Passing Bear Bryant is significant to my father because he grew up in Alabama, studied Bear and learned a lot about coaching from Bear, but he won't have a lot of time to reflect on it during the season.

There are more important things to him right now than having more wins than Bear Bryant, like winning a National Championship, and moving up on the all-time victories list is just not something that has a lot of impact at this moment.

At the same time, though, it is very flattering for him to be mentioned in the same breath as Bear, because he doesn't think of himself as another Bear Bryant and he knows there never will be another Bear. My father sees Coach Bryant as a John Wayne-type, the All-American guy, and he is certainly proud to be grouped with him among the best coaches of all time.

But in my opinion the race between Dad and Joe Paterno for the top spot on the list is more intriguing because I can't imagine that either one of them has spent 50-plus years in coaching in order to come out No. 2.

There are lots of other things Dad can accomplish before his career is over and this will kind of take a back seat until he's through coaching, or at least until the end of this season, and has some time to look back on everything he has done. Once this year is over he'll have a chance to reflect on this and will be very proud of it, but this season and this team are the most important things to him right now.