re: What would Alabama be without Nick Saban?

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Well...let's see.

When Mike DuBose was hired in 1996/1997, he was hired by an athletic director who pissed Stallings off so much that he resigned. Also at that time we had a university president who was looking to de-emphasize athletics. The DuBose hire was a bad one made by an incompetent AD who bowed to pressure from the fan base rather than doing a proper coaching search.

Dennis Franchione was actually a good hire. He turned a 3-8 Alabama team into a 7-5 one the following year, before producing Alabama's second best team of the 00s in 2002. That team was tough, physical, and would have finished the season 11-2 and in the Top 5 if not for Fran deliberately blowing the Iron Bowl. The way that team was playing by the end of the year, it could have beaten Georgia in a rematch in the SEC Championship Game had it been eligible.

Mike Shula was a desperation hire after the Mike Price scandal. Price would have been a good fit for Croyle and the offensive personnel at Alabama. But unfortunately he paid for a stripper using a university credit card. He was fired in the month of May, a time when no one of substance would have taken on that job. Shula showed some real balls taking on that job. He just lacked the experience and the skills required to grow and learn in the position.

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All of this and you could have just said "we weren't very good".

The thing is, this goes for. Every. Single. Program. In the country. You are far more likely to have a "meh" hire after Saban. There aren't many programs who have had a very successful coach who hired another who came in and had similar success except 2 that I can think of off the top of my head. LSU and Oregon. This isn't to say that either of those programs are historically what Alabama is, but just that we both have gotten extremely lucky. The chances are far and away better that they slip back to mid tier for a while.

Btw, I excluded FSU simply because of the abysmal state that the program was left in prior to Jimbo's taking over. I'm speaking of coaches that left on their own terms and the program stayed relevant.