As he enters his ninth season with Alabama, Nick Saban has produced some pretty impressive numbers.

Three national titles. Three SEC championships. Five SEC West crowns. An 86-17 record.

He’s taken some hits for how the Crimson Tide has performed in its last two postseason losses, to Oklahoma and Ohio State, respectively. The hiring of Lane Kiffin definitely raised some eyebrows and piqued some people’s curiosities, but all the offensive coordinator did in his first year in Tuscaloosa was help Blake Sims have a school record-setting season as a quarterback as Alabama fell two wins short of its 16th national championship.

During Alabama’s incredible eight-year run of success under Saban, coaches and players have come and gone, but the one constant has been Saban himself. He is arguably the best defensive mind in college football today, but his decision-making regarding every quarterback to start for him at Alabama has been spot on.

John Parker Wilson, Greg McElroy, AJ McCarron and Blake Sims have all had some pretty incredible seasons under Saban, and the Crimson hopes that trend continues in 2015. Just like last year, when Sims had to beat out Jacob Coker for the team’s starting nod at QB, Alabama finds itself in a similar situation. It has multiple candidates — including Coker — in contention to start Saturday’s season-opener against Wisconsin, with no clear-cut No. 1 named just yet.

Among the three remaining possibilities to start, only Coker has on-field experience for Alabama with his 100 pass attempts, but Alec Morris and Cooper Bateman also have skills that could help them take the Tide’s first snaps this year. The uncertainty about Bama’s starting quarterback is understandable, but for multiple reasons, there is no reason to hit the panic button.

Remember how much doubt there was before Sims finally outlasted Coker to win last year’s competition? When you consider the fact that Sims started his Alabama career as a running back, his transformation into a player who threw for a school-record 3,487 yards last season is remarkable, and Kiffin deserves a majority of the credit for it.

Because Kiffin has now proven that he can be a successful offensive coordinator in the SEC, the player who eventually replaces Sims as this year’s starting QB should feel confident that he will definitely be put in a position to succeed.

What will also help this year’s starter immensely is the weapons he will have at his disposal. Derrick Henry — who has averaged 6.6 yards per carry in the last two seasons — and Kenyan Drake return to the backfield. Robert Foster, ArDarius Stewart and Chris Black — although inexperienced — all have a chance to step in and have big seasons at wide receiver. Plus, returning tight end O.J. Howard can serve as a valuable pass-catching outlet.

Another factor that will benefit this year’s eventual starting quarterback is the possibility that Alabama’s defense could be its best since Kirby Smart’s 2011 group, which led the nation by allowing just 183.8 yards per game and helped the Tide win the national title. In other words, based on whoever wins the quarterback race, Alabama might be able to resort to “game-manager” mode with its starting signal-caller, which obviously worked to perfection with McElroy in 2009 and McCarron in 2011, his first season as the Crimson Tide’s starter.

At the very worst, if Saban doesn’t decide upon a clear-cut starter by Saturday, he could play multiple QBs against the Badgers. It’s obviously not the ideal scenario, but at the very least, it will allow a true No. 1 to emerge based on what he does in actual games and not solely his performance in practice and intrasquad scrimmages.

Days before its opening kickoff, Alabama goes into this season with some legitimate areas of concern. The offensive line, which is replacing three starters from a year ago, has been rebuilt. The secondary, which surrendered 19 passing plays of 30 yards or longer last year, must improve. And the most significant position — starting QB — is yet to be filled.

But because of Saban’s quarterback-picking prowess, Kiffin’s offensive system and Alabama’s defense and skill-position players in 2015, worries about the Crimson Tide’s first-string signal-caller — however legitimate — should be minimal.