Some Wounds Never Heal: A Look Back at the 1966 Alabama Crimson Tide

selmaborntidefan

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I was asked to write this article by one of our fans, and it took a lot of research as well as the fact that, well, unlike very write-up I've done so far, I wasn't even alive for this one, so I have no personal recollections that I can add to the article. I will post the epilogue later this week as I'm still working on it but I thought it might get a few more reads with Ole Miss week coming up.

Two books are indispensable for this:

"The Missing Ring" by Keith Dunnavant

"The Biggest Game of Them All" by Mike Celizic

You get both spins and perspectives and yet they basically tell the same story.


I hope you enjoy it.
 

selmaborntidefan

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On Saturday, January 1, 1966, Steve Sloan's passing for an Orange Bowl record 296 yards led Alabama to a 39-28 win over previously unbeaten and third-ranked Nebraska in a rare (for the time) prime time college football contest. In previous years, this would have merely been a formality but thanks to outrage over the circumstances surrounding Alabama's 1964 Associated Press national championship, the outcome had to wait for a vote that eventually recognized the Tide as the 1965 national champions as well. After the game, both Alabama coach Paul Bryant and Nebraska coach Bob Devaney touted Alabama's bona fides for national champion. To add to the nation's anxiety, the vote would not even be held until Tuesday (!), and press reports showed much anticipation as the Southeastern Conference had put six teams in bowl games, five that had won (the Steve Spurrier-led Florida Gators were the sole losers). The vote was expected to split among regional lines, and the real controversy concerned Michigan State's loss in a rematch to UCLA (they had opened the season against each other in East Lansing). While it was by no means unanimous, Alabama garnered 37 votes (out of 57) to beat out Michigan State for the AP national title (the Spartans won the UPI poll, now known as the coaches poll). It was Alabama's third national championship in five seasons, a run that seemed to have no end in sight. (Historical note: the AP only ranked a top ten from 1965-1968). The AP title win also gave Alabama "permanent possession" of the AP silver trophy. In 1957, the AP had announced a competition that would give permanent possession of the AP trophy to any team that won the AP vote three times (no previous votes were taken into account). Alabama's third title in five years effectively retired the old trophy. Another controversy relevant to the time was that Nebraska was the only team Alabama played in the 1965 season with black players. Asked about this before the game, Bryant offered one of his accurate sociological observations: "When they put points on the scoreboard, they don't distinguish among whites, Negroes, or Chinese. The only thing that matters out on that field is who runs the fastest, blocks the surest, and tackles the best." As a historical note, there were 298 African-Americans enrolled at the University of Alabama at the start of the 1966 football season, this only three years after Governor Wallace's infamous stand in front of the schoolhouse door.



As a side note, can you even imagine waiting nearly 60 hours to learn which team had won the national championship? Coach Bryant, in fact, couldn't sleep, and so he arose at 3 a.m. and went with assistant coach Sam Bailey to a coffee shop to await the outcome. After learning the results of the vote, Bryant hustled over to the athletic dorm and posted a note on the dining room door: "Just notified. Congrats national champions. Paul Bryant. P.S. Let's start working today to make it 3 in a row."



As a second side note, the "Cumberland Evening Times" (Md.) for January 4, 1966, had a page nine story of Alabama winning the national title. On the same page was a story about new Maryland Terrapins head coach Lou Saban starting his new job and saying he preferred the college game to the AFL he'd just left. Stories of Alabama winning national titles on the same page as the name Saban would be read as late as 2018.



The fallout to Alabama's title win was immediate, and it may have played a role in what was to happen just one year later. Michigan State Athletic Director Clarence "Biggie" Munn, while offering the qualifier that he wasn't crying over spilled milk and that the rules were known beforehand, said that it had always been his preference to determine the champion via the results of the regular season, saying that he viewed the bowl games as a "second season" that did not accurately portray teams because they "had been laid off for a month." Sportswriters weighed in with allegations of hypocrisy against Alabama fans, who a year earlier had been forced to deal with arguments about "the team who beat the team" concerning Arkansas beating Texas, who beat Alabama. (The fact this was hypocrisy from the sportswriters themselves was left unsaid).



