quote:
Great. We agree then. For a 25 year stretch (with the exception of 92) you guys were a composite 10-15 ranked program and you acknowledge that. Perkins (32-15), Curry (26-10), Stallings (70-16), Dubose (24-23), Franchione (17-8), Price (strip cub 1 Bama 0), Shula (20-15) et al. It looks like Bama is subject to the same forces of nature as everybody else. You get a good coach (Stallings) and you win. You don't and you lose. We can revisit this again in five years and then again five years after that. Enjoy now. Because there are more Shulas and Duboses in your future. Just like everybody else.

In the sense that everyone needs a good coach, yes. But Bama has had 5 coaches in its history with at least 7 years and a winning % greater than 80. The rest of the SEC combined has had 3: Neyland, Spurrier, Meyer.

Wade: 8 years, 81.2%, 3 NCs
Thomas: 15 years, 81.2%, 1 NC (I don't count bogus 1941)
Bryant: 25 years, 82.4%, 6 NCs
Stallings: 7 years, 81.0%, 1 NC
Saban: 10+ years, 87.0%, 4 NCs

There were 20 open Rose Bowls from 1925-1946, Bama took 6 undefeated, untied teams and was 4-1-1. The rest of the SEC combined was 2-3 and rest of the nation was 4-10. 1946 was the last year of "open" Rose Bowls, the beginning of the PAC8/Big10 agreement.

The 24 years from 1923-1946 Bama had a winning% of 81.2, including 9 years from '30-'38 when it was 88.8%. Coach Bryant's 25 years was 82.4%.

Even after Coach Bryant's tenure from 1983-1996 Bama's on field winning % was 75.1, 7th in the nation. Arrogant and incompetent leadership led to bad hires, Bama's only NCAA problems and severe scholarship losses from 1997-2006. Even then Bama won an SEC title and had 3 10 win seasons.

So 66 of the last 92 years Bama has been coached by coaches who won more than 80% of their games at Bama. Their records apart from Bama were not like that, not Coach Wade, Coach Thomas, even Coach Bryant or Coach Saban. Again, the rest of the SEC combined has only had 3 such coaches. Even without Bryant and Saban, with 5 other coaches, Bama has 8 SEC titles good for a tie with UF and AU for 4th behind UT, UGA and LSU. Bama has 2 NCs tied, with UT and AU for 3rd behind LSU and UF with 3. And that's missing the 35 years of Bryant and Saban.

Yes, it takes good coaching, but it's certainly interesting that Bama has had a massively inordinate number of "good" coaches.