Which then would raise the question of how Chan would do in Tuscaloosa with Alabama's vast resources at his disposal. He had that 12-1 season at Troy, but that was in D-II, in the early 80's, but was his only remarkable season as a college head coach. Went 7-4 his first and only other year at Troy, then 5-6 in 1993 at Samford before heading back to the NFL. I always liked Chan, but it is hard to understand how the man got the HC gigs he did.
Chan never was able to get a pro style QB at GT. We did get Renfree committed, but obviously he went to Duke when Gailey got let go. I was one of the board FOCcers. I thought Gailey did a good job fighting through flunk gate and bringing in hell of good talent....Calvin Johnson, Dwyer, Wheeler, Michael Johnson, Vance Walker, Morgan Burnett, Kenny Scott.... If we stay the course and keep Threet and Renfree, I think we turn the corner with Gailey and are on equal footing with UGAg.
I still believe, unprovable of course, that we were going to beat UGAg in 2008 and 2009 with Gailey as HC. I wish we had beaten UGAg in 2007, but they were a very good football team.
I don't know if Gailey would have dominated like Saban, but at Alabama he would have gotten a lot more talent than he got at GT and would have played for SEC and national titles