As for Tommy the player, I always appreciated the fact he overachieved as a QB. Slow with a weak arm, whose Brain and determination and understanding of football carried him to unbelievable heights as ND’s qb. His physical weaknesses were tangible and frustrating as a fan when they were difference makers, and most if not all of us wished he had Golson’s physical talents to go with his intangibles. The fact he started all or parts of his four years is more an indictment of the coaches and their qb recruits than Tommy.
The book on Tommy among the coaching fraternity as per reports is that he is very highly regarded as an offensive mind. Yes, player talent matters, as does coaching. If you combine really good coaching with really good talent, you obviously win and everyone looks great. Good coaching can take average talent just so far, and I think really good talent can compensate for poor coaching to a large extent, but not enough to win championships. ND had really good talent at multiple positions when Tommy was here, but never elite qb talent. And yes, I think coaching under Saban represents a great learning opportunity, but I think Tommy finally has the kind of physical talent to maximize his game planning, and I think Saban demands and gets good execution from the players. So yes, Tommy will be highly successful at Alabama. Tommy was not the best judge or developer of QB talent, so I think he needs a talented qb coach to be successful as a HC. And Tommy some day being the HC at ND is not crazy, but I would bet against it.