Legendary Alabama football coach Gene Stallings joined "The Game with Ryan Fowler" earlier Monday afternoon to catch up and take some questions on a wide variety of topics.

Read what this Alabama football icon had to say on topics ranging from the success of former players like Dabo Swinney and Tuscaloosa mayoral candidate Martin Houston to Alabama's 2020 national championship team.

95.3 The Bear logo
Get our free mobile app
Gene Stallings
Rick Stewart/ALLSPORT
loading...

Coach Stallings on Martin Houston as a person and player:

“I remember he was always on time and never late. He worked as hard as he could work in practice and the games. He gave you 100% every time he went on the field.

 

One particular thing I remember about him was playing in the championship game. It was a fourth down and I should have punted the ball but if we made a first down we could run the clock out. Miami had great speed and could score real fast. It was a poor decision on my part to run the ball, but we gave it to Martin Houston and we said ‘Martin you gotta make two yards and the game is over’ and he made about three yards.

 

He has always been a performer and I really appreciate him as an individual.”

Coach Stallings on his pride regarding the success of the players on the 1992-93’ National Championship team like Dabo Swinney: 

“First of all the game is for the player, it’s not for the coach. The real joy that I got out of coaching was seeing my former players be successful in whatever things they were gonna be in. I try to help a number of them from time to time. I didn’t really help Dabo. I said a thing or two on his behalf and talked to the president, but he got that job on own because of his merit.” 

95.3 The Bear logo
Get our free mobile app

Coach Stallings on the 2020 Alabama team:

“Best offensive team I believe I’ve ever seen! My philosophy of offense is if we get the ball we want to score, kick it to score, or move it out far enough that if we want to punt it they’ve gotta go 80 yards with it. Seemed like to me every time they got the ball they either scored or kicked it to score. I think it’s the finest college team I’ve ever seen.”

 

 Coach Stallings' thoughts on the state of the NCAA transfer portal:

“I don’t like the fact that you can go from one school to the other. First of all, you go to school for an education. Now if you don’t play as much as you think you want to play you want to transfer. You forget about the hours you developed for an education and a degree, so I’m opposed to transferring from school to school.”

Click below to listen to the full interview with Coach Stallings on Soundcloud:

You can listen to "The Game with Ryan Fowler" every week day from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. right on Tide 100.9 or on our mobile app.

2021 Alabama Crimson Tide Record Book

 

 

 

More From 95.3 The Bear