TAMPA -- It's not just that there is no precedent in major American sports for the decision by Alabama head coach Nick Saban to elevate Steve Sarkisian from back-of-the-shop analyst to front-of-the-sideline offensive coordinator one week before the national championship. It's also that Saban hasn't been excoriated for the extraordinary timing of such a personnel change.
Two things: One, when you win five national championships in the past 13 years, you get the benefit of the doubt. And two, for all the pains that Alabama and the departed Lane Kiffin took to paint this as a mutual decision, when did Saban ever make a mutual decision?