The off-season began quickly, with quarterback Steve Sloan immediately saying he would not make a decision regarding a future NFL career until after the Senior Bowl. Sloan was considered a hot prospect, and Coach Bryant had been given considerable credit for former Tide QB Joe Namath's astounding professional contract with the New York Jets. By happy coincidence, Jets coach Weeb Ewbank was coaching Sloan in the game, and he publicly expressed interest in Sloan as did the NFL team that had drafted Sloan, the new Atlanta Falcons. Sloan signed a contract with Atlanta days after the Senior Bowl. And an immediate rumor popped up about the coaching job at West Virginia, as the school inquired of V.P.I. (Virginia Tech) head coach Jerry Claiborne about taking the position. Claiborne was already being dogged by rumors that he was the heir apparent to the Alabama job whenever Paul Bryant (then 52 years old) decided to retire. Alabama was also the target of an SEC inquiry in response to multiple complaints that the Tide was giving scholastic scholarships (e.g. not athletic scholarships) to students to play football. SEC Commissioner Bernie Moore informed the media that an inquiry would be held at the annual conference convention in late January. A spokesman conceded that three men - a backup center, the punter, and a defensive end - had been given academic scholarships and later discovered to be able to competently play football. The question was whether this tactic violated the SEC's "40 scholarship limit" rule or a subset of the same rule (or not at all). The spokesman did not say the accusation was incorrect but only that the claim was "exaggerated." Once asked for a quote, however, Coach Bryant didn't back down, dismissing the allegations as "ridiculous," and even flipping the script by saying, "I sure hope we are getting some athletes who can qualify for academic scholarships. We like smart athletes." Even the SEC commish conceded that the charge, received from another SEC school and reported by "The Atlanta Journal" (yes, the newspaper of sports editor Furman Bisher), was "exaggerated." Bryant responded again later by saying, "I never thought anyone would be jumping on us because we've got smart football players." The subsequent investigation determined that Alabama had, in fact, violated the intent of the SEC rule. The punishment was to reduce Alabama's incoming freshman allotment by two (from 40 to 38). Alabama President Frank Rose issued a public apology, and Bernie Moore (retiring because he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 70) even conceded it was an honest misunderstanding of the rule.



There was also the annual "successful college coach is courted by the NFL" nonsense, Bryant being wooed by the Washington Redskins, who hired former Cleveland Browns great Otto Graham instead. Alabama and Auburn jointly agreed in April to move the Iron Bowl back a week to December 3 in the hopes that NBC would pick up the game for national telecast. Bryant then negotiated a switch of the Southern Mississippi game from September 17 to the previously scheduled Iron Bowl date of November 26. Bryant did it in order to ensure his team didn't have three weeks between the scheduled games with South Carolina and the rescheduled game with Auburn, but it turned out to be a colossal mistake in the perceptions game that would haunt Alabama beyond 1966.



Alabama returned 22 sophomores and 20 juniors from the back-to-back national champions. While Bryant generally did not name starters on his team, Ken "Snake" Stabler was presumed the new starting quarterback, and he did nothing in the spring that suggested otherwise. The biggest problems facing Bryant were replacing All-SEC starters Steve Bowman and Creed Gilmer and All-American Paul Crane.



On May 13, Alabama held what was then called "the intra-squad game" on Friday night at Denny Stadium, and the Reds (yes, that's what they were called then) beat the Whites, 17-5, in front of 18,000 fans. Bryant chose linebacker Bob Childs as the "player of the game." Stabler's mediocre performance at the scrimmage led to speculation that Wayne Trimble might share quarterbacking duties with the former Foley High School star.



In June, a polling of the SEC coaches found Alabama the overwhelming favorite to win the SEC yet again. So impressed was Bryant with his crop that he acknowledged that, "If I was playing us, I'd probably vote for us, too." But then on June 20, the unthinkable happened when Bryant collapsed while speaking at Pepperdine College (now University), grabbing his chest and saying, "I don't know what it is; is there a doctor in the house" before falling onto a nearby brass rail, bruising his head and rendering the legendary coach unconscious. It was front-page news across the country, presumed at the time to be a heart attack but determined to be internal bleeding as a result of exhaustion. Bryant was advised to rest and cut back on his speaking schedule. A month later, Bryant announced that Alabama had signed a home and home with the Houston Cougars that would see Alabama play in the (then) new (and famous) Astrodome. Indeed, news stories of the time focused more on the elaborate building being called "The Eighth Wonder of the World" than on the actual game. Two days after that, Bryant was honored as a guest at "Alabama Day," a promotion by the first-year transfer franchise Atlanta Braves in a game against the San Francisco Giants. The two teams had no fewer than nine Alabama natives on their rosters, including future Hall of Famers Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey. Bryant greeted all of them, though he noted his apprehension for appearing in Atlanta with the observation that on his last trip there for a football game, Georgia Tech fans had thrown whiskey bottles at him. (The next day - just to place this in the context of history - former Marine Charles Whitman gunned down 17 people and wounded 31 others in one of the first mass school shootings in American history).



