Shula's All Americans?

…Shula didn’t want him but Ungerer (special teams coached) talked him into bringing him in as a return specialist. Had Shula stayed, Arenas would have never seen the field as a DB and likely would have transferred; he admitted that he wanted to leave because he never thought he’d get a chance at corner, but Saban talked him into staying by letting him know he’d get his shot if he worked his ass off and did what the coaches told him, and that worked out pretty well. Saban turned him into an All-American DB. As for Johnson, I doubt he would have been All-SEC with Shula, if only because Bob Connelly isn’t fit to breathe the same air as Joe Pendry as far as line coaches go. Pendry turned that kid into the monster he is.

was a solid commit before saban was hired. I remember being excited by him doing the 2006 season watching his rivals videos. Though im not sure how good of a player he would have been with Shula. Good points though.

Have barners ever heard of LSU?

oh nevermind. they been playin a lot of commercials for it on the radio lately… my bad

also dont forget demeco ryans (he was AA right?) and andre smith. 2 of shulas guys.

hehe

This is really why Saban stands out, and in my homer opinion is the best coach in the country. Saban not only recruits at a superb level, but he is able to take the talent and develop them as All-Americans. There is no reason to believe that almost any of the players would have been as successful if Shula had been coaching them. I feel pretty coinfident saying that the few upper level recruits that came to Alabama when Shula was coach, was much more about the team being Alabama, than Shula being the head coach.

It really is unbelieveable what Saban has been able to do in only three years. I am remember thinking when he was hired that maybe in year three Alabama might be in position to compete for an SEC title, but more likely year four. Saban is clearly one of the most transcendent head coaches in modern SEC history.

Bama’s recruiting and scouting network has always been a great one. When a coach is in place who won’t squander the talent, the network works that much harder. Stallings had never had a winning season when in the first chair, but at Bama he did very well. Right now we have a great coach who can take full advantage of all Bama’s resources and tradition, they compliment each other. Bama may slip from time to time, but we always manage to climb back to top of the heap. We sure had a tough time this last go round though.

but he wasn’t a great one. His teams were usually competitive and they played hard. They often came up short late in games because they weren’t as talented or as well conditioned. He honestly probably got almost as much out of them as anyone could have, and he helped restore an element of dignity to the University of Alabama when we’d earned a lot of negative ink.

It’s unfortunate that he had to be fired in 2006, but we were never going to be an elite team with Mike Shula as our head coach. We probably would have won nine or ten games at best if he’d stayed. There is no way in hell we would have been playing in the Sugar Bowl last year or the BCS championship this year. I doubt you’ll find anyone anywhere who’d argue with you about that.