Mike Leach is a national treasure

#26
#26
Can you imagine if Saban was asked a similar question. That could be entertaining as well.
 
#28
#28
Man, we could be winning games and be entertained at press conferences. But, as usual, Tennessee f***ed up and now we get "aight" and "cornbread".

Only Tennessee...
 
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#35
#35
VolFreakJosh said:
Pruitt has been a clown since the Georgia St loss.
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So has your BOT. With Jimmy Haslem leading the parade, your BOT has taken turns sabotaging HCs, ADs. A Chancellor, on the job barely a year, with a Dear John letter that should have embarrassed the 3 Stooges. Anyone coming near the hill is only going to get chewed up as these gears continue to turn and eat.

The next HC had better have complete autonomy. Just like Nick Saban. Not only will he need full control and an iron-clad promise, in writing, to keep your hands off the product, but a strong personality and then the ability to turn this mess around, so that the BOT keeps their politicking hands off of it.

In that it's highly unlikely you can change your BOT, you had better find a HC that can neuter those bulls.
 
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#37
#37
TUSKtimes said:
So has your BOT. With Jimmy Haslem leading the parade, your BOT has taken turns sabotaging HCs, ADs. A Chancellor, on the job barely a year, with a Dear John letter that should have embarrassed the 3 Stooges. Anyone coming near the hill is only going to get chewed up as these gears continue to turn and eat.

The next HC had better have complete autonomy. Just like Nick Saban. Not only will he need full control and an iron-clad promise, in writing, to keep your hands off the product, but a strong personality and then the ability to turn this mess around, so that the BOT keeps their politicking hands off of it.

In that it's highly unlikely you can change your BOT, you had better find a HC that can neuter those bulls.
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Ding ding ding. The only way out of this is lucking into a coach that wins a lot and simply shuts up people who will seek to control him. No trustee or booster, no matter how much money they have, has the leverage or political capital to try and control Saban. Saban is so good, any attempt to control him or change what he's doing would be received extremely negatively, so everyone just keeps their mouth shut.

You hired Saban and gave him full autonomy. The only reason he's been able to keep it is because he's won. If he went, say, 7-5 in year 2, the Bear Jrs of the world would have at least tried sticking their claws in him.
 
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#38
#38
05_never_again said:
Ding ding ding. The only way out of this is lucking into a coach that wins a lot and simply shuts up people who will seek to control him. No trustee or booster, no matter how much money they have, has the leverage or political capital to try and control Saban. Saban is so good, any attempt to control him or change what he's doing would be received extremely negatively, so everyone just keeps their mouth shut.

You hired Saban and gave him full autonomy. The only reason he's been able to keep it is because he's won. If he went, say, 7-5 in year 2, the Bear Jrs of the world would have at least tried sticking their claws in him.
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You mentioned coach Bryant. He was also AD and even when he had a few down years in the late 60s and was asked if he might get fired, he replied, I'll let them know when I'm ready to leave. And so it was.

It takes time to get dysfunctional enough for a BOT to sabotage themselves at every turn, but Bama's BOT got there. And by the mid-90s was divided enough to run off a NC coach and make numerous bad hires with HCs and ADs as well. In fact, it was a lousy AD hire, Bob Bockrath his final year that was the nail in the coffin. It started a lot of internal friction and Stallings didn't play politics and he wasn't going to be manipulated otherwise.

I don't think Coach Saban gets runoff in year 2, not with his pedigree and all the disfunction we just went through for the last decade, but any weakness in the program and the vultures are going to prey on it, right there. It's sad, but it's also why winning can be so ridiculously hard to sustain. And even wilder to hear fans think it was all on the coaching staff. They have a lot of help.
 
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#41
#41
TUSKtimes said:
You mentioned coach Bryant. He was also AD and even when he had a few down years in the late 60s and was asked if he might get fired, he replied, I'll let them know when I'm ready to leave. And so it was.

It takes time to get dysfunctional enough for a BOT to sabotage themselves at every turn, but Bama's BOT got there. And by the mid-90s was divided enough to run off a NC coach and make numerous bad hires with HCs and ADs as well. In fact, it was a lousy AD hire, Bob Bockrath his final year that was the nail in the coffin. It started a lot of internal friction and Stallings didn't play politics and he wasn't going to be manipulated otherwise.

I don't think Coach Saban gets runoff in year 2, not with his pedigree and all the disfunction we just went through for the last decade, but any weakness in the program and the vultures are going to prey on it, right there. It's sad, but it's also why winning can be so ridiculously hard to sustain. And even wilder to hear fans think it was all on the coaching staff. They have a lot of help.
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Why exactly were they so put out with Stallings? As a Vol I know all about people eventually turning on a legendary coach, but we turned on Fulmer after 2 losing seasons in 4 years, slipping badly in recruiting, and he was 10 years removed from his last conference/national title.