The upcoming season led to a "Sports Illustrated" five-part cover package of Coach Bryant, where he revealed for the first time that he had left Kentucky because of a conflict with Kentucky basketball coaching legend Adolph Rupp, characterizing it as "the most stupid thing I ever did." Bryant iterated his deep respect for Rupp, even saying the two were friends, but he acknowledged that much of his problem stemmed from the promise Rupp was about to retire, only to sign a ten-year contract shortly thereafter. John Underwood wrote the series, and he would later publish a well-received biography of Bryant. The aging coach acknowledged in the series that he had, in fact, engaged in paying for players while at Texas A&M. Bryant conceded that it was wrong and that his Aggies deserved the probation they received, but he also noted that he was in a bidding war in a crooked game, and he had told his recruiters that whatever price another team was paying, make sure to beat it. In the series, Bryant explicitly renounced such things, saying he would not do so anymore, and even admitting he had been pushed to do so by some of the "powers that be" at the University of Alabama.



THE TALENT WAS EXTREME



Alabama returned a ton of on-field talent for the 1966 season. By far the oldest player on the team was 24-year old Ray Perkins, a receiver from Petal, Mississippi, who had no holes in his hands but tqi in his head, the result of a then desperate (and by modern standards quite primitive) attempt to save his life when he suffered a subdural hematoma that led to a blood clot on his brain following a collision at one of Alabama's practices. (In 1983, Perkins dispelled the Bryant inspired rumor that he also had a plate in his head capable of tuning in Radio Free Europe). The quarterback, of course, was former Foley High phenom Kenny Stabler, a young man who seemed to want to be the second coming of Joe Namath, both on and off the field. Almost every team in the SEC had recruited Stabler as had the New York Yankees, who offered him $20,00 (median income in 1966: a little over $7,000) just to sign with the team that at that time was still the benchmark dynasty in all of sports. There was also running back Jerry Duncan out of North Carolina, whom Bryant would - as he often did - turn into an offensive lineman. Stabler's old high school rival and friend David Chatwood would be one of the running backs. There was another name among the prized recruits that Bryant, not known for pursuing prized recruits, was chasing: Presbyterian minister's son and later SEC legend, Stephen Orr Spurrier, who signed with Florida and, in fact, would win the 1966 Heisman Trophy. One can only wonder how things might have been different all the way around if Spurrier had played - and then later coached - at Alabama. Bryant had talented ends in Perkins and Wayne Cook, and two good runners in Dennis Homan and Les Kelley, who had torn through Nebraska to help the Tide claim the 1965 national championship. He also had three sophomore linebackers (note: remember that freshmen were not permitted to play in 1966; hence, rookies).



GETTING READY


To give you an idea what the SEC was becoming in 1966, all you have to know is this: both Georgia Coach Vince Dooley and Tennessee Vols Coach Doug Dickey had turned down the head coaching job at the prestigious University of Oklahoma, where Gomer Jones had been fired after compiling a 9-11-1 mark in two years at Norman. This, coinciding with the rise of the Nebraska Cornhuskers under Bob Devaney, mandated a coaching change and fast, presumably due to the "unrealistic expectations" of the "delusional Oklahoma fan base." Or something like that. With eight national champions through the various polls in the previous decade, the SEC ranked alongside the Big 10 in national prestige.



On September 10, the Associated Press released its pre-season poll. Numerous stories appeared over the next week proclaiming that Alabama was the favorite to win the national championship and become the first team to ever win three in a row. Every single article (that I have seen) TOOK IT FOR GRANTED that if you started as number one then the only way to fall was to lose. (This was not true as I will demonstrate in the epilogue). Repeated references were made to "if Alabama stumbles" and pointing to their week 2 showdown against Ole Miss as a pivotal contest. Granted, the Tide was "barely" number one in the AP poll. Out of the 35 votes cast in the first poll, Alabama only collared fifteen of them. Michigan State was second, with 12 votes, and Nebraska was third. It is important to note something at this point: the Associated Press only ranked ten teams during the mid-1960s. Just as important, however, is that the thirty-five votes were not the only votes in the AP. It was common practice back in those days of party lines and telegrams to have a number of voters who did not vote in a particular week. (This will become important later when Notre Dame's AP vote total suddenly skyrockets).



