This is an opinion column.

Football season’s over. What are you gonna write about now?

It’s the annual and accidentally insulting question we get every January at the paragraph factory. Somehow, we always stay busy.

This year, for obvious reasons.

The past eight days since Nick Saban’s equally expected/surprise retirement recalibrated the earth’s orbit and altered Tuscaloosa’s gravitational pull. It also stopped any inquiries concerning the so-called offseason writing plans.

And yet Thursday afternoon found me staring at the blank page, knowing what I wanted to write but struggling to find the right voice — the right tone. We’ve spent the past week-plus drinking from the firehose of news, trying to process it all, contextualize it and bring it to you.

It sounds crazy because the plan was to sit down, zoom out and go deep on the career and retirement of Saban. Covering him for 14 of his 17 Alabama seasons, this simple prompt became a monster under the bed.

Is there a lens wide enough for that zoom? How can I hit every note? Recall every granular detail?

It’s a lot. A serious responsibility as we chronicle these historic times. Fitting a unique demographic, I never shared the earth with Bear Bryant and arrived in Alabama for the first time the same week as Nick Saban. An internship at The Birmingham News just happened to start just days after the new head coach of a once-mighty program stepped off the plane in Tuscaloosa.

Perhaps it’s that longevity and the fact that I never knew this state pre-Saban makes this a daunting project.

Thinking a little deeper, it gets a little more real.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Nick Saban, I wouldn’t be here writing these words.

I wouldn’t be in a bit of a rush to hit the daycare pickup if he hadn’t decided the NFL wasn’t for him.

It sounds dramatic and there’s nothing worse than a self-indulgent journalist who wants to talk about themselves. But allow me to indulge a moment because I’m sure a few of you have similar stories.

Saban created entire economies in the state of Alabama after taking the job in 2007. Two years after that Birmingham internship ended, The Decatur Daily called and eventually offered a job covering the Crimson Tide. Had Rich Rodriguez taken the Alabama job, maybe that gig wouldn’t as attractive.

But something was brewing and moving back to Alabama in 2009 was a no-brainer.

Even after leaving for a job in Miami three years later, a call from AL.com to consider a return after 14 months in the sun was attractive. Covering Alabama in those days was a rush, one not replicated on the Hurricanes beat. Half-empty stadiums and ACC football, no offense Miami, weren’t the same as the energy Saban has built in Alabama.

So, I did what almost nobody other than Nick and Terry Saban did six years earlier. Packed up my place in Miami and moved to Tuscaloosa. If you could only see the looks, I got when explaining that one to family and friends.

The opportunity to tell the story of an era unmatched in college football history was like a drug even Miami couldn’t sell. It really mattered here. It always did, I hear, but Saban’s empire took it to the digital age.

For those in my age range, we only hear stories of the Bryant days. He’s become a folk hero, a legend who comes alive when the clip of him mumbling something inspirational on videoboards before every home game.

One day people will remember Saban the same way, I figured, with slightly more clarity in the audio.

In the process, I became the guy he famously called Rat Poison — one of the many times I got that sneering look of disgust. It was always part of the job. Go cover the ballet if you don’t want to get cursed on live television, cueing the online mob to insult you relentlessly.

It was always fine. Like I always said, Saban doesn’t sign my checks. He can be as mad as he wants, and hate me if he’d like, but I have a job to do and that won’t change. Try as I might, the negativity was often hard to find when Saban was cooking. I covered 19 Alabama games before writing about a loss. It was exciting to do something different for a change that 2010 afternoon at South Carolina.

At times, it was like covering the assembly line at the Mercedes plant because the storyline varied little from year to year. There were perks. Four trips to New York to cover Heisman ceremonies. Championship games on both coasts, New Orleans, Indy and a few other places.

I’d be lying if I said that would’ve happened if Saban wasn’t the coach at Alabama.

Now don’t take this as a love letter to the retirement stack. It’s hard to say if Saban ever fully respected the majority of the local press and his policies led to a fair share of frustration from our side of the podium.

But while Nick had varying degrees of contempt, his wife Terry was always a smiling face on the sideline and at events. A pregame chat with the first lady was always entertaining, especially in the later years. Before the 2019 Iron Bowl, I told her I was marrying a young lady who once worked as her intern in the early days of Nick’s Kids move to Tuscaloosa. I joked she’d get an invite, just not a plus-one. We laughed.

And our last chat came after the 2023 SEC championship game when I showed her a picture of our 9-month-old. She clutched her chest and confirmed how cute our little angel is.

And it’s crazy because their decision to move back to the college game 17 years ago was the first domino that changed my life, created another and made this whole era such a heady topic to conquer.

So, what am I gonna write now?

Good question — one for tomorrow. It’s pickup time at daycare.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.