bc, I was not suggesting Hayden Fry was a poor good coach, only that there were other overlooked coaches who had much stronger coaching credentials/results. Just hate how some of these polls are set up.
It is evident why Wilkinson and Devaney would be left off. The contest officials did not want to put the Oklahoma and Nebraska fan bases at a disadvantage by weakening their voting powers with Wilkinson & Switzer and Devaney & Osborne as choices.
Btw, Wallace William Wade could have been included in the mix. His teams won 3 NC at Bama, and he had another Duke team in '38, the Iron Dukes, who were not scored upon the entire season until the NC game when they lost 7-3 to Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.
Wade played football at Brown University. One of his teammates at Brown was Fritz Pollard, who went on to become the first African-American coach in the National Football League. After working as an assistant coach at Vanderbilt University, Wade was hired as the head coach at the University of Alabama in 1923. Over the next seven years, Wade's team won three national championships, after winning the Rose Bowl in 1925, 1926, and 1930. Following his third national championship, Wade shocked the college football world by transferring to Duke University, which had less of a football tradition than Alabama. Though Wade refused to answer questions regarding his decision to leave Alabama for Duke until late in his life he eventually told a sports historian he believed his philosophy regarding sports and athletics fit perfectly with the philosophy of the Duke administration and that he felt being at a private institution would allow him greater freedom from interference. Wade continued to succeed at Duke, most notably in 1938, when his "Iron Dukes" went unscored upon until reaching the national championship game, where they lost 7-3 to the University of Southern California in Duke's first Rose Bowl appearance. Wade's Blue Devils lost another Rose Bowl to Oregon State in 1942, this one held at Duke's home stadium in Durham, North Carolina. The change in scenery was a result of the Pearl Harbor attacks, which made the event organizers skittish of hosting a game in California. Wade entered military service after the Rose Bowl loss, and the legendary Eddie Cameron filled in for him as head football coach from 1942 to 1945. Wade returned to coach the Blue Devils in 1946, and continued until his retirement in 1950. In 1967, Duke's football stadium was renamed Wallace Wade Stadium in his honor. Wade is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. He died in Durham, North Carolina at the age of 94.
