updated 1:35 p.m. ET Aug. 25, 2007

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - At the University of Alabama bookstore, Nick Saban quickly grabbed a spot right alongside the Bear.

For every rack selling the snappy houndstooth hats that Paul W. “Bear” Bryant made famous while winning all those national championships, there’s one right next to it hawking the floppy straw hats that Saban prefers when barking orders at practice on a sweltering summer day.

Along the wall, a buyer can choose from two banners — one embroidered with Bryant’s motto (“I ain’t never been nothing but a winner”), the other sampling one of Saban’s more verbose witticisms (“What I would like for every football team to do that we play is to sit there and say I hate playing against these guys.”).

To fashionistas and wordsmiths, the Bear still rules. Then again, the Bear never attracted more than 92,000 fans to a practice game.

———

When receiver Keith Brown ran through the tunnel at Bryant-Denny Stadium on A-Day, he was expecting a hefty turnout for the traditional intrasquad scrimmage that signals the end of spring practice. The first estimate he heard was 50,000. Then 60,000. Then 70,000.

Sometime early in the second quarter of a game that didn’t count, Brown started looking around. Every seat was filled, and others had to be turned away.

“I was like, ’Woooooow. This is awesome,”’ Brown recalled. “I didn’t think it would turn out like that.”

Porter Reaves waited in line for nearly an hour to claim a spot in the upper deck that towers over the west side of the stadium. Once all those seats were filled, they opened up the matching deck on the opposite side.

Again, all for a game that would never show up in any standings.

“I literally watched the other deck fill up right in front of my eyes,” said Reaves, a political science major from Montgomery who just began his senior year at Alabama. “It was pretty cool to see that.”

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If Saban was still coming to grips with just how passionate these folks are about their college football, he certainly got the message on that April day.

“I was a little surprised,” Saban conceded. “It was heartfelt though. I really appreciated it.”

He calls it “Crimson Karma” — a mantra he stole from his wife. Whoever came up with the term, it’s clear Saban has landed right in the middle of a football-crazed state that is longing for the stability and confidence and swagger that’s been missing for much of the past quarter-century.

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Bryant retired after the 1982 season, having won five Associated Press national titles in 25 years as the Alabama coach. In the 25 years since, the Crimson Tide has gone through nine head coaches, one of them (Joe Kines) filling in for a single game after Mike Shula was fired last year, another (Mike Price) didn’t even make it to his first game after a drunken trip to the Gulf Coast.

Now comes Saban, lured back to school after two unsatisfactory seasons with the NFL’s Miami Dolphins. In his last college job, he led LSU to a pair of Southeastern Conference titles and a share of the national title in 2003.

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At Alabama, they’re expecting the same sort of results.

The sooner, the better.

“We want to be back there at the top,” said NFL Hall of Famer and Alabama alumnus Bart Starr, “and we have the leader who can take us there.”

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