Legendary head coaches are always great, and Nick Saban is no exception, but they also need luck and timing. For Saban, his timing can be boiled down to a select group of upsets that all had a major impact on Tennessee Football history.

Saban, who retired Wednesday as a seven-time national champion, propelled himself to prominence with two huge upset wins over the Vols in the early 2000s. Before that, however, he scored a big upset win that actually propelled the Vols.

1998 Michigan State vs. Ohio State

In 1998, Saban was in his fourth year as head coach of the Michigan State Spartans. He had gone 6-5-1, 6-6 and 7-5 in his first three years. While he had the full support of the athletic department, and while he had a lot of leeway due to the terrible state of the program when he took over, fans were getting restless.

That year, Michigan State was 4-4 with the No. 1 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes headed to town. Saban and co. scored a gigantic November upset over John Cooper’s undefeated team. That win propelled Tennessee Football to its first No. 1 ranking in over 40 years.

As a result of that game, UT played the Florida State Seminoles instead of OSU in the national title. Tennessee-Ohio State would have been a rematch of the 1995 Citrus Bowl, and while Cooper wasn’t a great coach, things could have always turned out differently.

Anyway, while Saban had a direct impact on the Vols’ path to winning a national championship in 1998, he had multiple direct impacts on their path to sinking into irrelevancy when he took over as head coach of the LSU Tigers in 2000. That came on the heels of a breakout 9-2 season at MSU.

2000 Tennessee Football vs. LSU

The hire of Saban was highly questioned, and LSU fell to 2-2 to start the 2000 season with a shocking loss at home to the UAB Blazers. Saban made a switch at quarterback the next week to Rohan Davey, and LSU upset the Vols 38-31 in overtime.

Had the Tigers lost this game, they would have had a path to another 5-6 or 4-7 season. However, it gave them just enough confidence, which had a hand in them upsetting the Mississippi State Bulldogs, an elite team in the West at that time, and the Ole Miss rebels later in the year.

This was the signature win Saban needed to jumpstart LSU, which already had a good bit of talent, and it propelled him to an 8-4 first season, which was just enough to secure him the No. 1 recruiting class in the most talent-rich recruiting area in the country. That set the stage for his rise.

2001 Tennessee Football vs. LSU

A year later, Saban pulled off the impossible before ever winning a national title. LSU was 8-3 and won the SEC West by default, as the division was awful at the time. They played the No. 2 ranked Vols in the SEC Championship game, UT being heavy favorites.

If Tennessee Football had won, they would have gone to play the Miami Hurricanes for the national title. They had just beaten the No. 2 ranked Florida Gators a week before in The Swamp 34-32, killing Rex Grossman’s Heisman campaign in the process. That may have been Steve Spurrier’s best offensive team.

Earlier in the year, the Vols beat LSU 26-18, but they were up 26-7 before calling off the dogs, and Florida, who UT just beat on the road, won in Death Valley 44-15. What’s more, in the SEC title game, UT went up 17-7, and LSU then lost its starting quarterback in Davey and its starting running back in LaBrandon Toefield.

Saban and Jimbo Fisher then pulled off the greatest in-game coaching adjustment of all time, going from a pocket-passer to a dual-threat in Matt Mauck, and they came back to win 31-20 relying on the QB draw. UT had arguably the best interior defensive line in college football history with John Henderon and Albert Haynesworth.

None of it matter, Saban delivered Tennessee Football the worst loss in program history, and he proved he was legit. Sure, he suffered an 8-5 campaign in 2002, but he was stacking up classes, and the 2001 title game helped him secure a second No. 1 class in three years in 2003.

Then he won the national title, and that propelled him to prominence. There can be no doubt that Tennessee Football was one of many victims of Saban’s dominance, but the Vols were among the earliest victims who helped set the stage for his career.