10 Years- Reviewing the Coaches

In looking back over 10 years, it is amazing how the coaching carousel went.  To start, though, you have to go back to how Bama landed with Fran.  I love this Youtube video because it pretty well sums it up.  However, I'd use either the theme to Jackass or "If you are gonna be dumb" as the musical interlude. 

Only my classmate, and friend Joe Nelms beats that video for me....

Yes, he was that silly back then too.  Anyways, back to football....


The Dubosian Debacle...

As the 2000 season was falling apart, it was getting pretty clear that Coach Dubose had lost control of the team.  Mal Moore's patience for Mike was pretty strong because most ADs would have ran him out 2 or 3 weeks before.  When Dubose blamed God, it was pretty easy to cut losses at that point.  However, it was about 12 months too late in all honesty.  Even though Alabama won the SEC in 1999-2000, Dubose was losing his staff and players and was way too loose about things.  Bama was 3-8 and getting embarrassed by teams that should have been stomped by the scout team.  The best lick any player put on an opponent that fall was Dustin McClintock's sucker punch on a Central Florida player.  I still wonder, would Bama have signed Albert Means and gone through the decade of suffering like they did if they had cut their losses?

So, the hunt was on and Mal Moore likes to interview people.  He pulled out his all time favorite interviewee to tell him no, Frank Beamer.  Then it was Butch Davis- nope, a few others passed, but then this guy with the weakest coaching voice ever caught Mal's eye.

Fran Can....well might if he stayed a while...

  There are just so many red flags to Coach Fran.  His resume reads like a used car salesman.  It is jump after jump after jump, and marginal success throughout.  To be fair, he had brought TCU out of the shadows and had LaDanian Tomlinson in his backfield running nuts across the nation.  So, as seems to be a common theme in this time frame, opportunity knocked and a flustered AD getting heat makes a quick hire without thinking about what he was getting. 

So, in comes a guy who had the right ideas, just the wrong personal goals.  If you will, he had some good, some bad, and an ugly side to him that was destined to fail.  Fran was organized and disciplined.  He knew how he wanted to coach and what style he coached.  He was a spread option coach before there was spread.  He wanted to bring option to Bama, and I liked how they ran it for the most part.  He was big on conditioning and he knew that the team in better shape was going to win those close games.  The biggest issue he had was that Gary Patterson didn't come along and his defenses were never as good as TCU's was.  He also wasn't a big recruiter when it got down to it.  He told Caddy Williams he would consider playing him at CB, he let about anyone in the state that wasn't an easy get slide to Florida or Auburn or LSU.  Remember, he chose Brandon Avalos (Thanks Rodney Orr) over Brandon Cox who was begging Bama to take him.  With that said, he did do a heck of a job finding diamonds in the rough because he knew what kind of players he could mold.  Guys like DeMeco Ryans were unknown when Fran found them. 

Fran's Bama career started out pretty rough.  They started 3-5 and folks were starting to question if he got it.  It was hard to go from a sling it around offense to an option offense.  That kinda change will alienate some players and it takes a little different back to play QB and RB in that kind of system.  Bama's defense was up and down that year.  They crushed Arkansas, but let South Carolina get about 7 yards a play, and spoiled Tyler Watts best game he ever had.  They also gave up a slew of yards and points to Ole Miss and UT.  The lowest point was when Rohan Davey and Josh Reed played catch in Bama's backyard and Fran whined.  What was worse was they were getting beat in the 4th quarter.  With the exception of LSU, Bama was in the game til the 4th.  Ugh, LSU....Saban spanked Fran like a rented mule all day and it wasn't even as close as the score said.  When a team gets 600 yards, throws for 500, and has 30 first downs, you aren't playing defense.  After that, something clicked for the rest of the year.  Fran was skating by until they ambushed Auburn at Jordan Hare. 

The next season, fans were all in for Fran.  There were fans using sigs on message boards with Bear next to Fran with quotes like "from one legend to another....the tradition continues".  I threw up typing that.  When the season started, the defense had caught up and played a lot better than 2001.  Morehead, Johnson, King, and others were seniors and were ready to be leaders.  They had some blips against OU and UGA, but the fans were seeing a better product.  Sadly, behind the scenes, things were going downhill fast.  Fran felt jilted because the NCAA beat Bama harder than folks told him it would, Bama was offering a long term contract to him to help him, but he was snubbing it.  At the time, we all felt that it was just a matter of time that it would be done.  Looking back, this should have set off a bigger red flag.  Rumors of Fran to Kansas were circling the winter before, and they probably were somewhat legit.  However, after Fran just ripped Saban and LSU a new one, when he wouldn't say if he would sign the extension, it was then that I knew he was dropping Bama like 3rd period French.  A lethargic loss to Auburn was covered by a lethargic win over Hawaii.  About a week after, he was gone. 

