BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - From this point forward, you are forbidden from using the letters N, F and L when addressing Nick Saban, with the following exceptions:

You may ask him about a player’s decision to leave or not leave early for the NFL. See, for example, D.J. Fluker, AJ McCarron and C.J. Mosley.

You may ask him about the number of players this year’s Alabama team is losing to the NFL draft, what type of future those players have in pro football and how those losses may affect next year’s Alabama team.

In any other context, mention those letters in that order in his presence, and you risk having the door slammed in your face. Literally and figuratively. He might even forgo the use of his favorite toy, the remote-control door opener, and slam it by hand.

As Saban said Thursday, when asked for the second time in the last week and the 72nd time in the last month to close the door on returning to the NFL, "I closed the door. The damn hinges are wore off, Dawg."

Yes, 61-year-old four-time national championship coach Nick Saban said Dawg. If that didn’t make Mike Greenberg of ESPN Radio’s "Mike & Mike in the Morning" tuck his tail between his legs, nothing will.

Short of saying, “I guess I have to say it: I’m not going to be an NFL coach,” Saban said exactly that. Or meant it. For the second time this week, he displayed the kind of positive self-awareness he was lacking eight years ago, when he made the mistake of leaving LSU for the Miami Dolphins.

He’s older and wiser now, and he realizes two things. He has a better chance to have a real impact on college players, and he has a much better chance to choose his own players at the college level.

He's got the best job in the world - for him.

It's not because college players don't question him. It's because they listen to him. It's not because he can't win in the NFL. It's because no one can win in the NFL the way he wins at Alabama.

Recruiting beats drafting and free agency every day of the week and twice on Saturdays and Sundays. Saban made that clear the morning after Alabama beat Notre Dame to secure his fourth national title in his last eight years as a college coach. (Read that again and try not to be impressed.)

“People say you can draft the players that you want to draft,” he said. “You can draft a player that's there when you pick. It might not be the player you need. It might not be the player you want.”

Not only that, but in the NFL, if you win the Super Bowl, you pick last in the next draft. Alabama just won its third college Super Bowl in the last four years, and it still gets first pick in a lot of cases.

At some point, Saban realized you have a better chance to win at Alabama than you do anywhere in the NFL. His old colleague, Bill Belichick, runs the most consistently successful organization at the next level. Belichick won three Super Bowls in four years - and hasn’t won another one in the last seven years.

Parity may be alive and well in the NFL, but that concept doesn’t sit well with a coach such as Saban. What was his favorite word at his introductory press conference in Tuscaloosa? “Dominate.”

One way you dominate is by choosing very good players and more of them than almost anyone you play. Everyone knows Saban and his staff do that as well as anyone in college football, but it goes beyond finding someone that fits the physical template.

Linebackers coach Lance Thompson said he has three or four questions he asks every recruit, and the answers let him know if that kid can play for Saban. Most of the ones that do see a different side of the head coach than the rest of us.

Ask Rex Jones. He’s sent two sons, Barrett and Harrison, to Alabama. A third Jones boy, Walker, is headed that way. Saban and Barrett Jones “really bonded,” Rex Jones said.

"That's the thing that most people don't understand about Coach Saban," the elder Jones said Thursday on the Smashmouth Radio Network on ESPN 973 The Zone.

"He really is a players' coach."

That's the thing it took two years in Miami for Saban to fully understand. He really is a college coach.

“I think somewhere along the line you’ve got to choose,” Saban said.

Clearly, he’s made his choice. The rest of us can choose to believe him or not.

Thompson believes him. This is the third time he’s worked for Saban, and he knows him better than most assistants. Before returning to Alabama a year ago, Thompson wanted to know something.

“I asked Coach, ‘Are you going to stay at Alabama?’ “ Thompson said. “He said, ‘Yes. My next stop’s the lake.’ “

That would be his lake house at Lake Burton, Ga. That was good enough for Thompson.

“I think we’re all here for the long haul,” he said. “This is as good as it gets as a college football coach.”

That sound you just heard was a door closing. One more time, with feeling. Next question.

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Email: scarbinsky@gmail.com

Follow: @KevinScarbinsky

Listen: Weekdays from 6-10 a.m., on ESPN 97.3 The Zone on the Smashmouth Radio Network.