re: Worst SEC football coach since 1980?

Mike Dubose and it isn't even close. He may have that SEC Championship ring on his finger but he sure as hell didn't earn it. He even admitted as much to Cecil Hurt last year. In 1997 Dubose took over a program that had gone 10-3 the year before and returned quite a few starters. Despite a senior quarterback in Freddie Kitchens and talented sophomore in Shaun Alexander, Dubose ran the team into the ground and went 4-7. 10-3 to 4-7 with as much talent as Bama had on that '97 squad wouldn't have been possible even with Mike Shula as head coach.

1998 could have just as easily been another 4-7 if not for last minute comeback wins over LSU and East Carolina. Yes, you read that right, East Carolina. East Carolina was pure and utter crap back then and we had to come back and win the game from 9 points down AT Legion Field. Same thing goes for LSU. They weren't very good back then and we had to stage a miraculous comeback, down 16-7, with less than three minutes to play in the game to win it.

1999 was the anomaly. With the exception of 1953, this is probably the worst Alabama team to ever win an SEC Championship. We trailed lowly Vanderbilt going into the fourth quarter before we finally turned it on and beat them by 11. We struggled against Houston for two and a half quarters before we left them in the dust. We trailed Louisiana Tech most of the game, before going ahead in the final minute, before losing on the final play. We nearly lost to Arkansas the same way we lost to Louisiana Tech the very next week but luckily our defensive backs batted the Hail Mary pass down in the end zone. The victory against Florida would not have been possible if not for two VERY improbable plays: the muffed punt with two minutes to go and the offsides penalty against Florida on the missed extra point try in overtime. To the team's credit, however, they played one hell of a game. We then almost blew it against Ole Miss the following week before losing by 14 to Tennessee at home. We easily beat Southern Miss before almost blowing the whole season against LSU in Tuscaloosa. They led for much of the game but an improbable (and amazing!) goal line stand preserved the victory. I could go on but I think you get the point. Alabama, in hind sight, was one of the luckiest teams in SEC history. Against all odds and the beliefs of even the most irrational Alabama fan, the Crimson Tide some how won the SEC title.

But it was all just one big anomaly. 2000 was a disastrous season, probably the most disastrous in the history of Alabama football. I still have nightmares about Mike Dubose because of what he did to our program. Gene Stallings had turned the Alabama football program into one that competed for SEC championships and finished in the Top Ten every year and Mike Dubose, in four years, destroyed that legacy. He had made Alabama a laughing stock and, under his watch, the Crimson Tide was almost given the death penalty by the NCAA - further setting back our program and leading us into the treachery of the Franchonie years, and the incompetence of the Mike Shula years.