As the new year is right around the corner, there is a dense fog that approaches, it involves scouts, high schools, parents, eligibility and scholarships. This fog is the immense chaos of college football recruiting. This is bloodline of major college football programs. The right recruits can change not only a program’s future but also a university’s future. Sometimes, the best recruits are not influenced by program tradition, campus lifestyle, or even academics (Sorry Notre Dame and Stanford) , but the charismatic prowess and power of the coaches. At Alabama, there is a demi God that is the face of the city of Tuscaloosa. No, its not the mayor Walter Maddox. His name is Nicholas Lou Saban Jr. or in casual football circles: Nick Saban. Moreover, if you are a college football purist, you might call him the most powerful man in college football.
Nick Saban at Alabama is an institution, Before there was Nick Saban, the institution was Gene Stallings, and before Gene Stallings, there was Paul “Bear” Bryant. Who is probably known as the greatest college football coach of all-time and a pop culture icon because of his choice of hat…..
Its not just at Alabama, these coaches for the last 100 years have controlled the college football landscape and were trend setters of their time. Up north, you had at Penn State University you had Joe Paterno. In Ohio and Michigan you had Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler. 
In the Midwest (including Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, and Kansas State) You had Barry Switzer, Darrell Royal, Tom Osborne, and Bill Snyder.
In the west coast, you had at USC Pete Carroll and Jim McKay 
These coaches not only set the table for NFL futures and college endowments but also most of the time can seal the fate of rival coaches that lose to them. Many major college programs schools and boosters spend millions of dollars to get a coach to duplicate the successes of their counterparts but get fired and lose jobs to no avail. For example, Les Miles at LSU was about to lose his head football coaching job after a mundane 9 win regular season. Compared to 86% of major college football programs winning 9 regular season games would be an achievement here but because of the level of expectations of being the next Nick Saban. Saban’s success almost cost Les Miles his job. Moreover, in the same conference (SEC) Mark Richt also despite having a 9-3 regular season parted ways with UGA. Richt was later replaced with the defensive coordinator of Alabama (Ironically) Kirby Smart. Richt later was hired to be the new head coach of Miami (FL).
Major college football is a money grab for many parties but if you don’t deliver on national championship expectations then it can be said the turnover of being the head honcho has more cons and pros because of the expectations that are associated with the position.
unitedspeaks 