The ugly was that he ditched without saying a word to the players.  That was a new low in coaching douchery.  It was ugly that he preached about "holding the rope" and didn't practice what he preached.  It was ugly that Bama was about to have its 3rd coach in 3 years.  Fans took it hard that a coach would spurn Bama for aTm.  Coaches leave aTm for Bama not the other way around, but Fran didn't care.  He still doesn't have any remorse for anything but not saying goodbye to the players.  Karma caught up with Fran at aTm though and he was shamed then quit before being fired. 

A beer, a blue pill, and a big mess.

So, Bama is coachless...again...and again, Mal Moore is pressed to find a coach.  With Bama under NCAA probation, the list isn't real good.  The first chance resided with Mike Riley.  His family wasn't into a cross country adventure.  They probably knew best.  Jim Leavitt was a hot name but folks worried that his live in gal wouldn't be a hit with the thumpers.  Oops.  There were a few mumbled names like Petrino and such, but Mike Price caught an old friend's eye.  Price and Moore had history with each other at WSU.  State was Rose Bowl bound, they played open-exciting offense, and were winning.  There wasn't  a lot of vetting of Price by anyone because he was known.  That's where things went off the track. 

Most folks don't realize that the stripper wasn't the first issue that occurred in Mike's summer of drunken haze.  He was warned more than once to not fraternize with underclassmen and to not be drinking with students.  Apparently, he drug a group of students into Bryant Denny to do some drinking and have fun.  Well, you would think a guy paid good money would make smart decisions, even if it is just occasionally, but he was invited to a charity golf tourney that was hosted by an Auburn booster/alumni and it went horribly wrong.  He found himself at a strip club and taking one home with him.  Well, rumors started to swirl because he was almost set up it was that bad.  Things hit an all time low when he told folks he couldn't have sex with her because he had to have Viagra to get it up.  Paging Mal....again.....can't have a coach at Alabama who can't screw.  So now 2 out of the last 3 have had affairs to deal with. 

Price was fired after coaching the spring game and never saw the field. 

The first cut is the deepest...

So, Mal has a short list because it is summer and it isn't going to be easy to get someone now.  There weren't many names on this list.  Tom Coughlin was available, as was Sly Croom, Richard Williamson and Mike Shula.  Well, it was quickly down to the alumni.  I have always felt that Moore should have named Kines or antoher coach as interim and used the failed 2003 as a coaching search year.  Sure it worked out, but 4 years of more fail loomed.  Mal Moore is kinda impatient and rushed this hire through.  Croom felt he should have had the job, he didn't get it, and it was another issue with Jesse Jackson getting involved.  So Shula was hired and made his first mistake, he kept the staff. 

It was a tough draw to deal with and really, they didn't deal with it.  The 2003 season is a blur of just bad game after bad game.  Losing to NIU, getting embarrassed by UGA, losing in overtime to ARK after blowing a big lead, losing to TN on 4th and 22, losing to Auburn again, should have been hints, but given the bar was low and there weren't many who would have won more, we all passed. 

There was another issue looming.  Bama wasn't recruiting worth a damn.  Websites were trying hard to spin that sub par players were going to be great players.  During the Shula years, such duds as Lebronski Hutchins, Travis Sikes, Mike Ford twice, Marcus Carter, Aaron Johns- don't get me started, Jimmy Barnes, Sam Burnthall, Jimmy Johns, Charles Kirschman, Charles Higgenbotham, and Terry Grant.  For the 4 year term, Bama fans had to really strain to make these guys look good.  The hype about how great the staff was at recruiting was pretty well debunked by 2008, but that doesn't help Shula during his 4 years does it?

Bama slowly improved, much like it did with Dubose, going from horrid, to mediocre, to good, to mediocre again.  The issue deep down was two fold with Shula.  He wasn't there to be THE Coach, he wanted to be a pal more than a leader to both the staff and the players.  There wasn't a great deal of focus or discipline going on.  As nice and upright a guy as Shula was, he was like Richt is now, too nice to be in the SEC.  His last failure was his worst.  Bama got slapped by Auburn again and Moore again tries to stall on pulling trigger because I think he didn't want to fire another coach.  He told Shula to make changes.  Shula came back with a fire nobody, reassign a few.  That was enough to tell a Coach like Moore that it was time again.  So now Bama has gone through 4 coaches in 8 years.  The player that Shula was never translated into the coach that Shula needed to be. 

One more search and finally something goes right!

Well, this time another full scope search is on.  Moore is shooting a goose egg at this now with the poor choices of Fran, Price, and Shula not to mention keeping Dubose another year.  First, Moore had to enquire about Beamer because he can't do a coaching search without calling him.  He got his no.  Kirk McNair gets folks worked up with speculation that Spurrier is flirting.  That never really happened.  Saban's name starts creeping up, but Rich Rodriguez is more open and easier to get to at the moment because the Dolphins had 3 or 4 games left before Saban would be able to get real on the job.  Rich Rod took the job until the wife put the X on it.  Then names like Grobe, Kragthorpe,Paul Johnson and Mike Sherman cropped up. 

We all know how that finally turned out.  And the rest is history.....

Next up- top 10 of the 10 years