SAN JOSE, Calif. -- In the quiet times, a wise Alabama veteran will lounge with teammates, all of them considering their fortune.
"Sometimes, we sit around and talk about, 'We're really playing for the greatest coach ever,'" senior tailback Damien Harris said, "'and we just get to be a part of it. We get to watch it up close and personal.'"
Nick Saban should be the biggest story of the College Football Playoff National Championship, but it's not all that obvious. His story has been written, rewritten and -- for some -- overwritten. In fact, Saban's pursuit of a record-breaking seventh national championship almost seems like it's hiding in plain sight.
His titles -- six overall, five at Alabama -- have been so numerous and come so often that the obvious story tends to become the most tiresome. A win Monday night would push Saban past Bear Bryant for most all-time major college national championships, 7-6.
Think of Hank Aaron getting close to 714 or Tiger Woods creeping up on Jack Nicklaus's 18 major championships. It's that big a deal. Maybe bigger.
It's just as big a deal within the program that the coach of No. 1 Alabama has a standing rule that was reflected during Saturday's media day ahead of the CFP title game.
"Don't bring it up," strength coach Scott Cochran said. "He'll bite your head off."
"We've got to win it first," Harris said of Monday night's clash with No. 2 Clemson. "I'm not going to do it. He's trained me not to do it. No hypotheticals."
And so a major storyline is essentially being quashed by the man responsible for it. Part of the reason: What else are you going to say about the guy?
I once wrote that Saban was the best team sports coach in history. That was three years ago after natty No. 5 (his fourth at Alabama).
The closest Saban came to expanding on the subject at Saturday's media day went this way:
"Did we think that we would be able to get the kind of results that we've had the opportunity over the last few years?" Saban said. "… Did I have some vision of we're going to win a national championship someday or whatever? No, not really."
Elsewhere, the subject of Saban being the G.O.A.T. cannot be avoided.
"Every great dynasty tumbles from within," said Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables. "For them to have that kind of consistent success is pretty special. They keep turning over the players and keep having the same kind of result."
Is it possible that this might be Saban's best coaching job? He had to replace six coaches this season. Sixteen players went to the NFL. He deftly handled the transition from Jalen Hurts to Tua Tagovailoa at quarterback. For the third time since 2009, the Tide won them all in the regular season.
For all that, Saban -- 146-20 in 12 seasons at Bama -- got one national coach of the year award (from the Walter Camp Foundation).
It's hard to quantify -- or for some folks to even notice -- what has taken place. In the space of five years, Saban first adopted spread concepts, then went whole hog into a pass-first offense this season.
Did anyone ever imagine Bama would be in the top four nationally of every meaningful passing statistic? Run-pass option concepts that have overrun college football and are migrating to the NFL have been accepted at Alabama by Saban, a former defensive back at Kent State.
"It's not really just the RPOs," Saban's former offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin said this week. "That gets over talked about. It's more getting away from the old NFL under-center [offense] and using tempo. Luckily, it worked as soon as we started playing, starting with the first game versus West Virginia."
In that 2014 season opener, a 33-23 win, former running back/wide receiver Blake Sims made his first career start at quarterback. Throwing for 250 yards that day, Sims was on his way to setting the school's then-record for total offense in a single season.
Maybe it's best to synthesize Saban's offensive progression this way: In 2012, Johnny Manziel beat Alabama running and passing out of the spread on his way to winning the Heisman Trophy.
Six years later, Saban assembled what is perhaps the best set of receivers, best quarterback (Tagovailoa) and best overall offense in Alabama history.
"That's the reason people come to Alabama, whether you're a player or coach or even media," said current offensive coordinator Mike Locksley. "You don't feel worthy to be able to cover it."
Locksley is a prime example of how adaptable the program is under Saban. He came to Alabama in 2016 as analyst, fresh off being let go at Maryland (as offensive coordinator) and being fired at New Mexico with a 2-26 record.
Like a lot of analysts, Locksley came to Alabama down on his luck. Kiffin had called him because of his play-calling reputation. In 2017, Locksley graduated from analyst to quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator. This season, he became Alabama's third offensive coordinator in four years.
The 2017 season ended with Tagovailoa throwing the game-winning pass in overtime to beat Georgia for Saban's sixth overall championship.
In the span of Harris' four seasons, the offense he plays in has been completely revamped. On any given snap, receiver Jerry Jeudy is a deep threat. Tight end Irv Smith Jr. is a downfield threat. The stable of running backs that goes five deep could start for anybody. The offensive line? Forget about it. It's always great. There are at least two pros on the unit -- tackle Jonah Williams and center Ross Pierschbacher.
But it was Saban's vision of going after Tagovailoa to be the ultimate triggerman that made the difference. It took that change at halftime of last year's title game from Hurts to Tagovailoa to fully realize what Saban and Alabama truly had in their arsenal.
Tagovailoa's ability to run, throw and see the field won the game but also opened a door on the future. With Tua at the controls, more than two-thirds of Alabama's first 61 drives this season (41) ended in touchdowns. With one game to play, Alabama leads the country in pass plays of at least 20, 40, 50, 60 and 70 yards.
Saban himself compared his quarterback to Drew Brees and Joe Montana.
Bama is second nationally in scoring (47.1 points). In his 11 previous seasons, the Tide never finished higher than 12th.
Think of Tiger deciding to change his swing in the middle of one of the greatest runs in golf. He didn't have to make the change, but he felt as if it was necessary.
That's what Saban has basically done: retooled his offense while in continuing to win national championships.
"If you had asked me that coming out of high school I would have said, 'No way,'" explained Harris, who will complete his collegiate career Monday night. "I've seen our entire offense develop over the last couple of years. It's not just our passing. Everything about our offense has improved every year since I've been here."
At the time of Saban's hiring in 2007, Bama was scrambling. Saban was its seventh coach since Bear Bryant and fifth in eight years. Every coach since Bear's death in 1982 (except the short-lived Mike Price) won 10 games at least once. That included Gene Stallings, who delivered a national championship in 1992.
"I think Bear would have been extremely pleased," Stallings said of Saban. "Coach Bryant didn't have near the players than Coach Saban has."
Locksley will depart after Monday night's game as he will take over at Maryland. It's doubtful he could have rebounded to another Power Five head-coaching job so quickly without this stop at Alabama.
"I've got notebooks full of staff meetings, pregame meetings, practice schedules," Locksley said. "I pretty much came in and sat in the background and wrote down everything that was said. I took great notes on decisions, when decisions had to be made on personnel on recruiting on scheme.
"It's like an upper-level course where you go away as a professor on a sabbatical and study your craft. I have a pretty good idea what [Alabama] looks like, what it smells like and how things should be done."
Meanwhile, Harris is in his final days of lounging around with teammates considering their fortune and the man for whom they've played.
"Coach Saban is the best to ever do it," Harris said. "There's nothing that I can say that can do it justice and give him more praise than he already deserves.
"He's the best football mind that's ever been in the game."
