Just 28 years old, Paul W. Bryant hit the road for what was supposed to be a life-changing drive one particular Sunday morning.

Then an up-and-coming Vanderbilt assistant coach, Bryant had just helped his team upset top-10 Alabama. His name was a hot topic in the Arkansas newspapers as pressure grew on Razorbacks coach Fred Thomsen.

So the fast-rising star from the southeast corner of the state was headed home for what seemed like a slam-dunk job interview.

"I wasn't ready," Bryant recalled in a 1979 Associated Press story, "but I thought I might get it."

According to the press, his hiring was a foregone conclusion Sunday morning when his car departed Nashville.

That was Dec. 7, 1941.

Everything changed that morning -- the direction of the country and, in a less-significant way, two college football programs. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor sent the United States head first into another World War.

Bryant never coached his home state's flagship university. Instead, he entered the United States Navy on a career trajectory that eventually heeded mama's call back to the alma mater in 1958.

Now, 75 years later, Alabama and Arkansas took much different roads to top-20 rankings in early October 2016. Bryant went on to win six national titles with the Crimson Tide while the Razorbacks toiled for another 17 years until Frank Broyles brought the program to national prominence.

But it's hard to not wonder how things would've been different if that day of infamy was just another Sunday morning.

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Vanderbilt wasn't exactly an SEC power when Bryant took the job coaching the line in 1940. The Commodores went 3-6-1 in his first season after Bryant left his job as an Alabama assistant coach.

Year 2 was different, though. Vanderbilt was 7-1 entering a Nov. 22 visit from No. 8 Alabama. A 7-0 upset of the Tide was front page news in the next day's Nashville Tennessean newspaper.

"Bear Bryant hugged the game ball to his breast and said through tears, 'Nobody will ever take this away from me. I'll keep this as long as I live,'" read the story under the headline "Commodores Tearfully Happy; Bear Bryant Sobs Over Victory."

In Arkansas, things weren't so chipper. The Razorbacks were busy going 3-7 in 1941 -- a fourth straight losing season under 13-year coach Fred Thomsen. He had a 56-61-10 record with a tie in the program's only bowl appearance.

The locals weren't happy about where things were headed. A majority of Arkansas trustees agreed to terminate the contract that paid Thomsen $6,000 a year, according to a story from the Associated Press. They'd meet within two weeks to make it official.

That was Dec. 6, 1941.

A few days before that, the bold headline "Bryant No. 1 Arkansas Job Candidate" ran in the Tennessean. It cited the Arkansas Gazette reporting Bryant was the "strongest candidate" when Thomsen was canned. It said Bryant "is backed by important powers in the statehouse." Still, Bryant told the Tennessean reporting from Arkansas "is news to me."

"I haven't been contacted or in touch with the Arkansas situation at all," he told the Tennessean for a Dec. 3 story.

Found on Newspapers.com

This was a complex situation for the young coach. Tennessean sports writer Will Grimsley wrote about Bryant's relationship with the embattled Arkansas coach.

"Bryant and Thomsen are friends of ancient vintage," Grimsley wrote. "For years they've hunted, fished and chummed together in Arkansas. Every time Bear returns to his home bailiwick, Thomsen is the first guy he looks up."

Still, he wrote they expected Bryant to take the job when it was offered. He'd be hailed as a hero returning to the home-state program that had never been much of a player in the Southwest Conference.

"Bear, they claim, can get every man in Arkansas just by saying the word," Grimsley closed his column writing.

It ran Dec. 7.

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Kirk McNair was Alabama's assistant sports information director in 1971. Part of his job was preparing the press release for Bryant's 200th coaching win. So he sat down with the legendary coach to talk about the old days.

Bryant recalled his stops at Maryland and Kentucky.

"He just sort of reminisced for a minute that he thought his first coaching job would have been in 1941," said McNair, the longtime editor and publisher of BamaMag.com.

The story Bryant told McNair was haunting. His drive from Nashville to Fayetteville left him near Memphis when the news bulletin came across his radio. Pearl Harbor was under attack.

"Well, there wasn't going to be any football coaching in his future," Bryant told McNair. "He was going to be going into the military. So he turned around and went back to Nashville."

News coverage shifted away from football in the days that followed. Bryant's name wasn't mentioned in connection to the Arkansas job until a Dec. 18 brief in the Tennessean.

'The Japanese chose an opportune time to strike for Fred Thomsen, Arkansas coach and an inopportune time for Bear Bryant, Vandy's able line mentor," the story read. "Had the Japs waited 10 days, it was almost certain that Arkansas would have brought up Thomsen's contract and awarded it to Bryant -- if Bear wanted it."

Found on Newspapers.com

The call to service was stronger than football. Newspapers in February 1942 announced Bryant's decision to enter the Navy. Thomsen remained as Arkansas' coach until the following August when he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He left the program in the hands of his coaching staff just before the season started.

Officially, it was called a leave of absence for Bryant at Vanderbilt, but he never returned.

"Few have realized the extent of Bryant's talent and fewer realized his ability to organize a forward wall was largely responsible for the Commodores' grid victories the last two seasons, especially against Purdue and Alabama," the Vanderbilt newspaper "The Hustler" wrote when Bryant left for the Navy.

Two years later in 1943, Bryant survived a deadly collision between boats in Northern Africa. He never saw combat. According to Keith Dunnavant's 1996 biography, Bryant spent most of his time overseas as a physical training specialist in Morocco.

Football was waiting stateside. Bryant was an assistant at Georgia Pre-Flight and North Carolina Pre-Flight during the war.

Four years after Pearl Harbor ended Bryant's first shot at a head coaching job, Maryland gave him that title. Victory had been declared in both Europe and the Pacific.

There was an effort to bring Bryant to Arkansas again in 1952 when he was coaching at Kentucky. The Associated Press reported a three-hour meeting between Bryant and Arkansas leaders, but he ultimately stayed in Kentucky another year before heading to Texas A&M for four seasons.

His return to Alabama in 1958 began a 25-season run that left him among the best who ever coached. Arkansas struggled until Frank Broyles was hired the same season Bryant returned to Tuscaloosa. He built the Razorbacks into a power -- finishing in the top 10 on nine occasions. The 1964 season ended with a perfect 11-0 record but Arkansas was No. 2 in the AP poll behind Bryant's Alabama team before the Tide lost to Texas in the Orange Bowl.

It was one of six national titles Bryant won at Alabama. The 1964 run was as close as Arkansas would come to the mountaintop.

What could have been, though?

McNair didn't think the events of 1941 weighed too heavily on Bryant after joining the Navy

"I think with Coach Bryant, you don't worry about what might have been," McNair said. "You're focused on what he is. I don't think it ever occurred to him 'Oh, woe is me.'

"It was just the next thing he had to do."