Nick Saban has found another athletic director with whom he can work.

That's the first thought that comes to mind now that Alabama has hired Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne. The job Byrne is inheriting pales in comparison to the football coach he is inheriting.

You shouldn't have to be told that -- like most schools -- everything flows from football at Alabama. Football success has bred campus-wide success. A $50 million capital campaign was exceeded by ... $52 million.

Credit Saban -- and the incredible football momentum he created -- with a lot of that. Alabama football alone created $100 million in revenue most recently. That was more than the entire athletic budgets of all but 24 schools, according to USA Today's database.

It's pretty simple on the surface: Byrne was hired to make what could possibly be the most important college football hire of a generation. That is, replace Nick Saban. Maybe. Someday. All Byrne needs to do for now is get along with the great and powerful coach.

With Byrne's hiring, Alabama is making a statement it wants to be the best at, well, everything. Byrne's biggest accomplishment at Arizona may have been signing Sean Miller to an extension in 2011 after the basketball coach spoke with Maryland.

Arizona is a national basketball program that has soared under Miller and Byrne. Football coach Rich Rodriguez has plateaued recently, but his hiring was seen as a landmark in athletic administration. Byrne tweeted out the hiring of Rodriguez in 2011.

Alabama will continue to soar under Byrne. His name comes up for just about every major job that his open, most recently at Florida and USC.

His style is personable, but ADs live to compete in the Learfield Cup, the annual standings track standings of teams in NCAA championship events. It is an outward sign of their success.

Athletic directors long to be in the top 25, just like coaches in their the sports' polls. Alabama is currently 39th. Arizona is 102nd. There's no reason Bama can't be in the top top 25. It is nationally prominent in gymnastics. Avery Johnson provides hope in basketball. Baseball competes in the perhaps the nation's toughest conference for the sport. Softball has a history of success.

But yeah, football will be OK. With the hiring of Byrne, it shows that Bama could be dominant in perpetuity. Assuming this is a destination job, Byrne would be the guy who hires Saban's replacement.

Nothing is imminent. Saban seems like he's good to go for the foreseeable future. But the Guy To Follow The Guy will be a seminal hire for Alabama and for Byrne.

He has to know that in taking this job. Sure, it will be more money. Byrne makes $600,000 a year at Arizona and is forsaking a retention bonus (oil stocks) valued currently at $2.18 million.

This is more about sticking a flag in the ground in Tuscaloosa. This is where a young (45) innovative AD may end his career. Byrne knows the SEC having hired Dan Mullen at Mississippi State.

He'll get to know Saban, who some speculated might become the AD himself one day. I've been told several times Saban is intensely involved in supporting and attending other sports at Alabama.

He also shows no signs of stepping away from perhaps the most dominant dynasty since Oklahoma's 47-game winning streak in the 1950s.

Look who Byrne is following. Mal Moore hired Saban in 2007. That may have been the biggest achievement of Moore's post-football career. That is said with the full knowledge Moore was a backup quarterback for Bear Bryant.

Moore made absolutely the right hire at absolutely the right time, then got out of the way. Alabama flourished. Bill Battle, now 75, replaced him as sort of a four-year stop-gap until a permanent replacement could be found.

Battle was a master administrator, the man who created the company that created some of the swag you're probably wearing right now. Collegiate Licsening Company (CLC) became the college apparel standard.

Battle did nothing but enhance the position, the department and the football program. The less headlines, the better -- sometimes.

But there are only handful of schools that deserve headlines when they hire a new AD. Obviously, Alabama is one of them.

Greg Byrne's life just changed in a big way. Now his assignment is to keep Alabama's trajectory exactly the same.