This is an opinion column.

Is that good enough for you, coach?

There was a time when that kind of question would detonate Nick Saban, even in the glow of a victory as significant as Alabama 42, LSU 28, with unprocessed emotion swirling inside and all around, because nothing has ever seemed good enough for the unrepentant perfectionist.

After his first national championship with LSU, while the party pulsated elsewhere in the team’s New Orleans hotel, Saban fretted in his suite that agents might be preying on his players at that very moment. Concerns of what he would do for an encore also intruded on his enthusiasm.

After his first big ring at Alabama, he looked like he wanted to strangle the players who bonked him with the Gatorade bucket, turning his shirt pink and his eyes red.

A regular-season victory that clinched nothing? Good enough for him? This time with this team, four days after his 72nd birthday, reminded by CBS sideline reporter Jenny Dell that his wish had been “a solid team performance,” it was.