Offseason Question: When Saban Retires.....Who?

selmaborntidefan said:

I think it was a part of the Evil Lord Saban's plan.

"Let's call this play here. When they intercept it - instead of let it drop - we take out Colt McCoy on the fifth play. Pure. Evil. Genius.

Obviously I don't believe that but anyway........

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LOL. The devious one.

The only thing I remember about the Curry hiring is my dad saying something that cannot be repeated on TideFans.

CullmanTide said:

There will be tremendous pressure on whoever is hired to replace Coach Saban. Unless there is a can't miss home run hire at the time Saban leaves, hiring someone who can handle the transition may be necessary, so yes a bridge hire a guy, near the end of his career. Right now there is no way of knowing the situation Alabama will be in at the time. It would be foolish to rule anything out.

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Again the problem is that whoever gets the job is going to have a NC caliber team for 5 years, and anything less than one is going to bring us to that road of hiring and firing again.

Lets play out a scenario...

Lets say we go 15-0, beat tOSU, and CNS retires on the field saying (not actually saying) "Ive tied the Bear at Alabama with NCs, Ive beaten the Bear in total NCs, Urban would never win 6 in 10 years so he is no threat to my legacy, and there is noway I'm going to try BB and Joe Pa's record because I'm too old and they are irrelevant as Don Shula's record in the NFL"

So Byrne is going to have to hire a coach next year. So there are 3 permanent categories:

1) Best

Realistically Dabo and Peterson are the best available with the possibility to come.

2) Saban Disciples with HC experience

-Kirby- isn't coming, and why would he
-Dantonio- Isnt coming and why would he.
- Jimbo- isn't coming and the reason is because CS has a hospital that can treat his son's condition, and that was a huge reason why he left Tallahassee
- Kiffin- isn't going to get an offer

with those out of the way lets get to more realistic candidates

- Muschamp- Failed at Florida, recruits great defenses, and is a loudmouth that would instantly remind people of Perkins
-Mac- Failed at Florida, bad recruiter, weird personality, and very conservative play caller
- Applewhite- a lot has changed from 2007, and he is an important reason Herman did well at Houston, but too inexperienced
-Pruitt- recruits well, but very unproven

So I would say Mac and Mush are probably the two Saban disciples that have the best chances of getting an offer and come.

3) Outside Mid tier-

Here is where it gets really tricky. Where do you go with this? I think the best names are Gundy, matt Campbell, Neal Brown, and Fuente.

-Brown is the most unknown out of those, but he knows Alabama recruiting
-Campbell is actually better and more proven than what people think
-Fuente I just don't think he will leave VT

So that leaves Gundy. Gundy is pretty dang good offensively, and has had the best run that any coach in Okie St history (Jimmy Johnson and Les Miles), but I think you need a level of control over him if you are going to hire him.


So now we move into the Steward hires:

1) Saban Disciple within the team-

- Dave Enos is the best coach out of the whole staff that may be ready for the HC job and its not really close
-Locksley is 2nd

but both of those have been at really minor teams with not a lot of any success at HCs

Everyone else is just very green

***WC***

Butch Jones- yeah he is a great recruiter, but does anyone really want to hear his Butchisms

2) Saban Disciple not currently with the team_

Steele and Cignetti are probably the best out there unless you really want to hire Dooley

3) Outsiders to seat for a transition period-

A) the old farts that can win-

I really think you would have to look at either your guys like Butch Davis, Cutcliffs , and those guys that would like one more run at a big time program to end their career in 5 years on a blaze of glory.

Then you get to interesting picks like Les Miles (boy that would be fun to win a NC with him, especially since the Tigahs fired him for Oeaux) Stoops, and Spurrier.

Basically in this group your are probably looking for someone for 1 last hoorah that knows their purpose is to win a championship and get out in 5 years for a younger guy.



The point is that a transition or interim pick isn't really that great. We probably need a proven winner again because the 5 years after Saban are going to be like the 5 years after Stallings in which we have the talent to win a NCG, and anything less that an above average pick is probably going to be a very disappointing 5 year run.

