider what it means to be the greatest coach not only in college football, but perhaps in team sports. Red Auerbach (NBA), Scotty Bowman (NHL) and John Wooden (college basketball) come to mind. But even they didn’t have to count on 18-year olds to build a dynasty -- not without compensating them.

They didn’t do it in an era when the strongest conference (SEC) is in its golden age. Maybe the best comparison is Bill Belichick, Saban’s mentor. Who wouldn’t want to be in on their next telephone conversation?

“No disrespect to older coaches, it’s so much more difficult now,” Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said. “What he’s doing is unheard of. What he’s doing is supposed to stop.

“Players change, coaches change. He’s the one guy that stays the same.”

Not quite the same. Consider that if Saban shocked the world one more time and stepped down or headed to the NFL, with Kirby Smart coaching his last Alabama game before going off to coach Georgia, Kiffin might be the likely successor.

Kiffin, who was left on the scrap heap after being fired from a head coach job for the second time. Kiffin, who has rehabbed his rep and his resume under Saban.

“Instead of being stubborn, he didn’t say, ‘I want to win and stay in the I-formation and huddle the old-school way,” Kiffin said of Saban. “That won’t work anymore.

“Instead of being stubborn, you see him changing, evolving.”

On Monday, though, the Tigers seemed destined heading into the fourth quarter. Clemson had won 51 straight when leading in the final period.

Then the Tide scored 24 points in the final 15 minutes on a top 10 defense. They were led back by a quarterback (Coker) who, when he wasn’t being sacked or forced into making bad decisions, was having a career game for the second straight contest.

Saban relied on a massive, swift tight end named O.J. Howard, who had caught only 33 passes for 394 yards coming into the game. Howard, a junior, hadn’t scored since his freshman year in 2013.

On Monday, Howard caught five passes for 208 yards and two touchdowns. On both scoring plays, Howard was so open that Clemson either busted the coverage or fell asleep on a player who hadn’t been much of the passing game. Maybe both.

“I’d say it was bad coaching on my part that he didn’t have the opportunity to do that all year long,” Saban said.

Saban, the game’s highest-paid coach, is in line to become the first $10-million-a-year frontman. He deserves a raise -- a big one. The coach’s agent, Jimmy Sexton, waved his hand and walked away when asked about that subject.

This was not a night for salary negotiations.

What you saw Monday was assembled over a period of years in a thousand different living rooms with at least that many recruiting pitches. It was celebrated out of sight by a coach who complained, “So they [Clemson] got 40 points.”

Saban has worked his magic even on us journalists to the point we’ve gotten this far and haven’t mentioned Bear Bryant by name. Not a soul asked Saban about possible retirement or an NFL job.

It just seems so unlikely now, like this is going to go on forever. Saban reached his five championships eight years sooner than Bear. He’s done it in an era when he had to win championship games -- and now semifinals -- not just be voted No. 1.

He’s put his name near the top with perhaps the sport’s greatest coach. Bryant established the foundation for what is Alabama football. Saban is building a skyscraper on top of it.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with Bear,” Plott said. Coach Saban is just a great, great coach. How he goes down in history, the script is pretty much written.”