Thunder, you are either too young to really remember what all happened with Coach Stallings or you're having a "senior moment". Coach Stallings was a great coach. He had Coach Bryant's blessing and was THE coach that Coach Bryant recommended to be his successor but for a variety of reasons didn't work out at the time.
Yes, he had a losing record at the time he was hired but holy cow, look where he coached at:
TAMU-at the time admitted only men, which makes it tough to recruit to and it's out in the middle of nowhere AND at the time, they were Univ. of Texas whipping boy.
Arizona Cardinals-maybe the sorriest NFL franchise in the league, grossly mismanaged.
All he did when he came to Alabama was unite a badly fractured family, instilled some discipline, recruited well, played no nonsense, hard nosed football and averaged 10 wins per season and won a NC.
Also, to blame the probation on him is completely INACCURATE and displays a lack of knowledge of the situation.
I sould be happy to accept the "too young" part, but the fact is, I'm not old, but I have been here a LOOONGGGGG time.
I probably do have a lack of knowledge on the "whole truth" of the probation situation and may well be completely inaccurate on it.
What I do know though-
back in 1982 Coach Bryant as AD and HC had FULL and TOTAL control of the football program at Bama.
For years he had been a mover and shaker,
he got things done,
he set up bowl games he wasn't even involved in.
He got coaching jobs for many a coach, assistant and head, at schools where he had little or no connection.
If he wanted a man, he got him.
If Bryant had wanted Stallings to follow him,
he would have made a deal with the Cowboys and Landry that made the Cowboy orginization happy,
Landry happy,
Stallings happy,
Bama happy,
and Bryant happy.
But Bryant knew the personality that would be required to be the "man that followed the Bear".
In October of 82 the NFL was in a players strike,
at Paul Snow in Jacksonville Alabama at a Gamecocks game,
the head coach of the New York Giants was introduced to the crowd.
I looked around the press box at Ray Perkins, he was there with an offer to our Gamecock head coach Jim Fuller to be his O-line coach at Bama.
I don't know how long before that it was "done",
but Perk, as the "man to follow the Bear" was a done deal in October 82,
he was already putting his staff together, during the season.
Fuller didn't take that first offer, stayed on at JSU another year,
he did take the offer the second time it was offered.
(we won't get into the pros and cons of that for Bama, and JSU, in this thread)
Old Jim is now back with us at JSU as AD.
(I really do have the inside info on this one)
Bryant could have had anyone he wanted,
he wanted, and got, Perk.
And it is historical fact that Hootie hired most of the staff before hiring Stallings as HC.
Hootie surrounded Stallings with great coaches.
Stallings did bring Mal in.
Then Hootie put Homer Smith in later on, on top of Mal.
Gene certainly didn't get the use out of Homer that Curry did.
I remember a Barner joking at me in 92 that the biggest mismatch in college football was Bama's O vs. Bama's D at practice.
should of done it after fran ran