4Q Basket Case said:

I agree that Petersen is the best coach other than Dabo and Meyer, and would get a call if Dabo doesn't get the job for whatever reason.

But I'd be really surprised if Petersen would take it. He's a western US guy, and seems to have a different mindset from most coaches. At Boise, he turned down a number of offers from bigger programs before finally taking UDub.

He's built a consistent winner in Seattle. The conference is easier. Pressure is nowhere near what it is in Tuscaloosa in normal times, let alone what it would be following Saban.

I have tremendous respect for Petersen, but don't see him as a cultural fit in Tuscaloosa.

After reading through the thread, my order is:
Dabo -- don't think he'll come, but I'd make him tell me no.
David Shaw -- don't think he'd come either, but I'd make him tell me that.
Jeremy Pruitt -- assumes success at UT

I may be a minority of one on this, but if all that falls through, my next call is to Justin Fuente.

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I agree with all of this.

DzynKingRTR said:

The only thing I remember about the Curry hiring is my dad saying something that cannot be repeated on TideFans.

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I think of all the coaches we've hired, that one had to be the most shocking.

Perkins? Well, he'd been in the NFL
Stallings? We knew he was in the running
Dubious? shocked me, but he had been on CGS stafff
Franchione? Never heard of him until a week before the announcement, but at least I knew he was in the running
Price? Not a total shock under circumstances
Shula? See price

Curry.....I was stunned beyond words. I was off for school break, and we went from Ray Perkins being our coach to him leaving to a replacement I didn't even know was under consideration in less than one week.

CullmanTide said:

There will be tremendous pressure on whoever is hired to replace Coach Saban. Unless there is a can't miss home run hire at the time Saban leaves, hiring someone who can handle the transition may be necessary, so yes a bridge hire a guy, near the end of his career. Right now there is no way of knowing the situation Alabama will be in at the time. It would be foolish to rule anything out.

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The problem with this attitude is that some seem to be proposing it as "plan A." This sounds like we "expect" the guy who follows CNS to fail...fail. Obviously the talent is going to be present, unless CNS decides to not recruit for 2 or 3 years before he quits, and based on this year, that's not going to happen. So the guy who follows CNS has a real chance to win a NC with CNS's holdovers. So why hire a guy we think might have to be transitionary when someone like Les Miles won a NC after CNS at LSU...and CNS will leave better talent to the guy that follows him at Bama.

Now, I'm not totally dismissing the proposal of hiring a "bridge coach," but that shouldn't be "plan A," as it seems some are proposing. I'd say that would have to be "plan D" if all else fails.

As someone pointed out it very well may be 10+ years before it happens, by then, names will come n go, situations will change & the dynamics of college football will be different playing a hand in the hiring process..

One thing's for sure though, Coach Saban ain't slowing down on the recruiting trail, it's going to be one helluva fun ride as we ride out "The Processs"..

While Curry was a questionable hire and in hind sight a poor choice, but the absolute worst hire was Franchione. He had little experience at the D1 level and certainly was not up to the level of the SEC. His rise to notoriety was due almost entirely to Gary Patterson and his press guy, Mike McKenzie. I disliked him the first time I heard him speak and was thinking, what the hell has Mal done. I realize Mal was in a tough situation with looming sanctions and a program that had run off the rails. We would have been better off with Mal taking over as HC in addition to being AD until a suitable replacement could be found. Hell, Mike Price and Shula were better hires than Franchione. My only regret is that he didn't jump ship sooner. But he did give us Kim's Corner and Fridays with Fran.

GrayTide said:

While Curry was a questionable hire and in hind sight a poor choice, but the absolute worst hire was Franchione. He had little experience at the D1 level and certainly was not up to the level of the SEC. His rise to notoriety was due almost entirely to Gary Patterson and his press guy, Mike McKenzie. I disliked him the first time I heard him speak and was thinking, what the hell has Mal done. I realize Mal was in a tough situation with looming sanctions and a program that had run off the rails. We would have been better off with Mal taking over as HC in addition to being AD until a suitable replacement could be found. Hell, Mike Price and Shula were better hires than Franchione. My only regret is that he didn't jump ship sooner. But he did give us Kim's Corner and Fridays with Fran.

