Alabama Football: Analyzing Their Head Coaches

Knowing about the storied past of the Alabama Crimson Tide football program got me to thinking about who exactly were the people who built this fine program? Obviously, the first name that comes to mind is Paul Bear Bryant. But who exactly were the other head coaches in this programs storied history that were successful? And just how successful were they?

Let's first take a look at the number of years each head coach stayed with the program.


(In the following graph, each coach is a spoke on the wheel. Each circle represents five years with the program.)


















Paul Bear Bryant is the clear leader here, coaching for 25 years with Alabama. Frank Thomas was another great coach for Alabama and he stayed there for 15 years. The third longest stint as Alabama head coach is owned by Wallace Wade and H.D. Drew.

The graph for how many games each coached coached is shown in the following graph. Obviously, this graph is very similar to the graph above for years coached.

In the following graph, each circle represents 50 games coached.
















Paul Bear Bryant again leads with 287 games coached. Frank Wallace is the only other Alabama head coach to coach in over 100 games with 146. In third, the recent Gene Stallings coached 87 games for the Crimson Tide.

One of the most interesting charts shows the winning percentages of every Alabama coach in the program's history.

Each circle represents a 10% increase in winning percentage in the graph below.
















Again, Bryant (232-46-9) takes the cake with a 82.4% winning percentage for his career. Wallace Wade and Frank Thomas are tied for second with a 81.2% winning percentage. Wade and Thomas' career records were 61-13-3 and 115-24-7, respectively. Gene Stallings had one of the best winning percentages as an Alabama head coach, posting a 70-16-1 record on his way to a 81.0% winning percentage.

Finally, I thought all you 'Bama fans out there would enjoy seeing all-time wins. In the graph below, each circle represents 50 career victories.

Again, guess who takes the cake far and beyond any Alabama head coach in history, Bear Bryant with 232 career wins. Frank Thomas comes in second again with 115 wins in his career.

From the following statistics, it is very clear who the fine coaches are in Alabama history. Bear Bryant clearly stands out as the best. Others to get their name mentioned often are Wallace Wade, and Gene Stallings, and Frank Thomas. Hopefully maybe someday we will see Nick Saban up there with the greats in Alabama coaching history.