By contrast, Stallings was coming off seasons of 12-1, 8-3, and 10-3, won the West the year he was fired, and was just 5 years removed from a title. We'd build a statue for a coach if they were able to do that today.
 
#42
#42
05_never_again said:
Why exactly were they so put out with Stallings? As a Vol I know all about people eventually turning on a legendary coach, but we turned on Fulmer after 2 losing seasons in 4 years, slipping badly in recruiting, and he was 10 years removed from his last conference/national title.

By contrast, Stallings was coming off seasons of 12-1, 8-3, and 10-3, won the West the year he was fired, and was just 5 years removed from a title. We'd build a statue for a coach if they were able to do that today.
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Hootie Ingram hired him and both were Bear's boys. They both knew college football and learn their principles on the lap of coach Bryant. The new AD hire was a football idiot and didn't work with what Stallings believed in. Some BOTs I'm sure were speaking through the AD. They wanted Stallings to open it up. Florida was beating Bama in close games in the SECCG since their opening game win in 92. Had to be some discontent over the probation with Antonia Langham. He signed his signature on a napkin with an agent. How that implicated Stallings and Ingram in 93 who knows. But the NCAA doesn't have to connect any dots to do their thing. A few years of the discontent and the pressure probably made up his mind for him.

So, Stallings took his 7 years, averaging 10 wins a season and went back to Texas. And those 10 wins a season was in an 11 game schedule.
 
#43
#43
TUSKtimes said:
Hootie Ingram hired him and both were Bear's boys. They both knew college football and learn their principles on the lap of coach Bryant. The new AD hire was a football idiot and didn't work with what Stallings believed in. Some BOTs I'm sure were speaking through the AD. They wanted Stallings to open it up. Florida was beating Bama in close games in the SECCG since their opening game win in 92. Had to be some discontent over the probation with Antonia Langham. He signed his signature on a napkin with an agent. How that implicated Stallings and Ingram in 93 who knows. But the NCAA doesn't have to connect any dots to do their thing. A few years of the discontent and the pressure probably made up his mind for him.

So, Stallings took his 7 years, averaging 10 wins a season and went back to Texas. And those 10 wins a season was in an 11 game schedule.
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That's honestly even more dysfunctional than Tennessee has been. I've said on here a few times that Bama's dysfunction from 1997-06 was even more embarrassing than ours has been from 2008-? and gotten laughed at, but it's easy to be a prisoner of the moment I guess.

The down periods are actually very similar in a lot of ways; Alabama was more successful on the field during their down period than Tennessee has been, but Alabama arguably had more embarrassing things happen to them. Your probation was much more severe, and the Mike Price situation was probably more embarrassing than Schiano. At least we only "almost" hired Schiano - Price was there for a few months and they had to fire him that summer if memory serves.
 
#44
#44
05_never_again said:
Ding ding ding. The only way out of this is lucking into a coach that wins a lot and simply shuts up people who will seek to control him. No trustee or booster, no matter how much money they have, has the leverage or political capital to try and control Saban. Saban is so good, any attempt to control him or change what he's doing would be received extremely negatively, so everyone just keeps their mouth shut.

You hired Saban and gave him full autonomy. The only reason he's been able to keep it is because he's won. If he went, say, 7-5 in year 2, the Bear Jrs of the world would have at least tried sticking their claws in him.
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Hiring a head coach in college football is like playing the lottery. You might luck into THE one but more than likely not.
 
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#45
#45
Coaches are like players. You really don't know if it's the right fit until they show up and get going. CJP may work out in the long run. If he's wise enough to learn from his early errors and improve. I think it is highly unrealistic to expect a new coach to be perfect. I do believe he needs to show he's growing and improving.

As for Bama's decade of idiocy, I also think they crapped on Perkins and Curry. Both showed quick and sustained success for the short time they were there, but they weren't Bear, and it was a bad time to be the next coach following him. Yeah, Bama has beat us what 10-11 in a row. But, lest we forget we beat them 9 in a row during their fledgling decade. And I pity the coach that follows Saban. Bama could easily swing back the other way in a hurry after he does retire. And that will be sooner now than later. And you can't bet on Dabo coming back. With what he has built at Clemson, he won't need Bama on his resume, nor the heartache that will accompany it.
 