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I'll defer to your judgment on this.

I remember bayoutider was all "Coach Fran is the man." I'm sitting there thinking, "At least I had HEARD of the other guys when we hired them." I'd never even heard Fran's name until a week before he got the job.

The positive thing is that some of those bungles were circumstantial due to the sanctions. That's how we lost Butch Davis. Of course, his post-Miami record suggests he might have been a complete fluke anyway.

GrayTide said:

. Hell, Mike Price and Shula were better hires than Franchione..

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Mike Price... Yes atleast he took WSU to rose bowls

Mike Shula..... Hell no. Shula was not in the college game since he played his last game at Alabama. Atleast Fran knew the college game, and we were a better team in Fran's 2 years than we ever were in Shula's 4. The 2006 Tennessee and MSU games are probably one of the worst coached Alabama games ive seen in a long time.

I know alot of Bama fans feel like the prom queen who gets dumped by the lord of the geeks about Fran, but saying Shula was a better anything other than Bama man, choker, or was born into a better football family is kinda pushing it.

GrayTide said:

While Curry was a questionable hire and in hind sight a poor choice, but the absolute worst hire was Franchione. He had little experience at the D1 level and certainly was not up to the level of the SEC. His rise to notoriety was due almost entirely to Gary Patterson and his press guy, Mike McKenzie. I disliked him the first time I heard him speak and was thinking, what the hell has Mal done. I realize Mal was in a tough situation with looming sanctions and a program that had run off the rails. We would have been better off with Mal taking over as HC in addition to being AD until a suitable replacement could be found. Hell, Mike Price and Shula were better hires than Franchione. My only regret is that he didn't jump ship sooner. But he did give us Kim's Corner and Fridays with Fran.

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I disagree regarding DF. Mal did a pretty good job. IMO, he was the best offensive coach in the SEC for a crippled program like Bama's. I.e., he could do more with avg talent than any other coach in the SEC. His playcalling was as unpredictable as playcalling can be. He killed Saban in BR with that smoke draw, as he put a 31-0 shutout on him, and he put up 21 in the loss the year before vs Saban's LSU when that Davey-Reed offense put up over 600 yds and 35 pts on Bama. You are right that he was amateurish in his PR. I hated the TSDTR reference to AU.

He did benefit from Patterson, Tomlinson and McKenzie, but he was a very good O coach. He was able to score more on some defenses that almost any other Bama coach in my memory. He stopped the streak vs UT, smoked them 34-14, and beat AU in JH and Bama's only win vs Saban. Scared a great UT team in '01 by going up 24-21 late in 3rd. In his second and last year he beat #21 OM, 16 UT and 14 LSU. The only losses were a close loss to #2 OU at Norman and #7 and ultimately # 3 UGA at home by 2. Then the gag vs AU after he had decided to leave for A&M. That team still had the best record in the West, but was on probation. Bama could have won the SEC and was not far from being a BCS contender. He was a good college coach at Bama.

But he was somewhat slimey, whiney and childish. Not a good fit, but he could have been good for Bama during that desperate period. He did not realize how patient and understanding the Bama fanbase would be. He also felt betrayed by the honest miscalculations by Bama's athletic admin regarding sanctions and also the cheap way the ath dept was run at the time. So, he left. He was a much better HC coach than Shula. IMO, both DF and Price were very good and perceptive hires by Coach Moore under the circumstances, but unforeseeable events rendered them failures. Shula was a bad hire, one chosen by someone other than Coach Moore who wanted Williamson, who would have been another good hire under the circumstances. It was not Mike's fault that he was chosen, but he was not HC material. A good O coach, though not as good as DF as a college coach under those talent-inhibited circumstances.

GrayTide said:

While Curry was a questionable hire and in hind sight a poor choice, but the absolute worst hire was Franchione. He had little experience at the D1 level and certainly was not up to the level of the SEC. His rise to notoriety was due almost entirely to Gary Patterson and his press guy, Mike McKenzie. I disliked him the first time I heard him speak and was thinking, what the hell has Mal done. I realize Mal was in a tough situation with looming sanctions and a program that had run off the rails. We would have been better off with Mal taking over as HC in addition to being AD until a suitable replacement could be found. Hell, Mike Price and Shula were better hires than Franchione. My only regret is that he didn't jump ship sooner. But he did give us Kim's Corner and Fridays with Fran.

