The Gene Stallings era of Alabama football marked a brief return to greatness for a program that had only begun to crawl from beneath the long shadow left by the passing of Coach Paul Bear Bryant. The hiring of Stallings brought mild jubilation to Tuscaloosa. After all, Stallings was one of “Bear’s Boys,” a survivor of Junction, a man entrenched behind the palisade of old-school, grit-and-blood Southern football.
Most students of the Crimson Tide know that Stallings went on to bring the first Championship since 1979 back to the Capstone with his 1992 team. That ’92 squad fielded explosive skill position talent and a complex but lethal defensive machine that worked smoothly despite its many moving parts.