On Nick Saban's coaching tree, and the CFP it sprouted | Goodbread

Key Highlights

• Then there's Oregon coach Dan Lanning, whose Saban connection is the most tenuous — a graduate assistant role for one year, albeit a national championship year in 2015. Heck, even the coach who was supposed to be leading Ole Miss through the playoff, Lane Kiffin, was a Saban assistant, too.
• And lest anyone forget, the most successful and prominent branch off the Saban tree of all, Kirby Smart, reached a CFP quarterfinal and lost to Golding's Rebels. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt can't be easy for Saban to have a rooting interest in college football's version of the Final Four. It should come as little surprise that a championship is in the offing among the 18 FBS head coaches who worked under Saban, but it is quite remarkable that with four teams remaining, one is already guaranteed.
• Of course, it won't be the first time.
• Smart has won a pair of them at Georgia, and Jimbo Fisher, a Sabanite from his LSU days, won a national title at Florida State.
• Somebody else — and the prediction here is Oregon's Lanning — will join Smart and Fisher at the top of the treehouse. Beyond this season, Steve Sarkisian at Texas and Kiffin at LSU would have to be considered the primary threats to expand the club of national championship coaches with experience in a Saban program.