Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (Hawaii playoff T-shirts sold separately):

[More Dash: Predictions | Who’s in pressure cooker? | 6 brake-pump teams]

SECOND QUARTER

ALABAMA’S DECADE OF DOMINANCE

On Dec. 7, 2006, Alabama received the most fortuitous rejection notice in the annals of the sport. West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez turned down the Crimson Tide’s offer to be its next coach, which sent the school scrambling back to its original choice to replace Mike Shula in hopes he would reconsider.

Nick Saban (11) reconsidered.

The rest is history. The greatest run in history. With no end in sight.

After taking one season to get up and running, Saban rocketed Alabama back to elite status in 2008. The Crimson Tide has not left the highest echelon since. In fact, what the program has done from 2008-17 is unmatched. It is the single best decade of work ever.

Will Nick Saban and Alabama be celebrating another title this season? (AP) More

The only other school and coach that can claim five national titles in a 10-season span is Minnesota and Bernie Bierman in the 1930s and ’40s, but the first two of the Gophers’ championships (1934-35) came before the wire-service poll era. The ability to authoritatively claim national titles began when the Associated Press started its rankings in 1936. Everything before then is subject to murky revisionism.

Thus using results from 1936 onward, The Dash has ranked the five greatest one-decade stretches under a single coach:

Alabama 2008-17. Coach: Nick Saban. Record: 125-14. Winning percentage: .899. National titles: five.

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Notre Dame 1942-53*. Coach: Frank Leahy (12). Record: 79-11-6. Winning percentage: .854. National titles: four. (*Leahy missed the 1944 and ’45 seasons serving in the Navy during World War II, then returned in 1946.)

Oklahoma 1948-57. Coach: Bud Wilkinson (13). Record: 97-7-2. Winning percentage: .925. National titles: three.

Nebraska 1988-97. Coach: Tom Osborne (14). Record: 108-15-1. Winning percentage: .875. National titles: three.

Alabama 1959-68. Coach: Bear Bryant (15). Record: 91-13-5. Winning percentage: .858. National titles: three.

SABAN’S GREATEST HITS AT ALABAMA

Alabama 26, Georgia 23 (OT), Jan. 8, 2018. Tua Bomb (16) provided the most dramatic ending possible to a national title game that seemed for most of the night to belong to the Bulldogs. A walk-off touchdown pass by a backup freshman quarterback left even perma-stoic Saban leaping in the air. Halftime decision to change QBs took some self-confidence — many coaches would have gone down swinging with their struggling starter.

Alabama 32, Florida 13, Dec. 5, 2009. The game that changed ownership of the SEC and broke Urban Meyer. Five-point underdog Alabama — the last time it wasn’t favored in a postseason game — ended the Gators’ 22-game winning streak and repeats national title bid by dominating both lines of scrimmage and throttling Tim Tebow. Payback for disappointing SEC title game loss the year before, and the biggest win in what surprisingly is Saban’s only undefeated season.

Alabama 45, Clemson 40, Jan. 11, 2016. Another tense title game that turned on a bold Saban decision — this one an onside kick in the fourth quarter of a tie game. The play worked perfectly, and ‘Bama scored 21 points in the final 10 minutes to win a shootout over Deshaun Watson and the Tigers.

Alabama 21, LSU 0, Jan. 9, 2012. Any brief claim Les Miles had to being boss of the SEC ended in suffocating fashion in the Superdome. The Tigers had beaten the Tide earlier in the season in Tuscaloosa, but a frenzied ‘Bama defense held them to 92 yards and five first downs in the rematch. To the ongoing angst of LSU fans, this wipeout began the Tide’s current seven-game winning streak in the series.

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