Alabama football offseason’s drag by which helps explain media fixation with Dabo’s and Nick’s future. Instead, let’s discuss the third best Tide coach ever.
Alabama football fans would be wise to recognize how fortunate are the followers of the Alabama Crimson Tide. Few college football programs can claim to have two of the best head coaches in the history of the game. The Crimson Tide has had arguably the two best ever. Some Notre Dame fans will attempt to dispute Bryant and Saban as the best of all time. They will counter with Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy and quickly add all the national championships the Irish never claimed.
Some of us Alabama football fans remember one the Irish do claim and unjustifiably so. We will not claim the Tide undefeated 1966 team should have given Alabama football a three-peat. The 1964 and 1965 National Championships were shared titles, so the unrewarded 1966 ‘national championship’ that should have been, would not have qualified as a true three-peat.
We will leave claims of coaches better than Bryant and Saban to other fanbases to conjure. But isn’t it ironic if LSU wanted to claim a better pair, one of them would have to be Saban.
More interesting for an offseason exercise is who is the third-best Alabama football coach ever. There is perhaps no absolutely correct answer. Part of what needs to be considered is something more than championships. What was the state of the program before each coach we might choose? What were the circumstances leading to the end of each man’s Alabama football head coaching career?
As much as Xen Scott deserves the gratitude of Tide fans, he is not in consideration. Scott was already dying and knew it when he took the Crimson Tide north for its first ever contest with a traditional eastern power. Reporters in Philadelphia made jokes about the Tide’s chances against Pennsylvania. They were not joking after the game, following a shocking 9-7 Tide victory. It was a giant win for Alabama football and maybe Scott might have earned others but he barely survived the season.
The only three coaches in consideration for third-best are Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas and Gene Stallings. The statues outside Bryant-Denny tipped our hand.
Wallace Wade, of course, won three national championships. Alabama football claims two under Frank Thomas, but only the 1934 one is a credible claim. A claim for 1945 would be a better argument than the one claimed from 1941. So, Stallings and Thomas are almost equal in national championship achievements. Wade and Thomas have equal 81.2 percent winning records. Stallings seven seasons gave his Tide tenure a 71.3 percent win record.
Wallace Wade left Frank Thomas a 10-0 national championship team. When the also ailing Thomas stepped down after the 1946 season, the Tide was just one season past going 10-0 in 1945. The 1946 team finished 7-4. Thomas’ successor, Red Drew had a 64.3 winning percentage in his eight seasons.
The seven seasons after Bryant and before Stallings, the Tide lost 25 games and the record was viewed a disaster. The Alabama Crimson Tide also lost 25 games in the seven Stallings seasons. The melt-down following Stallings departure can only be blamed on a rudderless athletic program driven down by misguided athletic administration. An unfettered Gene Stallings might have coached for many more seasons and possibly won another national championship or two.
Longtime Alabama Crimson Tide right-hand man to head coaches, Cedric Burns, once said the Tide’s national championship coaches, were or are, all the same. Cedric is the ultimate source on Alabama football head coaches but in this case, he was not exactly correct.
The third-best Alabama football head coach ever is Wallace Wade. Taking nothing away from Thomas and Stallings, the difference is not close.
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