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I can’t help but to vehemently disagree! As much of an Alabama boy as he was, Shula was the worst hire! He had ZERO experience at any level as a head coach and it showed.


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81usaf92 said:

Mal wanted Saban from the start, but bot and big bucks were getting restless. The idea that a seemingly great up and comer like Rich Rod, Petrino, and Schiano slipping out of their fingers because we were waiting on a man that was going to make us wait until January and probably say No was too much to bare. I think it’s easy to look back and say they made the right choice, but Rich Rod was very very well thought of in 2006. He had very impressive accomplishments and a very impressive record.

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I was around then, and admittedly Rich Rod looked better than, let's say Curry when he was hired... However, no one, no one at all from what I can recall was actually convinced that Rich Rod was as good as or better than Saban (I'd have argued at the time Spurrier was a better choice than those other three). And that's the point I was trying to make, go with the obvious choice, once that's out of the picture then you can go with plan b. Once the obvious choice was Bowden, once it was Saban, if this all went down tomorrow the obvious choice would be Dabo. And if Alabama finds a way out of making the obvious choice it will once again by their folly. There's plenty of young up and coming coaches a team can take a shot on, they're always there.

To underscore my viewpoint, which was the better hire, Saban at LSU or at Alabama? I'd argue Saban at Alabama was the better hire. Alabama at that point knew positively what they were getting. LSU couldn't have been as sure. So, to me a sure thing as a hire, and they might be rare but they exist, are many, many times better than taking a gamble on a up and comer.

selmaborntidefan said:

Krazy3,

I know I have a few years on you, and I was a senior in HS when we hired Curry. I lived 60 miles from T-Town (Caledonia, MS), my guidance counselor was a UA grad (so we talked football everyday), and I was planning on a journalism future so I read the paper every single day. Plus, my memory is well established, so let me try to go back and describe what it was like at the time as best I can. And as objectively as I can.

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Thanks, I was too young to remember the Curry hiring process. I remember him being the coach there but not further back, heh.

Really, what you described, along with being like watching a train wreck, I think really shows how a program can get lost trying to make a hire. I get one thing, I get worrying a race car driver will crash the car. I get saying hey look, if this guy wrecks our car, we can't even race so let's find someone who won't. I understand that part of it, but when you get to the point you're like well... this guy isn't even a good race car driver, but he never, ever, ever crashes, that's what the Curry and Shula hires felt like to me. For some reason in both cases Alabama set aside almost all football related elements of the choice, and chose what they saw as the safest possible choice. They just didn't bother with making how good a football coach either were part of the equation.

KrAzY3 said:

I was around then, and admittedly Rich Rod looked better than, let's say Curry when he was hired... However, no one, no one at all from what I can recall was actually convinced that Rich Rod was as good as or better than Saban (I'd have argued at the time Spurrier was a better choice than those other three). And that's the point I was trying to make, go with the obvious choice, once that's out of the picture then you can go with plan b. Once the obvious choice was Bowden, once it was Saban, if this all went down tomorrow the obvious choice would be Dabo. And if Alabama finds a way out of making the obvious choice it will once again by their folly. There's plenty of young up and coming coaches a team can take a shot on, they're always there.

To underscore my viewpoint, which was the better hire, Saban at LSU or at Alabama? I'd argue Saban at Alabama was the better hire. Alabama at that point knew positively what they were getting. LSU couldn't have been as sure. So, to me a sure thing as a hire, and they might be rare but they exist, are many, many times better than taking a gamble on a up and comer.


Thanks, I was too young to remember the Curry hiring process. I remember him being the coach there but not further back, heh.

Really, what you described, along with being like watching a train wreck, I think really shows how a program can get lost trying to make a hire. I get one thing, I get worrying a race car driver will crash the car. I get saying hey look, if this guy wrecks our car, we can't even race so let's find someone who won't. I understand that part of it, but when you get to the point you're like well... this guy isn't even a good race car driver, but he never, ever, ever crashes, that's what the Curry and Shula hires felt like to me. For some reason in both cases Alabama set aside almost all football related elements of the choice, and chose what they saw as the safest possible choice. They just didn't bother with making how good a football coach either were part of the equation.

