My mother is fond of saying that something good comes out of everything. With Alabama two wins away from another national championship under Nick Saban, it seems prudent to examine a few of the circumstances that may have led us here.

For instance:

1. What if Dennis Franchione had never left Alabama?

Hired from TCU to replace Mike Dubose in the wake of the embarrassment that was 2000, Franchione was universally beloved by Alabama fans pretty much from the moment he took the job. Fran was actually the third choice of athletic director Mal Moore and the UA administration that winter. Originally the university wanted Butch Davis from Miami (who spurned the university by saying he was “happy at Miami,” then fled for the Cleveland Browns two weeks later), then Frank Beamer from Virginia Tech (it’s not clear how serious this was at any point). Both were scared off, presumably, by the internal problems with the administration and the trustees and the pending NCAA probation.

So they cast their lot with Coach Fran, who won Bama hearts and minds by immediately establishing a plan and organization within the department and actually making the players work hard during the offseason (legendarily lagging under Dubose).

He owned Tuscaloosa from the moment he got there. His website, coachfran.com (which doesn’t exist anymore), made him the first coach I ever knew of to communicate with his fans directly. He brought all kinds of ridiculous slogans with him, like “Hold the Rope” and so forth, which Alabama fans ate up like cotton candy. His wife, Kim, was treated like royalty (we later learned she was unhappy with the move almost from the moment it happened). And when ESPN’s Gameday broadcast came to Tuscaloosa for the 2001 season opener vs. UCLA, Fran came to visit the set to an ovation that hadn’t been seen in some time.

On-field results were mixed — his 2001 team was predictably all over the map, and on the verge of finishing under .500 before it came alive to blast Auburn. The team ultimately finished 7-5, beating Southern Miss (postponed after the Sept. 11 attacks) and then Iowa State in the Independence Bowl. Alabama rode the momentum in the offseason by offering Fran a massive extension, essentially making him and his family the kings of the state.

But Fran never actually signed that contract extension. The NCAA dropped a massive hammer on Alabama during the offseason — he would later claim that UA officials hadn’t been forthright in the severity of the punishment — and after one 10-win season (that included ending a long losing streak vs. Tennessee and a 31-0 win over Nick Saban’s LSU in Baton Rouge), Franchione snuck out of town following a “bowl game” against Hawaii to take over for the fired R.C. Slocum at Texas A&M.

So what would’ve happened had Franchione stayed? We (sort of) have an answer to this question: Franchione was exposed as a fraud in five seasons at A&M, going 32-28 and never seriously challenging for any title of any sort (they did beat Texas in his final two seasons, which is a little unbelievable). Further, his two recruiting classes at Alabama (2001 and 2002) gave us the seasons that were 2003, 2004 and 2006.

2. What if Mike Price never took that trip to Pensacola?

After Fran’s departure, a wounded Alabama program chose to cast its lot with Mike Price, easily the most successful coach in the history of Washington State. He was coming off a season in which the Cougars reached the Rose Bowl vs. Oklahoma, and had finished 20-5 in two seasons.

It’s an impressive enough mark on its own, but at a football graveyard like Washington State? It’s arguably the best coaching job anyone did anywhere for those two seasons. It was a weird fit — Mike Price seemed like your favorite grandfather, not a college head coach — but every pundit proclaimed a huge victory for Alabama the day he was introduced.

Then, of course, the famous “golfing trip:” Price’s … whatever it was in Pensacola came to light, and he was fired within 10 days.

Whether Price would’ve won at Alabama remains one of the more fascinating “what-ifs?” on this list. After leaving Alabama — and let the record show he sued Sports Illustrated for the story that smeared his character and received a settlement — he took over a program at Texas-El Paso that started awfully strong (two 8-4 seasons, two bowl bids) but then registered 7 consecutive losing seasons and 1 bowl bid, before Price finally retired.

Could Price have recruited well at Alabama? Would he have lost four straight to Auburn, the way his successor did? We’ll never know.

3. What if Nick Saban had signed Drew Brees in the summer of 2006?

“If we’d had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.”
— Nick Saban to ESPN.com this past summer

I don’t need to sell you on Nick Saban’s chops as a college football coach at this point. We’ve trod that ground repeatedly all season.

In fact, about the only thing anybody can say negative about Saban, looking over his career, is, “Well, he failed with the Dolphins.”

It’s true that Saban will be remembered as a failure in Miami, mostly because of the messy way he left town.

But did he really fail? Saban’s first Dolphins team finished 9-7, even closing the 2005 season on a six-game winning streak (concluding with a two-point upset win over the Patriots). In fact, going into the ’06 season, the team was considered by some a sleeper pick for the Super Bowl.

However, he needed a quarterback. Despite the presence of Ronnie Brown, Ricky Williams and a rock-solid defense, Miami was playing with a huge hole at QB (Gus Frerotte, with a little Sage Rosenfels sprinkled in). Fortunately for the ‘Fins, two marquee quarterbacks were on the market that summer: Daunte Culpepper (Minnesota) and Drew Brees (San Diego).

Both were considered risks: Culpepper had just come off an unhappy season with the Vikes in which he’d been part of the surreal “Boat Trip” scandal, and had shredded his knee midway through the season; Brees was already considered trade bait because of Philip Rivers’ impending ascension to the QB spot in San Diego, and then capped off ’05 by destroying his shoulder in a nasty injury.

So Miami basically had to choose. Culpepper was the more athletic of the two, but Saban has long maintained that he wanted Drew Brees, the perfect “game manager” who could run a West Coast offense and spread the ball around to a bevy of wide receivers.

Saban told ESPN.com, in fact, that team doctors essentially told him he would never overcome the shoulder injury, and nixed the deal.

You know what happened next. Culpepper looked like a shell of his former self, Miami opened 1-6, and finished 6-10. Brees went to New Orleans and became one of the more prolific passers in football. By February 2010, Saban was hoisting a championship trophy at Alabama, and Brees was doing the same with the Saints. Today they’re both bound for the Hall of Fame, albeit at different levels.

“If we’d had Drew Brees, I might still be in Miami.”

See? Something good comes out of everything. Mom was right.