Mike Shula

crimsonaudio said:

I think Shula is good but I could look like a good OC with Cam back there - I know he's not well-liked around here, but the dude is incredibly talented.

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Not just talented but physically imposing. On his TD run last Sunday, the D backs trying to tackle him looked like high school boys trying to tackle a full grown man. He is a beast physically.

Moro Creek said:

The most surprising thing to me is that Florida let Cam go over a few simple acts of thievery.

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He may have stolen the Hernandez guy's laptop and Urban was fearing for Cam's life. Who knows?

BamainBoston said:

People said the same thing about RGIII, Johnny Football, Colin Kaepernick. They all had flashes of brilliance, but they all burned out because talent alone wasn't enough. Easiest thing in the world to look at Cam and see it as inevitable, but it didn't look that way a couple years into his career.

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None of those guys have what Cam has. Kaepernick may be the closest, but even he's not even in the same league physically, or in terms of talent. Neither RGIII nor Johnny have the size or strength to be NFL QBs, even if they have the athleticism, and JF is a basket case.

The only thing that was going to screw up Cam, was Cam. JMO, of course.

If you took Joe Kines and quality defense he ran out of the equation, Coach Shula probably wins only 4 in 2004, 7 in 2005, and 4 or 5 in 2006. But if he had put that defense together with a better offensive staff/scheme, an better S&C program, and a tougher disciplinary regime, he probably could have gotten us to a regular 9 or 10 win plateau which would likely have stretched his tenure for another 3 or 4 years until the desire to get to the next level forced a change. Needless to say, I'm glad things worked as they did.

I wish him the best in the Super Bowl, $Cam notwithstanding.

What the head coaching job at Alabama has proved over the years is that you need experience to take on this job. Shula took over when he was 38 years old, had never been a head coach, we were going through NCAA sanctions, and recruiting the previous couple of years was way down. His tenure was set-up to fail. I seriously doubt that a Nick Saban at 38 years old would have done much better in a similar situation. Saban also got his first head coaching job at age 38 at Toledo in 1990, he did go 9-2 but left to go back to the NFL. Also remember that Saban really did not have a lot of success until his last season at Michigan St. and during his tenure at LSU.

In regards to his Shula's NFL coaching, he has proven to be a good QB coach and OC. Whether you want to give him credit or not for Cam's improvement, Cam and the offense has improved since he has been the OC. Cam came into the NFL by reading cue cards at Auburn and he has helped to develop him into a NFL QB and not just an athlete running around back there. Shula has developed too as a coach and would probably be a better head coach today than he was 10 years ago.

Moro Creek said:

The most surprising thing to me is that Florida let Cam go over a few simple acts of thievery.

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If I remember right the football coach and AD had nothing to do with letting Cam go. The student council sent him packing.

Let me be clear about something - it would take an insanely stupid person not to have developed or learned from mistakes and become better at his job, so I have NO DOUBT that Mike Shula is a better coach at his position today than he was as the head football coach here. Nobody should dispute that and to provide a few other examples:

Bill Belichick got fired from the Cleveland Browns as head coach his first attempt.

Pete Carroll got fired TWICE from NFL jobs and then went to USC and became a legend (by their standards) and then went to the NFL and should have won two Super Bowls.

Gene Stallings got fired from both Texas A/M and the NFL Cardinals - then came to Alabama and won a national title.

Tom Landry would never survive today. Go look at his first several years with the Cowboys.


So nobody should say Shula is not a better coach today than he was back in the day, although I should point out that the prescription for being an NFL coordinator and being a college head coach are not even remotely similar (insert Charlie Weiss reference here). It's two different jobs, and the only thing they have in common is that the title is 'football coach.'

But on the other hand - how often REALLY is an offensive coordinator the sole reason for a guy's success? Remember when Mike Martz was supposed to be the greatest thing going? Well, Kurt Warner got to a Super Bowl without Martz, which pretty much shows how little Martz actually had to do with it.

Bill Belichick/Tom Brady has won Super Bowls with Josh McDaniels and Charlie Weiss, both of whom have been absolutely terrible as head coaches. Do any of you REALLY think that if Mike Martz had been the Patriots OC in 2001 that that would have made Brady something he wasn't?

So I can certainly respect the idea that Mike Shula has matured both as a coach and a person and that if by chance he got another head coaching job even in college, he would be better prepared and do a much better job. That, however, might not translate into as many wins - it would depend upon where he went.


I think Tide fans just ought to admit that Cam Newton, whatever we wish to say about his off-the-field stuff (which at Florida was minor by comparison), is an excellent athlete and at least a decent if not very good quarterback. He's not Joe Montana, but he's not Trent Dilfer, either.

Redwood Forrest said:

If I remember right the football coach and AD had nothing to do with letting Cam go. The student council sent him packing.

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And it had nothing to do with the stolen laptop, either.

http://content.usatoday.com/communi...e-charges-of-academic-cheating/1#.Vqf68vkrLDc


When Cameron Newton left the University of Florida it was assumed the major reason was because of his arrest on charges of stealing a laptop. According to FoxSports.com, Newton also faced a possible expulsion from school due to three separate instances of academic cheating.

The story reports Newton violated the honor code as a freshman by cheating in class. Then in his sophomore season - after his arrest - he allegedly turned in two separate papers that he did not write.

Newton left school and transferred to Blinn College in Texas before facing Florida's Student Conduct Committee, which could have suspended the quarterback or kicked him out of school

BamainBoston said:

People said the same thing about RGIII, Johnny Football, Colin Kaepernick. They all had flashes of brilliance, but they all burned out because talent alone wasn't enough. Easiest thing in the world to look at Cam and see it as inevitable, but it didn't look that way a couple years into his career.

