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TAMPA, Fla. -- If you think changing voices on offense one week before the College Football Playoff National Championship doesn't matter, listen to Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts discuss life so far with Steve Sarkisian.

"Well, it's a big difference because ... you're hearing this voice. You're hearing this guy, you're hearing this guy, and then you got another guy that's coming in," Hurts said. "So it's kind of weird. But at the same time, it's something that we're going to have to get used to."

Welcome to the damnedest experiment anyone has ever tried before a championship game. ESPN should pay royalties to NBC for use of "The Voice" given how often we're going to hear the phrase during the national title game.

Lane Kiffin is out. Steve Sarkisian is in.

Things got so bad with Kiffin that Nick Saban determined the lesser of two evils was bringing in the backup offensive coordinator one week before playing Clemson for the national championship. It's an experiment that is fascinating everyone around college football as we wait to see whether it will be successful.

Maybe Saban's abrupt switch works. After all, the Crimson Tide so played poorly on offense and Hurts appeared to regress so much against Washington that perhaps there's nowhere to go but up.

Maybe this move backfires. Don't forget, by NCAA rules, Sarkisian was not allowed to coach players on the field all year because he was an analyst behind the scenes. Hurts said he introduced himself to Sarkisian at some point during the season, they talked a little and "that was that."

Maybe this change has a net effect of zero. Even if Alabama's offense struggles or only slightly improves, the Crimson Tide's defense is still capable of playing a huge role on who wins Monday night.

"I watch ESPN as much as the next guy and that's what they're saying: 'How are they going to respond to this new voice?'" Alabama offensive lineman Jonah Williams said. "It's this whole dramatic thing. For us, it hasn't been any different. We go to the same meetings, we go to the same practice, we have the same vocabulary. It's all the same stuff except he's bringing more energy, so I don't see how it can be a negative at all."

Maybe it won't be, but could it be? Oh, absolutely. Even Sarkisian acknowledged changing voices for a quarterback could be a big deal.

"It can be if I don't make my voice heard this week," he said. "I've been fortunate in my career to have worked with some pretty good quarterbacks and have had some pretty good success working with quarterbacks. I just went back to the basics with what I knew in coaching that position, my communication with that position. I think the response from Jalen has been really good, but ultimately you'd have to ask him how he feels about it."

Hurts said his relationship with Sarkisian is building, but he's impacting the offense with "a different energy around here. You just kind of see it in everybody's eyes. They're looking forward to it."

All eyes are watching whether Saban can pull this off.

"It's never quite been done like this," said former Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, who used to call plays. "I think the whole nation is interested to see. If there's one guy who can pull it off, it's [Saban]. If he can pull this off, you might want to put him up there with Pop Warner, Alonzo Stagg and Bear Bryant as the best to ever coach."

It's important to understand there's no more important dynamic in football than the voice the quarterback hears from his play-caller. When the play-caller switches abruptly, all bets are off on how the quarterback reacts, especially if events take a turn for the worse during a game.

"To me, the voice was very important," former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy said. "I was very close to [former Alabama offensive coordinator] Jim McElwain. Had something changed prior to a championship game, I can't tell you how I would have handled it. But I know there was a certain comfort level I had with Coach Mac that I was always comfortable speaking my mind and he was comfortable speaking his. When things were going great, he kind of brought me down a little bit, and when things went poorly, he built me up. You trust that voice because so much has been built up with him over the course of a season."

Like Kiffin, Sarkisian will coach from the field Monday night. Sarkisian had been in the coaching box all season as an analyst. The field is where he prefers.

"I think it's important for me to have the one-on-one contact with Jalen on the field, see his demeanor, really talk through things," Sarkisian said. "I always appreciated that as a player when I was playing. Norm Chow was my offensive coordinator. My first game in college, I remember at BYU, Norm was in the box. We were having dialogue. Things didn't always get conveyed the right way. It's the old telephone game."

The transition to the new voice assumes, of course, that Hurts and Kiffin even enjoyed a strong relationship in the first place. It's difficult to say what relationships are like behind the scenes that we don't see.

"The only way to me that I would feel comfortable making this switch is if there was not a huge psychological relationship between quarterback and coordinator," said former UCLA coach and current CBS Sports analyst Rick Neuheisel, who coached quarterbacks for decades. "I've heard accounts there wasn't a lot of coaching going on at practice [with Kiffin]. It's more, 'Run the plays and keep going.' I don't know what Lane's and Jalen's relationship is. I would have struggled making this decision one week before the game if those guys are tied at the hip."

Neuheisel's prediction: Alabama will run more tempo to get the ball out of Hurts' hands quicker to wide receivers Calvin Ridley and ArDarius Stewart, who combined for only three touches against Washington. Neuheisel expects Sarkisian to lean on the running game with Bo Scarbrough if it's working and then play-action when appropriate -- a contrast from Kiffin's desire to often hunt for home-run plays.

"They bring two different styles, two different personalities to our offense," Alabama running back Damien Harris said of Kiffin and Sarkisian. "[Sarkisian] has done a good job of being hands-on in practice and coaching us up and really showing us he's here, this is his job now, and we're trying to make him feel comfortable in order to win on Monday night."

Williams said practices with Sarkisian have been Alabama's fastest since fall camp in order to run as many plays as possible to improve the offense's efficiency.

"In individual periods, I see [Sarkisian] running around. He always has a lot of energy," Williams said. "I think Kiffin is a little more laid-back. He's the mastermind that drafts up the stuff, but his thing isn't really to be out there running around coordinating. It's more the creation of the plays. It's been different in that regard. They're both good in separate ways."

CBS Sports analyst Aaron Taylor, a former Notre Dame offensive lineman, wonders how Sarkisian will handle calling plays again.

"Where's the confidence factor and how does he handle the situation?" Taylor said. "Is he prepared to do that? Probably not. But from a players' standpoint, you're going to defer to that voice. You're going to trust your head coach that this gives you the best chance to win."

Sarkisian hasn't called plays since the end of the 2014 season. Is there rust to knock off?

"We'll find out Monday night," Sarkisian said. "But the reality is I've been doing this a long time."

One benefit for the Crimson Tide is they have excellent offensive assistant coaches. Mario Cristobal, Burtons Burns, Brent Key and Billy Napier can assist Sarkisian in game-planning.

"I think that's what good assistants do anyway," Burns said. "Obviously, it's not an easy transition, if you think about it. He's got a good personality where he explains to the players where we're at now and you can't worry about yesterday."

Switching to Sarkisian has "given us a little bit of a shot in the arm," Napier said. "It's a little bit of rally the troops and let's finish the thing."

Alabama radio analyst Phil Savage, a former NFL general manager, said the Crimson Tide will have to rehearse the way the game will be called in terms of the mechanics. He thinks changing to Sarkisian could produce technical corrections for Hurts, who went 7 of 14 for 57 yards against Washington and often struggled to see receivers quickly.

"I think there's enough pride on the offensive side of the ball they want to go win this national championship and they want to prove they can do it without Lane Kiffin," Savage said.

Now there's an odd rallying cry. Forget win one for the Gipper. Alabama wants to win one without the Kiffin.

"It's not really a jab at Kiffin," Williams said. "It's more we're behind Sark. Honestly, I think the biggest point for us is we want to reach our potential for once."

This is "The Voice," Alabama style.