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Alabama coach Nick Saban and then-Florida coach Urban Meyer meet at a luncheon Dec. 4, 2009, the day before Alabama beat Florida 32-13 in the 2009 SEC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. (AP photo)

The last two times they met, Nick Saban made Urban Meyer quit.

Literally.

So with Saban and Alabama headed toward a Jan. 1 semifinal playoff game against Meyer and Ohio State in New Orleans, the Ohio State AD might want to update his list of potential coaching candidates.

Just in case.

The 2009 SEC Championship Game will go down in history as the day Saban replaced Meyer as the alpha male in the conference and Alabama regained its historic place as top dog, kicking the Gators' tail 32-13.

That night, Meyer fell ill and went to the hospital. He would decide to resign as the Florida coach after that health scare, then later change his mind and return.

Their 2010 regular-season meeting in Tuscaloosa was no more competitive. Alabama won 31-6, and when the season ended, Meyer stepped down again. This time, his resignation stuck.

He took a year off to spend more time with his ESPN family, and then took the Ohio State job. In his three seasons in Columbus, the Buckeyes have lost exactly one regular-season game.

Renewing the Saban-Meyer rivalry of two Type-AAA personalities in one semifinal looks like something the Division I Men's Basketball Committee does with the NCAA Tournament field. Ditto for placing last year's Heisman winner, FSU quarterback Jameis Winston, against this year's presumed winner, Oregon's Marcus Mariota in the other semifinal.

Asked how much of the College Football Playoff committee's discussion involved those storylines, chairman Jeff Long said what you would expect him to say. "Absolutely none."

Believe that or not, but give the committee members credit. They got it right. They got the right four teams, based on overall body of work, and they put them in the correct order. The Big 12 was the Power 5 conference that was left out of the playoff, but that league has no one to blame but itself thanks to its absence of a conference championship game and its failure to declare a champion between 11-1 Baylor and 11-1 TCU.

If Baylor's looking for someone to blame, Art Briles can look in the mirror, too. His philosophy of filling his non-conference schedule with Twinkies came back to bite the No. 5 Bears.

It's a tribute to Saban and his eighth Crimson Tide football team that they earned the No. 1 seed in the first four-team playoff. In what should've been a rebuilding year, they lost one game by one play at Ole Miss. In a year of parity across the country, they proved to be the most complete team in all three phases.

And unlike a year ago, they got better throughout the season and played one of their best games in the 42-13 rout of Missouri in the SEC Championship Game.

Now we get to spend the next 3 1/2 weeks anticipating the next meeting of two of college football's coaching giants in Saban and Meyer. Saban has won four national titles, and Meyer has won two, but two things are important to note in any comparisons.

Saban has won three national championships since Meyer last reached the summit, and Saban is at least part of the reason Meyer is coaching in the Big Ten, not the SEC.

"I know what kind of coach Urban Meyer is," Saban said Sunday, complimenting his old rival.

We know what kind of coach Meyer is, too. He's a very good one who wins everywhere he goes. He just wins a little more when he doesn't have to contend with Saban.