Alabama begins its latest search for a football coach needing one thing above all.

"It needs some stability,'' former Crimson Tide coach Gene Stallings said Sunday.

Alabama is seeking its seventh successor to Bear Bryant since the legendary coach retired after the 1982 season with Mike Price's firing Saturday for off-the-field conduct before he even coached a game.

Athletic director Mal Moore is leading his third football coaching search since being hired on Nov. 23, 1999. President Robert Witt said Saturday he was unsure if the program will need to hire an interim coach but was "very optimistic that we will be announcing in the near future a permanent coach.''

The post-Bear ledger includes three losing seasons, two scandals and -- just about as embarrassing for Alabama's proud fans -- only one national championship. That was won in 1992 by Stallings and is one big reason why he's a favorite of many fans to return.

Stallings fueled more rumors because he was in Birmingham on Saturday. He was, however, there to raise money for juvenile diabetes and was home in Texas by Sunday.

"All that is very premature,'' said Stallings, certainly the most popular Tide coach since Bryant. "I haven't talked to anybody officially or anything like that.

"I just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time and people thought I was there for that particular reason, and that's not right at all.''

Besides Stallings -- who Witt denied was a candidate -- some possible candidates include former Tide players and NFL assistants Sylvester Croom and Mike Shula.

Other names thrown in to the mix were former defensive coordinator Carl Torbush and former Jacksonville Jaguars coach Tom Coughlin.

Two of Price's assistants, Joe Kines and Sparky Woods, have head coaching experience.

According to a report in Sunday's Tuscaloosa News, there are names among the college ranks that might be tossed into the mix: Missouri coach Gary Pinkel, Oklahoma State's Les Miles, Georgia Tech's Chan Gailey, Purdue's Joe Tiller, Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops or Texas Tech's Mike Leach.

Ray Perkins, who followed Bryant, said the coaching carousel is hurting the program.

"We've now had one, two, three, four, five, six head coaches since Coach Bryant,'' Perkins told The Birmingham News. "Six coaches! And none of those really gave the program long-term stability. And I include myself.

"That has to stop somewhere...''

The Crimson connection is important to building that stability, Stallings said.

"Personally, I think it's going to require somebody who has a passion and desire to coach at the University of Alabama,'' said Stallings, who retired after the 1996 season. "I think (Moore) will be able to find that person.''

Moore, himself a former player and coach under Bryant, has hired two football coaches, both outsiders.

Dennis Franchione, hired from TCU, went 10-3 in his second season, but abruptly left for the Texas A&M job in December, reversing the path Bryant took more than four decades ago.

Moore settled on Washington State's Price after courting several other coaches, and the union lasted less than five months.

The AD declined comment on his search Sunday and planned to meet with the media Monday morning. Witt said Moore's job was not in jeopardy.

Price was fired by Witt after reports that Price, while on a golf trip last month, spent hundreds of dollars at a topless bar and, the next morning, a woman ordered about $1,000 of room service and charged it to his hotel bill in Pensacola, Fla.

Alabama leaned on its favorite crutch for troubled times on Saturday -- tradition. The Tide has won six national championships, including five under Bryant, but has seldom, if ever, seen such turmoil.

"I am hopeful that the rich tradition of football at this university, all that it has come to mean to the university and to our state, will cause those young men to remain and play in the coming season for our new coach,'' Witt said.

But, he added, "I'm concerned about the program. I'm even more concerned about the players.''

The team's probation stems from rules violations under Mike DuBose, who was forced out in 2000 during a 3-8 season two seasons after surviving a sexual harassment complaint filed by his former secretary.

Alabama is banned from postseason play next season and will face the consequences of heavy scholarship cuts for years to come.

Of more immediate concern, the Tide's fifth-year seniors are waiting for their fourth head coach.

"You worry about the players,'' Stallings said. "The game's for the players, it's not for the coaches. Some of the present players have been under several coaches in the past three or four years, and they need to get somebody who's going to be there for awhile.

"It won't be long before Alabama will be back on solid footing, I believe that.''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.