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The Bill Curry hiring was one of the most insane coaching searches I have ever seen. It was the first where I lived close enough to get the day to day details, plus Perkins was announced the day that Bryant stepped down (as should have been the case). I have no way of knowing what went on behind the scenes, but I seriously wonder - if the story about Culverhouse taking Perkins off our hands was true - well, how in the world did we wind up with BILL CURRY from the list I showed above?

I can tell you what my 17-year old mind at the time was thinking when I heard the names:

Jackie Sherrill - cheater, we don't want him (this is who I feared we would get)

Danny Ford - cheater, we don't want him (to be fair - bayoutider knew Danny Ford as both were from Gadsden; he insisted over and over that while Ford did bear the ultimate responsibility for what was uncovered, Ford had tried to clean up the mess set in place by his predecessor, Charley Pell. But in 1986, Ford was still "the guy who was there when Clemson got put on probation")

Howard Schnellenberger - I didn't know about his trouble with the sauce at the time (or the repeated claims of him propositioning women), but I didn't want him, and I'll tell you why: at that time, Schnellenberger was quickly getting a rep as a Larry Brown or even an early career Nick Saban, a guy who didn't stay in one place too long. Some of it was not his fault. He won a national title, bolted for a nonexistent USFL gig, and wound up at Louisville's then disaster.

Steve Sloan - a totally inept head coach who would have been a disaster

I thought Bobby Bowden - even BEFORE he built the Florida State dynasty - was THE choice for us to replace Ray Perkins.

Indeed, in the name of honesty, who I wanted.....

Perkins - didn't know enough about it
Curry - Bowden
Stallings - Bowden
DuBose - Beamer
Franchione - Tommy Bowden (yes, I'm stupid sometimes myself)
Price - Coughlin (I did, however, think Price was one of the better of the names I was hearing
Shula - Shula (because I figured whoever got it was toast)
Saban - Saban

The hiring of Saban was the ONLY one about which I was ever ecstatic.

BamaInBham said:

I disagree regarding DF. Mal did a pretty good job. ....

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Agree. Franchione was considered a very good hire by a number of people in the college sports industry at that time. At least this is the word I got from a D-1 athletic director back then.

day-day said:

Agree. Franchione was considered a very good hire by a number of people in the college sports industry at that time. At least this is the word I got from a D-1 athletic director back then.

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He was considered a "good" hire, yes. I'll concur with this.

He was also well down the list and we sort of got stuck with him due to the pending sanctions cloud over us. I don't think Beamer would have ever come here, and Sherrill (who had the audacity to call a MS press conference and announce he wouldn't go to Alabama, which was never going to happen anyway) was toxic. But Davis (who I think would have come here) and Tommy Bowden used us for salary leverage.

Has anyone mentioned Coach Mullen as a possibility?

I'm not saying he would be a valid candidate, just wondering if anyone here thought he might be.

He's done well in the conference.

Has a lot of integrity and character.

Is a "player's coach".

Good recruiter.

Potential "Coach of the Year" in the SEC this coming season too.

Of course, I hope he stays at Florida for the rest of his coaching career, but we all know that things change year to year......and you never know.....

Bazza said:

Has anyone mentioned Coach Mullen as a possibility?

I'm not saying he would be a valid candidate, just wondering if anyone here thought he might be.

He's done well in the conference.

Has a lot of integrity and character.

Is a "player's coach".

Good recruiter.

Potential "Coach of the Year" in the SEC this coming season too.

Of course, I hope he stays at Florida for the rest of his coaching career, but we all know that things change year to year......and you never know.....

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In 1963, leaving Florida for Alabama would have made perfect sense.


Why would anyone do that now?

I don't think Mullen is "in the cards" nor do I think he would come. I don't think Smart would come, either, but I'd be open to the possibility. Dabo is the wild card because he has been successful building and sustaining a program and played here. But would he want to do that?