First of all, I do not subscribe to the thought that Dennis Franchione was a bad hire. Dennis Franchione broke under pressure 2 years after getting the job. There was no way to tell at the time of the hire what was going to happen, anymore than someone could guarantee me the same wouldn't happen to Nick Saban 2 years from now. Likely? Not at all. Can you guarantee it? No, because no one can guarantee anything that far in the future.
I would count Moore as 2-for-3 in head coaching hires, with 1 hire (Shula) exempted. The Price hire was a had hire; Moore knew him previously and information about Price's somewhat non-traditional off-field behavior was already known a bit, especially around Pullman. There have always been rumors of meddling in that hire, whether certain interests wanted UA to go more wide-open in its offensive approach. Either way, Mal didn't do a great job there. He either should have backgrounded Price better and nixed the idea, or at least stood up to "advisors" the way he had two years earlier (one prominent insider was pushing for Alabama to make a play for then-Clemson coach Tommy Bowden, but Mal stood up to those efforts).
Saban was a win. I count Franchione a win at the time. Everything that went wrong in the last month or so of Franchione's UA tenure is on Franchione, period.
As for Shula, it's a bad hire if you connect it to Price and use the logic that if UA doesn't botch the Price hire, there's no Shula hire later (although there might not be a Saban hire after that, either). Alabama had the three candidates everyone is aware of when Shula was hired -- Shula, Sylvester Croom and Richard Williamson. There were also two other coaches at other programs who let it be known they'd listen to Alabama, even though the hire was made post-spring. Those were Gary Pinkel at Missouri and Les Miles, then the coach at Oklahoma State. But Moore decided that if Alabama had gone after either of those guys, it would make UA no better than Texas A&M coming after Franchione. I can respect that decision. As time has shown, Pinkel is no prize, and I understand Les Miles has his strong points but I've never been as sold on him as others have.
As for basketball, the other major sport in the discussion, Moore took over after Glen Tuckett had just given David Hobbs an extension; his two hires there have been Mark Gottfried (alum, considered an up-and-comer at the time) and Anthony Grant, who was highly sought-after when UA hired him away from VCU. I think both were sound hires. Sometimes, you do the best you can do and people just don't work out. Anyone who has ever been a hiring manager at a business has known this.
The two low points for Moore were the Price hire and, I'd argue, the Wendell Hudson hire. I'll yield on Shula simply because of why it was necessary, but not on Franchione.