AP PRE-SEASON POLL

1) Alabama

2) Michigan St

3) Nebraska

4) UCLA

5) Arkanssa

6) Notre Dame

7) Syracuse

8) Purdue

9) USC

10) Tennessee



The September 17, 1966 edition of "The Salt Lake Tribune" published a column by sports editor John Mooney that almost tragically foretold what was about to happen to the Crimson Tide. Mooney ran down the AP voting for a national champion, certainly a legitimate line of dissent. Mooney, however, disparaged the voting not because he thought teams should play one another but because he accused Southern-based AP voters of rigging the outcome by all lining up to vote for Alabama, what he called voting "straight ticket." His words ring hollow given what happened just two months later:



"..the Crimson Tide, in winning its bowl game, did not have the record to match Michigan State, Arkansas, or Nebraska, each of which lost its only game of the season in a bowl."



"How can anyone vote the Crimson Tide a national championship until it moves around the country and plays a few toughies on the road?"



After listing Alabama's 1966 schedule, he says:



"That's a poor schedule compared to the Big 10 teams, Notre Dame, the Southwest, or the Pacific Coast, who annually mix with toughies outside their leagues, and away from home."



"Some of the experts down-graded Nebraska last year because of a poor schedule, but the Cornhuskers at least moved around a little."



(There are numerous factual errors in Mooney's column that I will address in the epilogue as well).







THE SEASON


As difficult as this must be to believe over a half century later, the 1966 college football season kicked off on September 10, when Baylor beat Syracuse, 35-12, in a nationally telecast game on ABC. Starting in mid-September was not unusual as school in those days generally did not begin until the day after Labor Day. Even more amazing, September 17 was actually (at that time) the EARLIEST Alabama had ever begun a season, the date that the 1954 and 1960 seasons began. Alabama, in fact, didn't open until September 24 against Louisiana Tech. There was no kickoff classic, no ESPN, no Verne and Gary, and Wi-Fi coverage was almost as poor in Denny Stadium then as it is now. There was no Athlon Sports publishing college football previews (the group began in 1967) and, in fact, there was no Super Bowl as what was then walled the "AFL-NFL Championship Game" was about to present its first edition in January. On top of all this, college teams were limited to one national TV appearance and one regional TV appearance per season, and a total of three across two seasons (not counting bowl games).



On September 17, Michigan State beat North Carolina State, 28-10, and UCLA beat Pitt, 57-14. On Monday morning, the new AP poll showed Michigan State and UCLA had both leaped Alabama in the poll. The Spartans, like Alabama, were defending national champions (UPI) while UCLA had actually received one first-place vote in the final 1965 poll after finishing with an 8-2-1 record but beating Michigan State in the Rose Bowl. The same day saw new Penn State Coach Joe Paterno notch his first-ever win, 15-7, over Maryland and their new head coach, Lou Saban. Coincidentally, Paterno's last career loss in 2011 came to Nick Saban, believed to be a distant second cousin of Lou.



Alabama opened their 1966 season with the lightly regarded Louisiana Tech. As with so many things concerning 1966, a myth has grown up surrounding this game that alleges Alabama was forced to schedule Louisiana Tech because Tulane left the SEC prior to the 1966 season. Although it is correct to say that Tulane left the SEC prior to the 1966 season, their departure had nothing at all to do with Alabama playing Louisiana Tech. On May 23, 1964, Alabama and Tulane jointly announced they were ending their series with one another, and the Crimson Tide was replacing Tulane with non-conference foe Southern Mississippi. The same day, the SEC announced that in 1970 they were going to a rotating schedule that would see every school play every other school over the course of about six years, a six-game conference schedule that would feature four annual opponents and two rotating ones. Prior to this announcement, SEC schools did their own scheduling and were required to play at least six conference games to remain in the league. The "Louisiana Tech replaced Tulane because they left the SEC" is a myth often repeated, including by Dunnavant, but the fact is that USM replaced Tulane. The game against Louisiana Tech was announced on June 2, and the Bulldogs actually replaced Georgia or Georgia Tech, take your pick. The myth that Alabama had to scramble to fill the schedule AFTER Tulane's announced departure on January 1, 1965, is nothing but an after the fact justification for the soft opponent. There were, however, two larger issues that did affect the perception of Alabama's scheduling, one real and one just as mythical as the La Tech replaces Tulane story. The myth had taken hold among a number of non-Southern sportswriters that Paul Bryant was afraid of playing tough opponents. The alleged replacement of Tulane (who wasn't very good anyway as they had not won more than three games since 1956) with Louisiana Tech played into that myth. To give just one example, Jerry Scarborough of "The Abilene Reporter News" for October 24, 1962, provided this ignorant attack:



"Coach Bear Bryant... has arrived at a schedule that should allow him to win for some time...both Mississippi and LSU are conspicuous by their absence from Alabama's schedule. In addition, Bryant has already made arrangements to replace Georgia Tech with a less ominous foe after this season. In the bulky SEC...he can still win championships even though he bypasses the big boys every year."



