The national championship teams not coached by Nick Saban or Urban Meyer were quarterbacked by Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Deshaun Watson, and Trevor Lawrence. Before 2007, titles not won by Saban or Meyer were won by Vince Young and vacated by USC’s elite talent, and preceding that was Jim Tressel’s team that skated through several close calls in 2002. I think Ian Book is an excellent college QB, but the number of coaches and systems he could pair with to lead a team to a national title would be extremely small.

It's hard to argue with that.

I would take that a step further and say that it's more about the head coach than the scheme. For guys like Saban, Meyer, Carroll, and Swinney, I think you could spin a roulette wheel with different offensive schemes, and whichever one they land on they'd figure out a way to recruit/develop great players and put them in the best position to maximize the effectiveness of that scheme.

play (McElroy, McCarron, Cardale), but without elite coaching, elite QB play is necessary to win the title. And I agree that coaching is more important than scheme, though I expect the elite coaches to employ thoughtful and quality schemes (and recruit as much elite surrounding talent as possible). I also agree that Swinney and Venables might be able to win a title without an elite QB, but there’s a reason Swinney replaced Kelly Bryant when he did.