FLASHBACK: The last time Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno met professionally, coaching against each other in the 2006 Orange Bowl, they met pregame with Nick Saban, who moved from the Miami Dolphins to Alabama later that year. (Michael R. Sisak/BLITZ)

By Michael R. Sisak

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The Holy Trinity of college football coaching will be in rare alignment here Saturday night: Joe Paterno on the Bryant-Denny Stadium sideline leading Penn State against No. 1 Alabama, Bobby Bowden watching from a stadium luxury box and the late Bear Bryant looking down from on high, game plan still firmly in hand.

Call it kismet, or a confluence of scheduling and circumstance.

Paterno, 83, has been slated for a return to Alabama since the Crimson Tide postponed this two-game series while on probation in the mid-2000s.

Bowden, a year removed from forced retirement at Florida State, will attend the game after signing copies of his new memoir at the campus museum that honors Bryant’s legacy and the history of Alabama football. He may even flip the coin.

Together, Paterno and Bowden represent the last of a triumvirate of coaches who amassed more wins than any other, with a level of class, dignity and longevity that elevated them from mere coaches to heroes and legends.

Their reunion, in the land of Bear Bryant, has added another layer of intrigue to a game that has rekindled memories (and nighmares) about past Nittany Lions-Crimson Tide clashes and respect for Paterno’s career — even among Alabama fans.

“Joe Paterno’s a legend,” Thomas Lapointe, a junior from Montgomery, Ala., said as he discussed the game Friday afternoon at the campus student center. “He’s the next best thing to Bear Bryant coming back from the dead.”

Bryant, who retired in 1982 with 323 wins and died a year later, is as ubiquitous on the Alabama campus as crimson, with his legacy celebrated at the museum across from the football practice facility and, a few blocks west on Paul W. Bryant Drive, a statue inside the stadium that also bears his name.

The student bookstore sells reproductions of his trademark houndstooth cap and a host of other items in the checkerboard pattern, from ties to wallets to boxer shorts.

In State College, the memorabilia stores along College Avenue sell Paterno masks, cardboard cutouts and bobble head dolls. There’s a statute outside Beaver Stadium and, in recognition of their philanthropy, a library named for Paterno and a religious center for his wife, Sue.

Bowden is the subject of similar reverence in Tallahassee, but neither has quite reached the stratosphere of the Bear, whose name comes second on the Alabama campus only to God. Perhaps when they are both gone from the game — perhaps when all fans have of them is a memory, a museum and a street sign.

For Bowden, life after football has included preaching and motivational speaking. For Paterno, who is four wins shy of 400, life is still football.

On Saturday night, Bobby will be in Bryant-Denny Stadium, watching his old friend go for No. 397.

Somewhere high above, the Bear will be watching too.