So, Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter, who's the first man up on your short list?
ESPN on Wednesday published the definitive story of Alabama's coaching search, in which Chris Low spoke to all the particulars: former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, Alabama AD Greg Byrne, and current Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer.
As part of that story, Low reported Florida State's Mike Norvell was the No. 2 candidate for the position.
Four other coaches were mentioned by name in the story: Ole Miss's Lane Kiffin, Clemson's Dabo Swinney, Texas's Steve Sarkisian and Oregon's Dan Lanning. All were widely linked to the Alabama job in the two days it was open due to their prior connections to the program, but none of the three were actual candidates for the position. The first two, the story heavily implies, because Alabama wasn't interested, and the latter because Alabama knew they wouldn't be interested.
Norvell's candidacy, however, was real.
Byrne and his wife Regina flew to Seattle to meet with DeBoer, but held "serious discussions" with Norvell along the way.
The discussions were so serious that Florida State officials began preparing for Norvell's possible exit.
In fact, in the wee hours of that Friday morning, the fear among Florida State officials was that Norvell was close to trading his FSU garnet for Alabama crimson. Sources told ESPN that Florida State was poised to move quickly if that happened and that Kiffin would be a prime candidate.
It will forever remain a mystery as to whether Norvell takes the Alabama job if offered.
"You respect the place. You respect the position," Norvell told ESPN on Alabama. "At the end of the day, it still comes down to the right fit. It still comes down to the place you want to be."
In reality, Nick Saban's retirement created direct openings at three schools, plus indirect openings at two more: DeBoer from Washington to Bama, Jedd Fisch from Washington to Arizona, Brent Brennan from San Jose State to Arizona. San Jose State stopped the chain reaction by hiring Ken Niumatalolo, but DeBoer opened South Alabama and Buffalo by hiring Kane Wommack and Maurice Linguist to his defensive staff.
In this reality, however, a Florida State opening could create an even bigger chain reaction.
If Norvell takes Alabama and Kiffin takes Florida State, who then takes Ole Miss?
In a world where the Ole Miss job opened in January, Carter would have tried to replace Lane Kiffin with the closest thing to a Lane Kiffin he could find: young, offensive-minded, exciting, adept at the Portal are musts, and active Twitter fingers a fun but not mandatory secondary attributes.
If Ole Miss is looking for a young, offensive-minded head coach with an "exciting" name, maybe they hire... Missouri's Eliah Drinkwitz? Coaches would've crawled on broken glass all the way to Columbia to take over Missouri, an SEC team coming off an 11-2 season and a Cotton Bowl win, with a robust NIL operation and a favorable 2024 schedule.
What about Rhett Lashlee? SMU boosters are footing the bill to get the Mustangs out of the AAC and into the ACC. Given that historic level of investment, you know they'd pay up to find someone eager to take over a defending conference champion in a talent-rich metropolitan area with a history of success in the Portal.
Maybe Ole Miss breaks a former rival's heart and plucks newly-hired Jon Sumrall away from Tulane, then uses the relative savings of hiring a less established head coach to pair him with an up-and-coming offensive mind... like Texas State head coach GJ Kinne.
Perhaps time is a flat circle, and Nick Saban's departure would've led career nomad Jedd Fisch (16 jobs in 28 seasons) to backfill the Ole Miss opening instead of Washington.
Or maybe Carter wakes up that January morning and chooses violence and pulls former Rebels offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby away from Mississippi State.
The possibilities are truly endless. Had Kalen DeBoer remained at Washington, Mike Norvell could've given us some Nuclear Winter in January.