Billy Donovan is the greatest college coach in this state's history.

Football or basketball.

Every time I try to make this argument, the football helmet-heads around here, get this bumfuzzled look on their face and act as if I've just said something so nonsensically Seussian -- "I'll load up five boats with a family of Joats, whose feet are like cows, but wear squirrel-skin coats!" -- they can't comprehend it.

Then, because their football-concussed brains can't quite grasp what I'm saying, they turn angry and indignant.

How can you say Billy Donovan is a greater coach than Bobby Bowden?

Than Steve Spurrier or Urban Meyer?

Than Howard Schnellenberger or Jimmy Johnson?

This is how: Because when you are the greatest of anything, it means you have done something nobody else ever has. The dictionary tells us that greatness means you have accomplished a feat that is "important; highly significant or consequential." It means you possess "unusual merit."

Here's all you need to know: There have been seven different college football coaches in this state that have won 10 national titles -- Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier, Urban Meyer, Howard Schnellenberger, Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson and Larry Coker. And this is my point: How hard can it be in this state to win a national title in football when run-of-the-mill coaches like Coker won one and Dennis Erickson won two?

But do you know how many coaches have won national titles in basketball in this state?

That's right, only one. And his name is William John "Billy" Donovan. And he's not just won one; he's won two. And, oh by the way, he played for another in 2000 that his critics always seem to forget about when they stupidly claim those back-to-back championships in 2006-2007 were flukes.

And now, here he is again with yet another team that might have a chance to win another championship. Donovan's senior-laden Gators are coming off a regular season in which they won just the third outright SEC title in school history. Other coaches have come and gone in the SEC, but Billy Dominant just keeps coming.

For as much as he has accomplished, Donovan still gets amazingly little credit for a coach who has had 13 straight 20-win seasons. I don't believe national analysts, sports fans in this state or even Gator fans in Gainesville realize that a legend is in our midst. It should tell you something about how underappreciated Donovan is that he's been at UF for 15 seasons and this is the first time he's ever been named SEC Coach of the Year.

He's only 45 years old and already he is third in SEC history in career victories behind Adolph Rupp and Dale Brown. His two national titles at such a young age put him in elite company as well. Only Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight ever won two national titles by the time they were Donovan's age. Trivia question: You know how many national titles John Wooden had won by age 45?

Answer: None.

If Donovan wins one more national title, he has as many as Knight. If he wins two more, he ties Krzyzewski and Adolph Rupp and trails only Wooden.

"Billy Donovan is one of the great basketball minds in this country," UCF head coach Donnie Jones, a former Donovan assistant, told me earlier this season. "To walk into this state and create a college basketball identity and culture where it's never been done before is amazing."

Even more amazing than what Bowden did at Florida State. I've often said Bowden might be the greatest college football coach of all time because he created a national championship program at a place that had no tradition or infrastructure. Bear Bryant was great at Alabama, but the Tide won national titles and had immense booster support long before Bear even got there. Same with Joe Paterno at Penn State, who took over for Hall of Fame coach Rip Engle, who had already built the Nittany Lions into an Eastern power. Bobby didn't just put FSU on the map; he drew the map.

The same goes for Billy. He has created an elite program out of nothing. But unlike Bobby, he's done it in a sport that for far too long has been treated as a second-class citizen in this football-fanatical pigskin peninsula.

Billy has been a basketball beacon and led his sport out of the dark ages and into the Florida sunshine.

This is why he will go down as the greatest college coach this state has ever known.

mbianchi@tribune.com Read Mike Bianchi's Open Mike blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/openmike and listen to his Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on 740-AM.