Nick Saban just won his seventh national championship, as we're all painfully aware, surpassing Bear Bryant for number one all-time.

I've been saying for a while that Nick Saban broke college football, because Alabama fans now think this is normal, and other fans point to Alabama and say "let's just do that."

It's just not so simple.  You can't just throw money at this and get those results.  If money was all it took, Oregon would have done it long ago, and Maryland wouldn't be hiring castaways like Dan Enos to be their OC.

What Nick Saban's doing is so historically unbelievable that I don't think he could repeat what he's accomplished if you produced a time machine and brought a younger version of him forward to replace himself.

Since 2008, Nick Saban is 163-17. He lost a grand total of 17 games in 13 seasons.  From 2000-07 Alabama lost 37 games.  The sheer fact that he took a program that lost six or more games five times in eight seasons and only lost 17 games over the next 13 seasons is just something that puts him into to the territory of greatest coach of all-time, not just greatest college football coach ever.

So, in my mind, it begs the question - Is it all downhill from here?  Even if the decline on that hill isn't a steep grade, it seems like there's nowhere to go but down.

Where can it go from here?  Is it really even possible for Saban to maintain what he's built at this level?  How do you improve upon the #1 SP+ rated team in college football history?  Nothing like this has ever happened before, so it just makes me wonder how long it can last. 

It honestly makes me wonder if believe that now is the right time for Saban to retire.  You can't get anymore on top than this.