One may be charitable to Scarborough and assume the then ongoing Cuban Missile Crisis had him so afraid of annihilation that he said such stupid (and untrue) things. Not only did Alabama play Georgia Tech the next two seasons, but it wasn't Bryant who ended the series. Indeed, Bobby Dodd had carefully crafted his schedule for years to exclude then SEC power Ole Miss, a team he had played but twice, once in the Sugar Bowl. Once Alabama began beating Tech with regularity late in the season - and depriving them of bowl appearances - Dodd decided to leave the conference, a move that invited the SEC to retaliate by refusing to schedule Tech for meetings in other sports.



The musing that Bryant was afraid to play a challenging schedule was quite common outside the South. The other problem, however, was not Bryan't fault but it was the reality of the times: SEC teams refused to play integrated football teams in their home venue. In April 1963, Kentucky and Tulane announced they were opening their schedules to play integrated teams at home. While this took far too long and would take several years to fully rectify, this was in reality a limitation on Bryant's ability to schedule teams for any sort of home games. As some of the post-season columns eventually made clear, this soft schedule was part of the justification for what was to happen to Alabama in 1966. The fact, however, is that Bryant actually rearranged the schedules of 1964-64-66 no less than sixteen times prior to the start of the 1966 season. And finally it needs to be noted that nobody was jumping up and down to play Alabama in their own venue, either.



After a scoreless opening quarter against La Tech, the Tide got rolling and beat the Bulldogs, 34-0. Stabler showed occasional flashes of brilliance like his 79-yard touchdown pass to Dennis Homan. The defense was stellar, holding LT to -32 yards rushing. The offense, however, was in Bryant's doghouse as he scanned the game statistics, noting that they couldn't move the ball and that the team that played on Saturday wouldn't be the offensive team that played come Monday at practice. Bryant also, as always, placed the blame for what he called "lack of oneness" on himself, though he did demote Jerry Duncan and Johnny Calvert from the first team. After all, the game of the century, SEC-style, was up next as the Tide headed to Jackson to face the Ole Miss Rebels.
 

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This was really the beginning of any sort of rivalry between the two schools. From 1934 to 1964, the two teams had only met twice with Alabama winning both games. In fact, Ole Miss had not beaten Alabama since 1910. In the previous decade, of course, the two teams had combined to win six national championships but had only met once, in the 1964 Sugar Bowl. But the departure from the conference of both Georgia Tech and Tulane, reducing the SEC to ten teams with a minimum of six required to remain members, meant the two teams would play more often. Alabama had narrowly won the 1965 contest, 17-16, and the game sold out during the summer. Duncan and Calvert also found out just prior to the game that their demotions weren't exactly permanent, but Bryant was drawing the best out of them he could.



The same day that produced the offense that underachieved against La Tech also produced the first stirrings of Notre Dame when the Irish knocked off #7 Purdue, 26-14, and jumped to #4, right behind Alabama in the AP poll. On October 1, Notre Dame beat Coach Parseghian's former team, Northwestern, 35-7, while Michigan State handed Joe Paterno his first-ever head coaching loss, 42-8. Alabama squared off against Ole Miss in the night game, and it only took three plays to set the tone. Dicky Thompson's interception of Ole Miss QB Jodie Graves's first pass put Alabama in business at the Ole Miss 35. Stabler got the Tide close enough for a Steve Davis 36-yard field goal attempt, but the ball went wide left. With less than two minutes remaining in the first half, Stabler hit Duncan on a tackle eligible pass play for a 15-yard gain that started a drive that led to a Les Kelley plunge from the one that sent the two teams in for the half with Alabama leading, 7-0. Midway through the third quarter, Stabler hit Ray Perkins with a 28-yard TD pass that made it 14-0. Thompson intercepted two more passes. Stabler finished 16 for 19 and 144 yards passing, 94 of it to Perkins on nine catches. The Tide won, 17-7, and Stabler had won both the team and the fans around the state. Les Kelley was injured and presumed out for awhile, but X-rays had him upgraded from out to "probable" for the next game.