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The difference between Newton and the guys you're mentioning is that he was always a much more accurate passer from day 1. He had an NFL ready arm even when he was at the barn.

CrimsonSEC said:

The difference between Newton and the guys you're mentioning is that he was always a much more accurate passer from day 1. He had an NFL ready arm even when he was at the barn.

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I agree with this. Doubters should check his passing stats at Auburn.

BamainBoston said:

You say that now, and maybe you always said it. But it's not what people were saying when RGIII was Rookie of the Year and CK was playing in Super Bowls and championship games. It's just not the case that Cam came into the league playing like he is now. Agree to disagree, I guess.

And I want to reiterate, I do not like Mike Shula, I am glad we fired him, and we owed him nothing in terms of allegiance or thankfulness for him taking a multi-million dollar job at Alabama.

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No I never believed in any of those guys. RGIII was injured too much in college and was also throwing to some really talented WRs his senior year. I didn't watch Kap enough to have an opinion on him. And I've never believed JF would be anything other than a massive flameout.

Now i do admit I was wrong about Cam. I thought he would be a bust, but that was my bias making me deny reality.

And yes I agree Shula deserves some credit. I just think Cam turned out to be as can't miss as possible.

I don't think CMS was ready for the Bama job, but he did take it when many seemingly would not. I think the one thing we learned from Shula's tenure was that Bama is not a job you give to a first time head coach. I hated that we parted ways with him the way it happened, but it had to be done.

As far as CMS and Cam, CMS has made Cam a better QB. If CMS did nothing else, he got Cam to calm down a little with the "Holier than thou" attitude. It was, after all, CMS who told Cam to quit acting like a brat when he scored, and give the ball to a kid vs. slamming it all over the place.

tlockwood said:

I don't think CMS was ready for the Bama job, but he did take it when many seemingly would not. I think the one thing we learned from Shula's tenure was that Bama is not a job you give to a first time head coach.

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We hired him based on being "In the family" and his name, genetics and that we could not get a good proven coach at the time. Like his brother, he just did not have the alpha to be a head coach, and I doubt he ever will, he's at that age.

Here is what I want to know. Who was the QB coach during his tenure, because it was not good at all. But he led a heck of a drive in the Iron Bowl, he had Alpha characteristics at the QB position. That was a great drive.

Sabanizer said:

...Who was the QB coach during his tenure...

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As Alabama's QB, Shula's position coach was Dave Rader. When Shula became CMS nearly two decades later, he made at least two questionable personnel decisions immediately. For his QB coach he hired the same Dave Rader, who until CMS called him was so sought after that he was selling something like life insurance or cars in Timbuktu (and sadly, that's only half untrue). Although I don't think Rader performed badly considering the circumstances, in hindsight the hire was telling.

For his strength and conditioning coach, CMS hired Kent Johnston, who had the same position at Alabama when Shula was QB. As he was previously gainfully employed in football, leaving the Seattle Seahawks to come to Alabama, that doesn't sound like a big deal; but to make room for Johnston, Shula had to fire strength and conditioning coach Ben Pollard, the only one of Franphony's assistants who declined to let go of the rope. Mike Price, whatever else his flaws, had retained him. Shula showed his character by firing him day one. I remarked at the time (when I was not yet a Tidefans member) what a bad cultural move that was.

And I haven't even mentioned Bucketstep Bob...

I really enjoyed Shula the player and that it is what I try to focus on. If you really want to be disappointed or mad at someone be mad at Dubose who absolutely wrecked the program jeopardizing it's long term future. To me the biggest crime Shula committed at Bama was he simply didn't win and probably didn't have full control of his program for whatever reason be it inexperience and/or meddling. Collectively as a fanbase we wanted him to do well, I certainly did and just didn't live up to those expectations and that apparently disappointed a lot of people. But he didn't tarnish the program and the cupboard wasn't absolutely bare when saban arrived because it wasn't all 2008 recruits that got us in the national title hunt. Remember Rolando McClain was a Shula commit first as was Coffee etc.

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JDCrimson said:

I really enjoyed Shula the player and that it is what I try to focus on. If you really want to be disappointed or mad at someone be mad at Dubose who absolutely wrecked the program jeopardizing it's long term future. To me the biggest crime Shula committed at Bama was he simply didn't win and probably didn't have full control of his program for whatever reason be it inexperience and/or meddling. Collectively as a fanbase we wanted him to do well, I certainly did and just didn't live up to those expectations and that apparently disappointed a lot of people. But he didn't tarnish the program and the cupboard wasn't absolutely bare when saban arrived because it wasn't all 2008 recruits that got us in the national title hunt. Remember Rolando McClain was a Shula commit first as was Coffee etc.

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I may be wrong, but it seemed that Shula took a lot of 4 star players with questions on character, which resulted in a mess when coach Saban got here. Many had talent, but were not the type that Coach Saban would have recruited. I was was happy to see a few like Javier and Ro buy onto the program, because many did not and it was frustrating.

It's not bad to bring up the Mike's. Just for a little perspective on how good we have it today.

Who cares if Cam made Mike or Mike made Cam. Only thing I know is, if I had to take one of the two as just a man of integrity or hiring one of the two outside of anything not dealing with football, I would take Mike Shula every day of the week and twice on Sunday before I had to deal with Cam.

I don't think anybody has ever seriously argued that Mike Shula is a below average NFL assistant coach.

As for Shula's stint as the AL HC? One way or another, it can all be summarized in three words: ice cream cone.