Yes, and who recruited those seniors that won that championship and had them in the Miami game his first year? This board likes to point out that Les Miles won a national championship with Saban's recruits (which is true), but Stallings won his with Curry's. What did Stallings do on his own with his own recruits? But I'm sure that excuse will be "but we now know Terry Bowden was paying players."I can't possibly agree with this. Perkins has the excuse of dealing with the changeover from wishbone to traditional affecting his performance. Stallings took 3 years to get a national championship.
And if I wanted to be a real jerk, I could point out Stallings's (lack of) action following the national title got us put on probation. But to be fair nothing is as simple as it seems.
Little-known fact: Bill Curry had a better record with weaker teams at Georgia Tech and was crippled with a severe probation than Gene Stallings had at Texas A/M with better teams. A substantially better record, in fact (.423 vs .369). He also had three winning seasons in his seven at Tech while Stallings had seven losing seasons out of eight at ATM.There is a strong argument that Homer Smith was the only reason we won anything while Curry was there. He gets credit for bringing him on but see Gene Chizik on where that puts him on the good coach scale.
Curry isn't Nick Saban, but he isn't Gene Chizik, either.
Jay Barker was an utter disaster as quarterback as far as actually doing much of anything until his senior year. He had as many completions to Miami defenders as he did Alabama receivers in the national title game. Now....I'm not in any way trying to diss Jay, who just won. But it's funny to me - the argument beings with "but he won" and yet when Curry wins we have to have explanations as to why it didn't matter. My problem isn't with the opinions people have so much as it is the double standards used to arrive at that opinion. In fact, other than the "soft" argument, I suspect we agree on about 90% of stuff about Curry.Ultimately, Curry's teams were soft. I remember watching games in 90, right after Stallings took over, and you could noticeably see the difference in the hitting, even before he found Barker and won his first game.
Well, Pat Dye was a better coach than Curry might have had something to do with that.....In the 89 Auburn game, I remember my father and I watching and wondering why it looked like the defensive game plan was designed to make McCants ineffective. It was one of the most frustrating games I've ever watched.
Ok, but it's the next comment I find the most tellingIf you want to go there, I rank Curry near the bottom of the coaches in the window specified. Stallings 3, Perkins 4 and Shula 5, Curry above Franchione and Dubose.
Ok, let's knock this nonsense right out of the way immediately.(Shula had 3 years dealing with sanctions, and he had to deal with a team recruited to run that Big12 high school offense)
1) TCU was NOT in the Big 12 in 2000, they were in the WAC.
2) TCU didn't run a Big 12 high school offense in 2000, either.
PASSING STATS: 106 for 183 and 1600 yards, 16 TDs, 8 INT (average of 16.6 passes per game and an average of 145 yards passing per game)
RUSHING STATS: uh, LaDanian Tomlinson (avg 196.2 yards rushing per game and won the Doak Walker Award)
3) Even the stats from fRan at Alabama do not back up this claim
2001: 183 yards per game passing, 226.4 yards rushing
2002: 190.2 yards passing, 213.2 yards rushing
In fact, had Alabama been eligible to win the SEC in 2002, we probably would have. (This assumes Fran could have coached in games that actually mattered and - to be honest - there's no evidence supporting that assumption either). Shula may have taken over a team that had sanctions, but he also took over one good enough to have won the SEC in 2002. (The UGA game literally came down to the last play - anyone think Apostle Mark Richt wins a big game if he faces us?).
Shula did face challenges, no argument here. But Shula also had more support from the fan base and the PTB than Curry ever dreamed, too.
I think the Curry hire was a mistake on both sides. I think we were wrong in hiring him, and I think he was wrong in taking it (though who could blame him for it). If he'd stayed at Tech, he would have retired a near legend by their standards. No, they don't win it all in 1990 probably, but he'd still be viewed with more favor than he is.