Alabama Football: Best Players of Gene Stallings Era
By Ronald Evans
Gene Stallings was the Alabama Football Head Coach for seven seasons from 1990 through 1996. His record for the Alabama Crimson Tide was 70-16-1, with one National Championship in 1992 and one SEC Championship. After the 1992 season, Stallings was named the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year and the Walter Camp Coach of the Year.
Stallings is also well-known as a player for Paul Bryant at Texas A&M and being one of the Bear’s Junction Boys in 1954. Fans of both Alabama and Texas A&M revere Stallings, who was the Aggies’ head coach for seven seasons and an Alabama assistant coach under Bryant.
Stallings left Tuscaloosa after the 1996 season due to an unworkable situation with then-Alabama Athletic Director, Bob Bockrath. Bockrath began his rocky tenure in Tuscaloosa in June 1996. and less than six months later Stallings resigned.
The mess Alabama Football became after the departure of Stallings was caused internally, with more than Bockrath to blame. It led to 10 seasons of mediocrity and turmoil described by some Crimson Tide fans as a journey in college football’s wilderness.
What lives on in Tuscaloosa is the Gene Stallings legacy. That legacy is about more than football. No small part of that legacy is many of the Alabama Crimson Tide’s greatest players.
Alabama Football – Stallings Era Greatest Players
The list that follows is more than the best players by position. In some positions, there are too many great players to distinguish one above the others. The following breakdown is categorized by offense, defense and key special teams players from the 1990-1996 seasons.
In total, 32 of Gene Stalings’ players were chosen including many All-SEC and All-America players, along with winners of National Player Awards. There had to be a cutoff at some number, but another dozen or so players could have been included.