there is no other coach I would rather see at the Alabama helm than Sylvester Croom. Too bad he wasn't hired as the successor to Gene Stallings. He would have been hands down a better choice than DuBose, Price, and Shula combined. With a little patience, I feel he would have certainly led Alabama back to national prominence with championship level football. He won't lead MSU to that level, but that is only because it is MSU and not Alabama. Alabama has made many mistakes in the past decade or so, but the biggest mistake was not hiring Coach Croom.

I agree... not hiring him was a mistake. We are okay now, but it was still a mistake.

I disagree.

I was already following the career of Urban Meyer at Bowling Green and at the end of 2002 he was completing a very impressive opening run record of 17-6.

Meyer was available and easily could have been hired. He had head coaching experience already in 2003 even before Mike Price was sent packing and Bama went after Croom and Shula, neither of whom had an ounce of head coaching experience. The AD is supposed to have his eyes wide open at all candidates and Meyer was the best and most available one.

I never thought Mike Price was a good hire, he had over 100 career losses already when Bama hired him and still has never fielded a consistent or worthwhile defense. Meyer has and did even back then, to go along with a great and innovative offense.

http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/coaching/alltime_c...ear.php?coachid=1608

RTR

I agree as well, even my Dad agrees and he was dead set against him even being interviewed when CMS was hired. I think we let a good one slip away.

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Croom and Shula, neither of whom had an ounce of head coaching experience.

Sorry dude, Croom's assistant coaching experience far outweighed Meyers Headcoaching experience.

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Meyer was available and easily could have been hired. He had head coaching experience already in 2003 even before Mike Price was sent packing and Bama went after Croom and Shula, neither of whom had an ounce of head coaching experience. The AD is supposed to have his eyes wide open at all candidates and Meyer was the best and most available one.

Sylvester Croom, as a player and assistant coach, had several SEC championships, three national titles, and one superbowl appearance on his resume. His resume far outweighed even that of Urban Meyer.

Not to mention he is a Bear Bryant mold through and through.

I guess this type of after the fact speculation is ok and fun to some folks to me it is meaningless. I am only looking towards the future. What we woulda coulda shouda done just is not that important. Who knows in a few years we may be having this conversation about Saban.....I like to move on from the past and not try to predict the future.

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Originally posted by Higgins:
I guess this type of after the fact speculation is ok and fun to some folks to me it is meaningless. I am only looking towards the future. What we woulda coulda shouda done just is not that important. Who knows in a few years we may be having this conversation about Saban.....I like to move on from the past and not try to predict the future.

I completely agree. Let's do our best to put the last 10 years in our rearview mirror!

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Sorry dude, Croom's assistant coaching experience far outweighed Meyers Headcoaching experience.

Nope, dude. The lack of vision during the hiring process was the mistake that resulted in the FAR less experienced Shula getting hired over your hero Croom.

Experience as an assistant was CLEARLY not the criteria used.

Meyer would have been the best choice.


Don't call me dude, dude.


RTR

While I agree with everyone regarding Croom..I believe we forget the REAL problems that Saban has or is in the process of fixing. To hire Saban we had to do something that has not been done before except through Bryant and that is hand over complete control of the program to the head coach. That would not have happened with Coach Croom. Through no fault of Croom's I believe it woud have been a complete failure and The University would have embarassed themselves again. Mal Moore had to give the store away to hire Saban and in doing so it has forced those who have meddled in the football program (Paul Jr., Ray Perkinns, etc.) to find new hobbies.

listen folks...I'm not here to blast croom, but he is not the coach we need nor ever needed. he is old school. His style reminds me a lot of Stallings. Look, if Stallings were the coach today @ Bama, he probably wouldn't be as successful as he was in the 90's. The college game has advanced past that era. Now in a few years IF Croom is still around, he may evolve but time will only tell. This year is probably is one of the best years he will have @ MSU. He's had those players for 4 years now. They are drinking his kool-aid. But as those players graduate, he will getting the kids that aren't getting recognition from the big schools and it will take him a while to coach those guys up to be competitive. JMO

Hind sight is 50/50...

~Pat Dye

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Don't call me dude, dude.

Dude....I'll call you what the freak I want to call you.

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listen folks...I'm not here to blast croom, but he is not the coach we need nor ever needed. he is old school. His style reminds me a lot of Stallings.

Yea...and Stallings was considered "old school" back then also. Organizations are drooling over "old school" coaches. Who wouldn't want Bill Cowers? Bill Parcells? Marty ball has been successful everywhere he has been. Heck, even the New England Patriots are "old school". Isn't Nick Saban even a little "old school"? When folks say "old school" they usually mean tough defense and a sound running attack. You wouldn't want that? I would take a tough defensive team over a flashy offensive team any day of the week.