USCe students hold a ‘Fire Mike Shula’ rally:

[DzynKingRTR]

Seriously wasn’t the progression of both Mike and David Shula through the coaching ranks based on the last name of “Shula” and getting the benefit of getting their feet wet under Daddy Don? Very similar to Belichick at NE and now UNC.

Mike’s older brother David was an absolute disaster as a Head Coach with the Bengals.

David was so bad as a coach they moved him to manage a steakhouse

 

[dtgreg]

In another thread, SanJoseCrimson posted that Georgia never punted in the UGA-Ole Miss game. Not once.

I wonder if their Defense was "Nervous" or whatever the word was, before the Georgia game?

 

[STONECOLDSABAN]

I wonder if their Defense was "Nervous" or whatever the word was, before the Georgia game?

Dude, say what you want about Womack. But when some bama fans were saying “never thought I would miss Golding” I rolled my eyes. They clearly forgot how bad he was.

Compare the 2022 game to last Saturday. Say what you want but Kane held a team that was averaging 48 points per game to 20 points. And he held an offense that was averaging 500 something yards a game to 400. 93 of those yards were on the last two drives when went full prevent.

 

[dtgreg]

Dude, say what you want about Womack. But when some bama fans were saying “never thought I would miss Golding” I rolled my eyes. They clearly forgot how bad he was.

I really can't understand the Kiffen fans. Do they not realize Pete Goldschlager is part of the package?

 

[arthurdawg]

Dude, say what you want about Womack. But when some bama fans were saying “never thought I would miss Golding” I rolled my eyes. They clearly forgot how bad he was.

Compare the 2022 game to last Saturday. Say what you want but Kane held a team that was averaging 48 points per game to 20 points. And he held an offense that was averaging 500 something yards a game to 400. 93 of those yards were on the last two drives when went full prevent.

Under Saban with Pete, our defense did that plenty of times. Heck, even before Pete we were seeing the "D" getting smacked at times.

It is a different world. I think if Kane and staff are willing to adapt and we can continue to improve our core DL and LB play, we will be well off.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Not good @selmaborntidefan. I don't want you as my team's GM. lol

What's funny is there are people who do worse than that that make a living still drafting.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Dude, say what you want about Womack. But when some bama fans were saying “never thought I would miss Golding” I rolled my eyes. They clearly forgot how bad he was.

Compare the 2022 game to last Saturday. Say what you want but Kane held a team that was averaging 48 points per game to 20 points. And he held an offense that was averaging 500 something yards a game to 400. 93 of those yards were on the last two drives when went full prevent.

1) I don't dispute anything you're saying.
2) Womack didn't have to contend with the officials (at least not like 2022)
3) give kudos to Womack in that he held them to less than 1/2 of what UGA got
4) on the other hand...one of those was due to some shoddy coaching on the Vols sideline (the Pick Six)

 

[STONECOLDSABAN]

1) I don't dispute anything you're saying.
2) Womack didn't have to contend with the officials (at least not like 2022)
3) give kudos to Womack in that he held them to less than 1/2 of what UGA got
4) on the other hand...one of those was due to some shoddy coaching on the Vols sideline (the Pick Six)

Agreed. I am not a wommack fan boy or anything. If they had said. “I miss Kevin Steele” you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me.

The difference between golding and wommack is. KW seems to be finding ways to get the job done. Even if it’s hard on my liver sometimes lol.

 

[jashleyren2]

We got the first Mike because of some sort of raging fanbase that wanted a head coach with ties to Coach Bryant, a guy who had zero relevant experience for the job. I didn't understand this monarchial succession either then or now. (Look how many assistants under Saban were colossal screw-ups as head coaches).

We got the second Mike for a more logical reason: "he's been able to win more with less in rural eastern Washington, and he might be the right guy to see us through on this probation thing. Look at the quarterbacks he's developed!"

We got the third Mike because the first two Mikes were mistakes and the alternative was to get on the wrong side of a sociological issue by hiring the black guy and then getting blistered when he was inevitably fired fighting years with one hand behind his back. The blowback on firing Shula was 1/100 what it would have been had we fired Croom after four seasons (and Croom's petulance and childish ways against us at MSU show our hunch was right).


On a side note, go look at the coaches hired after the 1996 season. It's one of the least distinguished lists of new hires you will ever see. Jim Tressel would never have gotten a look outside of Ohio (not then), and you have names like Bob Davie, Joe Tiller, Bob Toledo, and Fred Miller. Gary Barnett had led Northwestern to the Rose Bowl, so his name was huge when he went to Colorado, and Tommy Bowden had a history with us as he went to Tulane.

But that listing of coaches hired in the offseason is one of the most undistinguished in modern history.

Great memories you have there, of not very memorable circumstances! Let's see if I get one right:

LSU still had Gerry Dinardo roaming the sidelines, who would get canned, then wind up at my high school alma mater, Muscle Shoals High, and do a fantastic job!

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Great memories you have there, of not very memorable circumstances! Let's see if I get one right:

LSU still had Gerry Dinardo roaming the sidelines, who would get canned, then wind up at my high school alma mater, Muscle Shoals High, and do a fantastic job!

Wasn't it Curley Hallman who coached LSU and went to Muscle Shoals?

DiNardo, now there's a guy who runs the offense at Colorado, gets hired at Vandy WHILE THE BUFFS ARE PREPARING FOR A NATIONAL TITLE GAME AGAINST NOTRE DAME - and leaves, giving Gary Barnett the playbook for the biggest game of their coaching careers.

