over-signing, alleged NCAA violations and all the rest. But the fact of the matter was that they were a mess from the end of the Stallings until Saban's second year. In fact, they really weren't consistently good post-Bryant until Saban showed up. Here are their records (I'll note their sanctioned records in parentheses).
1983: 8-4 (Coach: Perkins)
1984: 5-6 (Perkins)
1985: 9-2-1 (Perkins)
1986: 10-3 (Perkins)
1987: 7-5 (Curry)
1988: 9-3 (Curry)
1989: 10-2 (Curry)
1990: 7-5 (Stallings)
1991: 11-1 (Stallings)
1992: 13-0 (Stallings, National Champs)
1993: 9-3-1 (Stallings; NCAA record 1-12 due to use of ineligible player)
1994: 12-1 (Stallings)
1995: 8-3 (Stallings)
1996: 10-3 (Stallings)
1997: 4-7 (DuBose)
1998: 7-5 (DuBose)
1999: 10-3 (DuBose)
2000: 3-8 (DuBose)
2001: 7-5 (Franchione)
2002: 10-3 (Franchione)
2003: 4-9 (Shula)
2004: 6-6 (Shula)
2005: 10-2 (Shula; NCAA record 0-2 due to sanctions)
2006: 6-7 (Shula, Kines: NCAA record 0-7 due to sanctions)
2007: 7-6 (Saban; NCAA record 2-6 due to sanctions)
Alabama was extremely impatient post Bryant, beheading coaches after 9 and 10-win seasons. The worst was getting rid of Stallings, in a Davie-like coup led by Mike DuBose who convinced Alabama trustees that he could do better than Stallings (he couldn't). The vacated games under Stallings weren't alleged to be part of a massive cheating scandal; a star DB of theirs (forget his name) was under contract with an agent. DuBose, however, was a serial cheater, especially when he figured out that it wasn't as easy to coach at a high level as he thought. But in that 25-year span, they had 12 seasons where they lost 4 or more games, and 6 losing seasons even if you forget about the sanctions.
The fact is that when they had their one very good coach in that stretch (Stallings) they managed one national championship. It's only once they got one of the best coaches in college football history that they became the monster they are.