#46
#46
GVF said:
As for Bama's decade of idiocy, I also think they crapped on Perkins and Curry. Both showed quick and sustained success for the short time they were there, but they weren't Bear, and it was a bad time to be the next coach following him. Yeah, Bama has beat us what 10-11 in a row. But, lest we forget we beat them 9 in a row during their fledgling decade. And I pity the coach that follows Saban. Bama could easily swing back the other way in a hurry after he does retire. And that will be sooner now than later. And you can't bet on Dabo coming back. With what he has built at Clemson, he won't need Bama on his resume, nor the heartache that will accompany it.
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Who exactly was going to be the next Bear? Who did you guys have up there at the time that was the Bear? Curry and Perkins were easily the measure of Majors. Stallings was better than Majors but not the Bear.
And your dominance in the '90s was 5-4-1. Tennessee benefited from the last half of the 90s and early 2000s. Which coincides perfectly with our trek into the wilderness as the fans bases like to say.

And if you try to justify the last 12 years as being part of the rivalry we've always witnessed as some kind of cycle, you are hoping against hope. These have been historic beatdowns. Totally unprecedented in the history of the series. Frankly, these last 10 years has been historically unprecedented against your own rivals in the SEC East. No record or history books will explain this stuff.
 
#47
#47
TUSKtimes said:
Who exactly was going to be the next Bear? Who did you guys have up there at the time that was the Bear? Curry and Perkins were easily the measure of Majors. Stallings was better than Majors but not the Bear.
And your dominance in the '90s was 5-4-1. Tennessee benefited from the last half of the 90s and early 2000s. Which coincides perfectly with our trek into the wilderness as the fans bases like to say.

And if you try to justify the last 12 years as being part of the rivalry we've always witnessed as some kind of cycle, you are hoping against hope. These have been historic beatdowns. Totally unprecedented in the history of the series. Frankly, these last 10 years has been historically unprecedented against your own rivals in the SEC East. No record or history books will explain this stuff.
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Trek into the wilderness. That's a good way to put it. Agreed Stallings was better than Majors. And most others at the time. I always liked Stallings. We did not have a modern equivalent of the Bear that would be a fair measure, then or now. as far as who would be the next Bear? Someone who had several coaches between them and the Bear. Next man up (or two) certainly wasn't going to be regardless of how good they might have been. Stallings was a tough old throwback. that got him by for 9 years. And he won also.

Didn't realize there was so much behind the scenes around the time his departure. I thought it was just health and time to retire.
 
#48
#48
TUSKtimes said:
And if you try to justify the last 12 years as being part of the rivalry we've always witnessed as some kind of cycle, you are hoping against hope. These have been historic beatdowns. Totally unprecedented in the history of the series. Frankly, these last 10 years has been historically unprecedented against your own rivals in the SEC East. No record or history books will explain this stuff.
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They've been historic beatdowns because Saban is in the midst of a historic run of success, one that hasn't been seen before and won't happen again. Simultaneously, Tennessee football has seen its worst decade in history. The lowest, lowest Alabama has been ranked since 2008 when we have played is #8, and you've been ranked #1 or #2 eight times. Meanwhile Tennessee has been ranked only once.

I think it is reasonable to believe that when it swings the other way, Tennessee will control the series for some period of time because that has been the historic pattern since the early 50s. However, "when it swings the other way" might be 10 years from now, and in the meantime y'all will probably have won all 10 of those games too. Alabama might very well win 22 in a row before Tennessee wins one.

The Third Saturday in October is honestly one of the more overrated rivalries in college sports because throughout history Alabama and Tennessee very rarely are good at the same time.
 
#49
#49
GVF said:
Trek into the wilderness. That's a good way to put it. Agreed Stallings was better than Majors. And most others at the time. I always liked Stallings. We did not have a modern equivalent of the Bear that would be a fair measure, then or now. as far as who would be the next Bear? Someone who had several coaches between them and the Bear. Next man up (or two) certainly wasn't going to be regardless of how good they might have been. Stallings was a tough old throwback. that got him by for 9 years. And he won also.

Didn't realize there was so much behind the scenes around the time his departure. I thought it was just health and time to retire.
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The pressure is intense on these HCs to win and win big. I doubt any of them get a good nights sleep. If you don't love the limelight, and I mean love it, don't come to Tuscaloosa. Bill Curry and Dennis Franchione couldn't handle the noise and never seemed comfortable, even with success. Even as a good coach, the mountain is too high and eventuality you'll get tired of constant expectations and no safe place to escape it. Matching personalities to the job is as critical as Xs and Os and recruiting. Too many times Bama has just looked at resumes.
 
#50
#50
Here's a thought: CFB is the ONLY real stick-and-ball sport in Alabama of note..No Titans..No Grizzlies..No Predators..Just Amateur or Minor League sports..Even Talladega only covers a few days each year..

There are many theories floating around out there relative to the fanatical following of Ala colleges/universities..But if it's the only game in town then you either invest completely in Auburn, Alabama, etc. or pick an out-of-state team to follow.....

JMHO
 
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