In town for the the Chattanooga chapter of the Alabama alumni club's summer gathering Monday, former Crimson Tide fullback Baron Huber surprised no one with his assessment of coach Nick Saban.
"If he wasn't a football coach, Coach Saban would be running a Fortune 500 company," said Huber, the blocking back on the 2009 national championship squad.
"We used to laugh about 'the process,' but now that I'm working in the business world, the process is what it's all about."
That's surely music to the ears of Tennessee fans, who've heard more than once about "the process" from UT coach Derek Dooley, a Saban assistant at LSU and with the NFL's Miami Dolphins.
But it's what former Tide basketball player Chris Hines said about third-year coach Anthony Grant at the close of his 18 holes at the Lookout Mountain Golf Club that could have the rest of the SEC crimson-faced with envy.
"My expectations [for next season] are through the roof," said Hines, who helped lead Bama to the 2011 NIT championship game against Wichita State.
"With the players we've got coming back (JaMychal Green, Tony Mitchell, Trevor Releford) and the recruits we've got coming in (Trevor Lacey, Rodney Cooper, etc.), we should be a top-15 team at the very least. The program's definitely headed in the right direction."
Both Huber and Hines have been helping to head Tuscaloosa in the right direction again after April's devastating tornadoes.
"The day after they hit, I went out and bought a chainsaw," said Huber, who grew up a rabid Tennessee fan and graduated from Powell High School but never caught the attention of former UT coach Phillip Fulmer.
"I didn't know how to use one, but I went to houses telling people, 'You saw and I'll haul.' It's tough to describe how bad it was. You can drive down the same street you've driven for years and have no idea where you are because nothing's there anymore."
Hines had gone to a Milo's hamburger restaurant not 10 minutes before the big one hit less than a mile from Bryant-Denny Stadium.
"Look at it," said Hines, cueing up a photo of the rubble formerly known as Milo's on his iPhone. "And I'd been there five minutes earlier."
Hines and his teammates soon headed downtown to assist in any way possible.
"One of the first people we saw was a guy who'd crawled into a freezer right before it hit," he said. "Then a brick wall fell on top of it. His head was pretty bloody but he was OK. He was one of the lucky ones."
As the alumni club wrapped up its golf tournament, Hines and Huber finally had a chance to devour a few of the ribs that club member Tim Miller had been deftly cooking for more than four hours.
After discovering a pile of clean, bare bones on Huber's plate, Hines asked, "Are these yours?"
Said Huber with a big grin: "That's why my job was to block and your job was to shoot."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6273.