Just A Minute: A lot of People Looked Bad With Scott Cochran's Move, but not Nick Saban

Normally I hate the phrase, “What a difference a week makes” because it’s cliché.

But in this case it’s certainly true, and no, I’m not talking about the presidential election.

Last week, Alabama football was being verbally flayed both locally and nationally, with some of the headlines and pronouncements as follows:

“Tide dynasty over?”

“Georgia poached Nick Saban’s most prized coach away from Alabama”

“Biggest hit ever to Saban’s staff”

“Foundation-shaking move in the SEC”

“Stealing Scott Cochran an act of war.”

Remember, this was regarding the departure of the strength and conditioning coach, not even one of the 10 official spots on the coaching staff.

As noted here last week, Cochran’s leaving for Georgia was widely being hailed as a fleecing by Kirby Smart, and another sign that Saban’s best days are behind him.

Only those same critics seemed to forget that Cochran has never been a football coach before, and it turned out he had to take a pay cut in order to try and advance his career in a different direction.

There’s nothing wrong with one challenging themselves and putting their money where their mouth is. Kudos and good luck to Cochran.

Of course, Saban went out and then landed the sports performance tandem that just about every college and pro team in the world would covet, David Ballou and Dr. Matt Rhea, from Indiana.

The two will spearhead Alabama’s new Sports Science Center, which is under construction. It’s been described as being a cutting-edge facility designed to help athletes recover and prevent injury.

With the move, Saban showed that he’s still Nick Saban, and everyone else in college football is still looking up to him.

Meanwhile, Smart continues to look like he has Crimson Tide envy.

When he left after the 2015 season, Smart took with him Alabama’s recruiting boards, although that’s honestly not unusual. He brought along the likes of Mel Tucker, Glenn Schumann and Kevin Sherrer for his coaching staff. Smart installed his own version of the process and it helped vault the Bulldogs to the top of the SEC East and to the national championship game.

Along the way he’s been accused of being a copycat.

“I don’t think (Saban’s system) comes with an easy copycat or footprint,” Smart told DawgNation last year, “because it has worked sometimes, and it hasn’t worked sometimes with people that have left Nick’s (coaching) tree.”

Yet Cochran’s addition won’t help shed that reputation.

Schumann is still with the Bulldogs and defensive coordinator Dan Lanning spent the 2015 season as Alabama's graduate assistant with the outside linebackers.

So what did we learn from this?

The Crimson Tide and Saban are still at the forefront of college football;

The sensationalism surrounding the game has never been stronger;

And one can still hear jokes in Tuscaloosa that if something’s gone missing a good place to search for it might be Athens, Ga.