Every fan of the Tennessee Vols likely knew that Alabama head coach Nick Saban would make some changes this offseason after the Crimson Tide lost to UT for the first time since 2006.

And fans knew those changes would, to some extent, revolve around stopping Tennessee's up-tempo offense.

The big question was whether or not Saban would choose to mimic the Vols' offense by going up-tempo and hiring someone like Oklahoma offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby (Lebby was Heupel's offensive coordinator at UCF) or if Bama would go old school and try to slow things down.

We now have an answer to that question thanks to Alabama's hiring of Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees.

Hiring Rees signals that Saban wants to move to a more balanced offense that heavily utilizes tight ends — similar to what Georgia has done in recent years under Todd Monken.

Essentially, this tells us that Alabama plans to control the clock via long sustained drives with some splash plays mixed in.

Unfortunately for Bama, I'm not sure this move will work out as Saban envisions.

And not because it's a bad idea (it's obviously working for Georgia), but beause Rees might not be the best guy to execute Saban's vision.

Hall of Fame wide receiver Tim Brown, a former Notre Dame standout, suggested this week that losing Rees to Alabama was a "great day" for the Fighting Irish.

Brown criticized Rees' ability to dissect defenses and suggested he was too dependent on former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly.

At least two things. 1) Tommy was very dependent on Kelly and more important, he didnt have the ability to dissect a defense. What we saw is what I call HERO ball! You have a player(mayer) who is better than the person covering and you throw him the ball a zillion times. Make

— Tim Brown (@81TimBrown) February 5, 2023

Him the hero. If that doesn't work you lose. I was at a couple of games where it took everything in me not to go knock on the booth window and say give me the call sheet!!! Lol! I truly wish him well, he's gonna need it! Let's Go Irish!

— Tim Brown (@81TimBrown) February 5, 2023

That's not exactly encouraging if you're an Alabama fan.

To be fair, Rees will have more talent at Alabama than he had at Notre Dame, though it's not like the cupboard was dry in South Bend.

It feels like Saban has reached the point in his career where he no longer cares about evolving. This is the first time we've seen Saban seemingly go backward in his evolution as a head coach.

I'm not saying that Alabama's run as a supergiant in college football is about to end — the Crimson Tide just landed the top recruiting class in the nation — but it has to end at some point. And who knows, maybe this is the beginning of the end of Saban's dominant run.

Featured image via USA TODAY Sports