TALLAHASSEE – While the relationship between Jimbo Fisher and Nick Saban represents one of the most modern and obvious connections between Florida State and Alabama, it’s far from the first. It might not even be the most significant.

Florida State’s 70-year-old football program is filled with ties to Tuscaloosa: From a legendary head coach to legendary assistants to legendary administrators.

About the only place that the two programs don’t have an extensive history is on the field itself, although that will be changing soon. The Seminoles and Crimson Tide have met just four times, but they’ll add a significant new chapter to that story on Saturday, when No. 3 FSU plays No. 1 Alabama at the Chick-fil-A Kickoff in Atlanta.

Perhaps it’s only appropriate that a game billed as the greatest opener of all time will take place between programs whose histories are so intertwined.

“It’s kind of unique,” said Billy Sexton, who played quarterback at Alabama and Florida State before serving as an FSU assistant from 1977-2006. “This is a great game. … These are two great universities.”

“I think it’s going to be an outstanding football game,” added Mickey Andrews, FSU’s stalwart defensive coordinator from 1984-2009 and a receiver and defensive back at Alabama from 1961-64. “I just really believe it’s going to be one of those games that’s not decided until the fourth quarter.”

Andrews and Sexton both played for the iconic Bear Bryant in Tuscaloosa before helping coach Bobby Bowden build Florida State into one of the nation’s premier programs.

Bowden, of course, had deep roots with the University of Alabama, too.

A Birmingham native, Bowden grew up in the shadow of the Crimson Tide, and he played quarterback at UA in 1948 before moving home to attend Howard College (now Samford University).

As a coach, Bowden idolized Bryant and often said he dreamt of one day following in Bryant’s footsteps at Alabama. He twice received strong overtures from UA – in 1986 and again in 1990 – but each time remained with what was then a rising program at Florida State.

“I always thought my calling would be to end up at the University of Alabama,” Bowden told radio host Paul Finebaum in 2015. “I just said that’s how things are going to work out.”