Nick Saban waves no magic wand. See Alabama football's coordinator hires | Toppmeyer

The trouble with a coach winning seven national championships is that in an effort to explain this dominance, reality blurs, and a legendary coach begins to be viewed as a Svengali wielding mythical omnipotence.

But Nick Saban’s recently reported coordinator hires of Tommy Rees and Kevin Steele are evidence that Alabama’s coach waves no magic wand, and he’s not armed with a genie’s lamp that produces endless wishes.

Are Rees and Steele good hires or flops? As with most coordinator hires, that’s difficult to say just yet. They're reputable choices, but they don't sizzle like some of the splashy names tossed around at the beginning of these searches.

Rees, 30, is the type of offensive coordinator a lot of schools hire – a young guy with a reputation for helping quarterbacks and a willingness to hop jobs. Steele, 64, is a familiar, respected face. He’s the corner diner with a four-star Yelp rating. You know what you’re getting.

More notable than whom Saban hired, though, is whom he didn’t hire.

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He did not plunder an established NFL mind or the wunderkind college coordinator with the cutting-edge system. He did not lure a one-time successful coach off a television set and onto his sideline. He did not hire anyone with the national profile of Lane Kiffin or even Steve Sarkisian or Bill O’Brien.

He hired coordinators who fit the profile of hires made every offseason by SEC programs. In fact, a lot of schools have hired Steele at one time or another.

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In other words, these are ordinary, unremarkable hires by an extraordinary coach. That shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Saban’s dynasty is more marked by an unrelenting assemblage and development of elite talent, all while a dependable CEO minds the shop, than it is Saban hiring one visionary after another.

Steele ought to have a golf course membership in every SEC town for as much as he bounces around the South. This is his third stint on Saban’s staff, and he’s also been the defensive coordinator for Clemson, LSU, Auburn and Miami. A respected recruiter, he ran Saban’s defense when this whole thing started in 2007. His five seasons at Auburn marked his longest coordinator stay, during which time he fashioned the Tigers’ defense into a reliable unit.

As for Rees, his Notre Dame offense ranked 41st nationally in scoring last season, which suggests Saban didn’t have to slip past an armed brigade to seize him. But a coordinator’s ceiling is limited or heightened by the roster’s talent, and Alabama coordinators perennially benefit from playing with a stacked deck.

If Jim McElwain and Doug Nussmeier can succeed as Alabama’s offensive coordinator, then I shouldn’t doubt Rees. The biggest question facing Alabama’s offense was never who would call plays. It’s who will execute them, with no obvious heir to quarterback Bryce Young.

Folks around Notre Dame considered Rees an innovator. Brian Kelly thought enough of him that he tried to bring Rees with him to LSU a year ago. Sam Hartman, one of the top quarterback transfers this winter, thought enough of Rees’ work with quarterbacks that Hartman transferred to the Irish after leaving Wake Forest.

That’s to say Saban isn’t alone in believing in Rees’ coaching chops, and Steele built a career on solid operation of SEC defenses.

These hires may work. They’re just not the miracle moves many have come to expect Saban to make.

We see past Alabama coordinators like Kirby Smart, Kiffin and Sarkisian now as Power Five coaches, but they weren’t prom queens when Saban hired them.

Kiffin’s previous employer had wanted rid of him so badly that he was left on an airport tarmac. Twice, Saban hired Sarkisian after he'd been fired from his previous job. Smart’s career was ascending, but he’d never coordinated a Division I defense until Saban elevated him into that role in 2008.

Saban’s hiring history includes few heists that compare to Clemson raiding TCU’s cabinet for 33-year-old offensive whiz and Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley.

The last time Saban seized a red-hot coordinator like Riley is when Jeremy Pruitt left Georgia in favor of Alabama. Pruitt had established himself as one of the nation’s top coordinators at Florida State, then Georgia. His hire included caveats, though. Despite his Georgia success, he’d worn out his welcome with his unfiltered personality. And Pruitt, an Alabama man, was returning to his alma mater. So, even that Saban hire was not so much a raid as a logical reunion.

When Alabama’s coordinator roles opened, we half-expected Saban the Svengali to conjure two hires that would put the SEC on notice that Alabama’s resurgence to No. 1 is imminent, but Saban’s bag of tricks includes no magic. To expect he can hire anyone he covets is to turn a legendary coach into a myth.

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Nick Saban waves no magic wand. See Alabama football coordinator hires