From a coaching standpoint, the defending national champions aren't really the defending national champions. Nick Saban is back for a 12th season in 2018, but the rest of his staff room has seen a shuffling and exchanging of chairs unlike any other of his 11 previous off-seasons.
Offensive coordinator Brian Daboll left for the same job with the Buffalo Bills, defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt is now the head coach at Tennessee, Derrick Ansley and Karl Dunbar both took NFL jobs and Burton Burns moved off the field. Add in the 10th assistant and Alabama will have six new coaches in 2018.
Among the four returning assistants, Saban promoted Mike Locksley (offense) and Tosh Lupoi (defense) to coordinator roles and moved Joe Pannunzio from tight ends and special teams to running backs. This means the offensive line -- where Brent Key returns for his third season -- returns the same coach from 2017 to '18.
All of this makes it hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison from 2017 Alabama to 2018 Alabama in terms of coaching salaries, much less to the Tide's peers at Ohio State, Clemson and Georgia. Ben Jones of the Tuscaloosa Newshas obtained salary information for Alabama's six new assistants, but the exact raises for the four returning coaches means, technically speaking, offensive coordinator Mike Locksley is the fourth-highest assistant on staff.
When Alabama announced its full staff salaries for 2018 we'll circle back and update this chart, but for now this is the best we've got.
* - Salary earned by 2017 staff member who is no longer at Alabama
^ - 2018 salary has not been announced