The Tide had played against the other team generally considered to be other major contender in the SEC and beaten them handily on the road. One can only imagine the shock that greeted fans and players when the AP poll on Monday, October 3, showed that Alabama, the pre-season #1 and two-time defending champions, had fallen to fourth behind Michigan State, UCLA, and Notre Dame. Yes, Notre Dame's impressive win over unranked Northwestern (less impressive than Florida's under eventual Heisman winner Steve Spurrier) was somehow enough to move them ahead of Alabama. Florida's 13-0 win over Vandy moved them into the top ten, and the Vols came in at number nine. The SEC had the most teams (3) in the top ten early. The next week saw Alabama host the not yet household name Clemson Tigers, coached by former Alabama star Frank Howard.



It was Howard who had taken Clemson to two unbeaten seasons in the Athletically Challenged Conference. He was also the one who took to calling the Clemson home stadium Death Valley and put up the famous rock the players touch before home games. This idea, in fact, had only become a "tradition" two weeks before the 1966 Alabama-Clemson game. Much as Nick Saban did not hire a young Urban Meyer, Clemson coach Frank Howard had not hired Paul Bryant, either, despite the opportunity.



It was a hot, humid Saturday in Denny Stadium when Clemson QB Frank Liberatore returned the opening kickoff all the way to the Tide 43 to start the game. Clemson drove nine yards to the Tide 28 and attempted a field goal that missed. It turned out to be their best scoring threat of the entire game. Alabama responded with a drive that ended with a Stabler to Homan touchdown pass, although Davis missed the PAT. The second drive netted a 32-yard Davis field goal and a 9-0 Alabama lead. Stabler then scored on a 1-yard run in the second quarter to put the Tide ahead, 16-0, and the game was as good as over. After a third quarter drive saw an 8-yard TD pass to Martin, Bryant shuffled in two more quarterbacks as Stabler got the rest of the day off after a 7 for 8 performance that got him 96 yards and 2 touchdowns. The same day saw Michigan State beat arch rivals Michigan, 20-7, and Notre Dame score an impressive win, 35-0, over highly touted Army. Michigan State lost 2 votes in the AP poll, Notre Dame doubled their total, and Alabama gained one, the Tide moving ahead of UCLA, who barely beat overmatched Rice by only three. It was now time for the Third Saturday in October. As always, there were outside distractions from the task at hand. On Monday, October 10, the United States Supreme Court granted a stay in the judgment rendered against the Curtis Publishing Company for their 1963 "Saturday Evening Post" story alleging that Coach Bryant and former Georgia Coach Wally Butts had conspired to fix the outcome of the 1962 Alabama-Georgia game.



To understand the perception at the time, simply note the title of an Arizona Republic article from the day before the game: "Alabama Faces Last Grid Stumbling Block." The basic idea was that if Alabama could beat Tennessee, they didn't really have any challenges left. A similar article appeared in the same newspaper the following day, but the story that unfolded that day has become the stuff of Crimson legend.



Alabama was a touchdown favorite over the Vols. The game kicked off at one. The rain began long before kickoff, and the field was an absolute quagmire of mud. Alabama won the toss and - allegedly at the suggestion of Jerry Duncan to Coach Bryant - elected to receive. It was the first in a series of mistakes, the second being the fumble on the sixth play from scrimmage on a miscommunication between Stabler and Kelley that the Vols recovered at the Alabama 23. Four plays later and a touchdown pass from Dewey Warren from Austin Denny gave the Vols a 7-0 lead just minutes into the game. A second drive led to the Tide punting out of their own end zone, the Vols converting that to a field goal and a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. The field didn't lend itself to much offense, but Stabler led a drive all the way down the field only to fumble it away at the Tennessee six, and the teams went into the half with the Vols ahead, 10-0. At halftime, Bryant had his team change into fresh uniforms and challenged them, not with a fire and brimstone speech but to respond to "the chance to show them what we're made of." The third quarter was a scoreless back and forth defensive struggle with nobody moving the ball until Mike Hall forced a Vols fumble that Mike Ford recovered at the Tennessee 46. Stabler, 0 for the first half, went to the air for a 14-yard gain to Homan. Four plays later, it was Stabler from the one.



