If you count both the national championships Paul “Bear” Bryant won and those his coaching protégés produced, the number reaches double digits.

Yes, that coaching tree is solid oak.

Bryant won six titles during his days at Alabama and Gene Stallings won another one for the Tide in 1992, 13 years after Bryant won his final championship in Tuscaloosa.

Paul Dietzel won a title at LSU in 1958, Danny Ford got one in Clemson in 1981 and two years later Miami won the crown under Howard Schnellenberger.

Three of those guys played for Bryant in College: Stallings at Texas A&M, Schnellenberger at Kentucky and Ford at Alabama, while Dietzel served as offensive line coach under Bryant at Kentucky in 1951 and 1952.

“You couldn’t coach like Coach Bryant, you had to coach your own personality, but we all picked up things from him that helped make us good football coaches,” Stallings told The Tuscaloosa News.

Several more on the extensive Bryant tree coached their teams to at least one conference championship, including Mike DuBose at Alabama in 1999, Pat Dye at Auburn in 1983 and 1987-89, Jackie Sherrill at Texas A&M from 1985-87, Charley Pell at Clemson in 1978, Jerry Claiborne at Maryland from 1974-76, Jim Owens at Washington in 1959-60 and 1963 and Steve Sloan at Texas Tech in 1976.

Sloan would go on to work as athletic director at four schools over 20 years, including at Alabama.

Four coaches on the tree served as head coaches in the NFL, including Stallings with the Cardinals from 1986-89, Ray Perkins with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1987-90, Richard Williamson with the Bucs in 1990-91 after Perkins’ firing and Bruce Arians with the Houston Texans from 2013 to present. Arians served as running backs coach in Bryant’s final years in the Capstone. Amos Jones, a graduate assistant on those last Bryant teams, would later coach special teams for the Cardinals under Arians.

Sylvester Croom, a player under Bryant, was hired at Mississippi State in 2004 as the first black head coach in the history of the SEC. He now serves as running backs coach for the Tennessee Titans.

John Mitchell broke even more racial barriers. In 1971, he and Wilbur Jackson became the first black players at Alabama, and then in his second year, Mitchell was named the first black co-captain at the school. The following year he became both the school’s and the SEC’s first black assistant coach. Mitchell now serves as defensive line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Mike Riley, the former head man at Oregon State and now coach of Nebraska, also played for Bear. South Alabama’s coach, Joey Jones, also played for the Crimson Tide in the Bryant era. David Cutcliffe, Duke’s coach, served as a student assistant at Alabama under Bryant.

As much success as that coaching tree has had there is one inescapable fact about Bryant: He whipped his coaching offspring. The Bear was 43-6 against his former players and assistants.