 

[RammerJammer14]

What’s kinda weird to think about is that Shula was only 2 coaches ago for us. I had only had my Driver’s license for about a year.

Then you look at how many coaches other programs have gone through in that time, even top programs like Ohio State. What a special thing we had!

 

[lowend]

What’s kinda weird to think about is that Shula was only 2 coaches ago for us. I had only had my Driver’s license for about a year.

Then you look at how many coaches other programs have gone through in that time, even top programs like Ohio State. What a special thing we had!

I was in college for Shula and this is now my 20th year in my career!

Btw, enjoy these spreadsheets I made. They really highlight just how special Saban's run was.

 

[TitleWave]

Agreed. I am not a wommack fan boy or anything. If they had said. “I miss Kevin Steele” you wouldn’t hear a peep out of me.

The difference between golding and wommack is. KW seems to be finding ways to get the job done. Even if it’s hard on my liver sometimes lol.

Yes, but Golding's been hard on his own liver before so be considerate please, plus his talking out of his liver (and another orifice) about Sark apparently spared 'Bama from signing 2032 Heisman favorite Arch Manning.

 

[lowend]

plus his talking out of his liver (and another orifice) about Sark apparently spared 'Bama from signing 2032 Heisman favorite Arch Manning.

Haven't heard this before.....

 

[graydogg85]

There were a zillion reasons Shula didn't work out in Tuscaloosa. Most of them were his fault. Some were circumstances beyond his control. I supported him until it was undeniable he had lost the team in the 2006 Mississippi State game.

In the end, it came down to a combination of his own stubbornness / refusal to change and bad advice from his father. Mal Moore's book, Crimson Heart, has a fascinating story on how it all happened.

Side note: The book was pressed into publication way too fast and could have used a couple more rounds of editing. But the Shula story is still illuminating.

This.

I haven't read Mal's book but I've heard enough from other folks about how things went down, and my four years at UA as a student coincided exactly with Shula's tenure.

Here's the thing that I think a lot of outsiders don't realize: even with the sanctions, and the residual turmoil from Dubose / Franchione / Mike Price, Shula's rosters were good enough to win considerably more games than he actually managed to win. In 2004 - 2006 we fielded what was consistently one of the absolute best defenses in the conference. A lot of the losses weren't because of sanctions and roster deficiency - they were due to mind-numbing coaching decisions both on and off the field. I've heard multiple stories about Shula, Dave Rader and Sparky Woods getting into shouting matches over the headsets on which play to call, to the point that we couldn't even get a play signaled in and the QB would have to check into a default play. Continuing to utilize Bucket Step Bob's OL techniques (that came out of the Mike Price / Joe Tiller one-back spread) in as pure of a pro-set offense as you'll ever find was something that never, ever made sense. The S & C program was subpar in so many ways. The list goes on and on. The 2004 and 2005 teams were good enough defensively that they could have run the table with just consistently servicable offensive play (and yes, the 2004 team had absolutely horrendous injury luck on offense, but even with a bunch of 2nd and 3rd string guys on the field, we were still hanging tight with much, much better teams because our defense was elite). The 2005 team easily had the personnel to beat both Auburn and LSU, and should have been blasting teams like Ole Miss, Tennessee and Missisippi State down the stretch instead of barely hanging on for struggle wins. The 2006 team regressed a little bit defensively, but the overall personnel on offense was still much better than how they actually performed - that team should have been an 8-4 or 9-3 team. Shula's teams would just absolutely disintegrate offensively down the back half of the schedule.

Shula is a very good pure QB coach - and that's about the extent of his abilities. He had a decent little run as OC in Carolina, but I think that was mostly having the superhuman freak that is Cam Newton at QB. His other stint as an NFL OC was back in the 90s at Tampa Bay and those teams were putrid offensively.

I'm not here to rag on the guy, but he was a lazy hire by Shane Beamer that I'm sure Beamer regrets. It's true that he had some struggles at Bama that were not of his making - but most of his struggles were completely of his making, and in hindsight he was just a bad hire, timing notwithstanding. If he hadn't had Joe Kines and the defensive personnel that we had, he was a 3-win-per-season type of head coach.

Now that I've said all of this, Sellers will throw for 300 yards and they'll hang 30 points on us tomorrow

 

[Superdad]

Yes that’s true.

But look at most other Bengals coaches not named Wyche, Gregg, or Lewis (or whoever took them to the Super Bowl a few years back, you can see how little attention I pay nowadays), he was bad but in good company.


True story: when I was a student at Dallas theological seminary, a professor was taking the roll one day and recognized the name of one of the students as a familiar name. When he said, “Isn’t that the same name as that horrible quarterback for the Bengals?”

“That’s me, sir.”

Was that Klingler?

 

[arthurdawg]

That is what I remember and saw with Shula, and it was very frustrating watching it happen in real time. It was mind boggling how bad the S&C program was and how underdeveloped our guys were. The OL were spindly! That and the absolute refusal of Shula to recruit. Man... You can't win them all but he was inept to put it kindly.

And the stubborness on the offense. It was pretty clear the "jumbo" package wasn't going to work with the absolute lack of creativity and running the same plays over and over behind offensive lineman who were completely outmatched.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Was that Klingler?

Yes, it was!

(You can click on the bottom line and it links his page. But for obvious reasons - even though Dr. Dave is cool with it - I didn't want to put it here when web searches occur).