The next decision turned out to be the most important one of the year. Despite the fact that virtually the entire fourth quarter remained, Bryant opted to go for two. The mud likely concerned him that a later field goal would be a risky proposition - and even making it would only ensure a tie. Stabler hit Wayne Cook on a tight end delay and Bama now trailed only 10-8. With nine minutes left, Alabama forced a punt that Johnny Moseley fair caught at the Tide 25. Tennessee's defense in 1966 was about the equal of Alabama, surrendering less than nine points per game. Stabler took the Tide down the field and called timeout when the Tide was less than two yards from a touchdown. Bryant was by no means a strong believer in field goals. It had cost him the Georgia Tech game (and perhaps a national championship) in 1962. Learning from previous experience, Bryant opted to go with the field goal, but it was his decision to put Stabler in as the holder rather than Bobby Johns for a good reason: Stabler had handled the wet ball all day, and Bryant didn't want to risk fresh hands dropping it. The snap was bad, but the Snake was good, and so was Davis as Alabama took their first lead of the game, 11-10, on a 17-yard field goal with 3:23 remaining. Tennessee was going to get the ball back with time to score needing but a field goal yet the Tide defense had held Dewey Warren to only two completions for four yards in the second half. Warren hit Bill Baker for a 22-yard gain to the Vols 49. A stunning halfback option play probably would have doomed Alabama on the next play were it not for the defensive team speed. A handoff to Charles Fulton and an uncovered Austin Denney, the Vols' tight end and best pass catcher - but not the fastest runner - was tackled at the Tide 13 by Mosley. He'd saved the day for the moment, but the Vols only needed a field goal or 13 yards for a touchdown to win. They got as close as the 3 and called timeout on third down with 30 seconds remaining. Gary Wright, a native of Heflin, Alabama, came on to try the chip shot - and thanks to the oncoming rush, the bad weather, or divine intervention (or all three), he shanked it wide right, and Alabama had dodged the bullet, 11-10. But in the aftermath of a hard fought and deserved victory, Alabama was about to awaken to the reality that their path to the national championship was likely blocked.



When the polls came out on Monday, Alabama's narrow win - not seen on television and viewed by sportswriters as "barely surviving" - resulted in a drop back to fourth in the polls. UCLA again moved ahead of the Tide, this time thanks to a 49-11 pasting of Penn State. But the bigger problem was that Notre Dame crushed North Carolina, 32-0. Michigan State beat Ohio State, 11-8, but the fact the Buckeyes were not very good didn't seem to matter.. In short, even though Michigan State and Alabama had both won games against powerful foes, they had not dominated them or won by as large a margin as Notre Dame. Headlines like "Alabama Scrapes By Tennessee," could not have helped the Tide cause, either.



Nor could the remaining schedule that was not exactly filled with heavyweights. Vandy, a shell of the team that tied Bryant his first year, was en route to a 1-9 year and a 27-point underdog for the Legion Field clash with the Crimson Tide. The game getting all the ink this week was the Big Ten showdown between Purdue, hoping for a berth in the Rose Bowl, and defending co-national champion Michigan State. Alabama-Vandy was thought to be a scrimmage going in, and that's exactly how it turned out. Bobby Johns picked off a Gary Davis pass only 92 seconds into the game and ran it in for a pick six that would have won the game all by itself. The first Alabama offensive drive moments later saw running back Les Kelley take a pitch from Stabler and heave one down the field to Ray Perkins for a 29-yard touchdown. The Tide held Vandy to only eight first downs, used three quarterbacks, and the only score was courtesy of a Kelley fumble at his own 27 that set the Commodores up with a short field and eventual TD pass that cut it to 21-6 after a missed PAT. Alabama crushed Vandy, 42-6, and watched helplessly as Michigan State crushed #9 Purdue in East Lansing, 41-20, while Notre Dame smashed Oklahoma, 38-0, to rise to the top of the polls. The Sooners were #10 entering the game undefeated at 4-0, but despite losing four of their final six games, the thrashing of Oklahoma on the road would pay dividends to the Irish in the evaluation game as the season ended. Mississippi State's 2-4 Bulldogs came to Tuscaloosa the following weekend, and Alabama entered the game as 26-point favorites. Midweek saw Bryant foretelling the weekend to anyone who would pay attention, reversing his earlier praise and saying his team wasn't acting like a team that was looking forward to playing a game or anything. Alabama had the longest winning streak in college football at 14 games.



The Tide led, 13-0, when Prentiss Calhoun scored on a two-yard run following a Bama turnover to cut it to 13-7 with 11:40 left. Bryant had replaced Stabler with Wayne Trimble, who had thrown a touchdown pass in the first half to give the Tide the 13-0 lead and then followed with two more, the most dazzling a 48-yard TD pass to Jerry Duncan on a tackle eligible play that put the Tide ahead, 20-7. A later pass to Perkins with 3:29 left made it 27-7, and MSU scored against the second string as time expired to give the Tide a final count of 27-14. Alabama was 6-0 and fourth in the polls as November began and brought LSU to Legion Field.



