Maybe because I'm an Auburn guy and I'm not wired for glory like ya'll, but I just think that if I was a Bama alum, my thought would be "we're not replacing Saban, he gave us arguably the best run in the history of the game, the best we can do is try and find someone who will squeeze what's left of the structure he put in place and keep us in the running until we land on a guy who is a championship-level coach who'll want to do it his way."

In other words, it was an amazing run, but it's over. That doesn't mean Bama won't be in the playoff next season and won't win a title again in the next handful of years (necessarily). But unless it's Kirby, anyone else who dominates the game, even for a brief period at Bama, is likely to have his own way of doing things and isn't just going to operate within a system Saban created. That's just the reality of elite leaders.

I do think someone like Lanning could come in and keep you at a top 5ish level for a few years, maybe win a title, and if all that came together he might be inclined to keep things more akin to how they are now because his formative success came within that "machine". But my guess is that someone like that would have some initial success but wouldn't be able to replicate enough and he'd be gone within 5-6 years. And then you're looking for another up and comer or an established elite coach, and at that point you're fully into a new era of Bama football.