It also brought the open secret that Alabama was going to play in the Sugar Bowl, most likely against Nebraska. Although invitations could not be extended until November 21, this was another loosening of reality where word made it into the press well before the announcement was official. It also brought an FBI investigation of LSU, a Baton Rouge barber accused of trying to persuade five prominent Tiger players to shave points. None of the accused were guilty and had turned the matter over to the authorities, but coming in the wake of the NFL's recent gambling scandal that had resulted in the suspensions of Alex Karras and Paul Hornung, it was unwelcome news. And there was another rumor around this time that the bowl games were pressuring Notre Dame to abandon their longstanding reluctance to play in bowl games, a tantalizing possibility awaiting the possible matchup of Notre Dame and Alabama, who had never met on the gridiron. Notre Dame's acquiescence was unlikely, but the TV barons could hope. And then on November 1, 1966, Alabama, Notre Dame, and Michigan State all made national news. Alabama's news was bad, Bryant suspending fullback Leslie Kelley "indefinitely" for violating curfew after the victory over Mississippi State. Kelley was forced to move out of the athletic dorm, and he angered a number of teammates, whose input Bryant sought before announcing his decision. Ara Parseghian's mention the same day was also bad. Addressing the Chicago American Quarterback Club, Ara blew his stack at suggestions in print that the players on Notre Dame were not exactly Rhodes scholars academically or, in the case of Terry Hanratty, overly talented football players. One established fact was Notre Dame's willingness to hide high school recruits at a New Jersey prep high school to raise their grades to an acceptable level to attend Notre Dame. Ara shifted to talk of playing Pitt, who had nearly beaten him in 1964, saying that he was sure his players remembered how difficult that game was. These were mostly individual mentions.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Michigan State's Duffy Daugherty made news with a radical new proposal that had the potential to change college football forever: an eight-team playoff to determine the undisputed national champion. Daugherty's proposal was nothing short of radical for 2018 much less 1966. He proposed eliminating all of the bowl games and creating a tournament that would include the six conference champions (ACC, PCC, Big Ten, SEC, SWC, Big 8) and two at-large bids. Responding to the common objection that such an idea would create an over-emphasis on football, Daugherty had clearly done his homework, noting that 12 bowl games mandated 24 teams placing an emphasis on football for an additional six weeks while his own plan would create an emphasis of a maximum of four weeks and only for the two teams that played in the championship game. In his incredible foresight, Daugherty also boldly predicted that the television revenue from such a playoff would be "tremendous," he would include all the schools receiving a cut of the television receipts, and the result would be an undisputed national champion. Daugherty missed nothing in his proposed sweep of changes, noting that the bowl games would oppose it and so would the Southern schools who went to bowl games with 5-5 records, but in response to the argument of missing too much class, he rhetorically asked if anyone thought that was true at the lower levels that already had playoffs. But Daugherty's rhetorical flourish was clear in his statement: "We'll never have a true national champion until we do something like this." It would take the powers that be forty-eight years to act upon his foresight, but Daugherty was (for the most part) correct. Walter Byers, the executive secretary of the NCAA, endorsed Daugherty's idea, and it had a lot of support at the time among the coaches.



LSU's loss to Ole Miss the previous Saturday certainly did not help the Alabama cause. For years the Tide had suffered in perception because they so rarely played Ole Miss or LSU. The departures of Georgia Tech and Tulane as well as the ending of the Georgia series made these games more likely, but the moment Alabama began playing those teams, they suddenly weren't very good anymore. Alabama entered the game as a 19-point favorite, and the 1:15pm kickoff contest was broadcast regionally on ABC. LSU coach Charles "Cholly Mac" McClendon was a former Bryant player in his fifth season in Red Stick. Mac would be fired after the 1979 season in a scene foretelling the fate that befell Les Miles in 2016. He was fired because he couldn't beat the Alabama coach even though he was one of the most successful opponents the Tide coach ever had. Bryant ran up an insane 43-6 record against his former assistants, and McClendon was the only one to beat Bryant twice. It wasn't enough for the LSU fan base, eventually firing the Hall of Fame coach with a .630 winning percentage, seven bowl wins, and an SEC title for no other reason than he wasn't and could not beat Paul Bryant.



Les Kelley, meanwhile, was facing his own storm, watching on television as his school took the field without him, an event that would lead him back to the good graces of his teammates eventually. Bama got right to work, too, forcing a three and out and blocking the game's first punt out of the end zone for a safety and a 2-0 lead. The Tide forced nine three and outs, Steve Davis kicked two field goals, and Bobby Johns picked off a Fred Haynes pass for a pick six in the final minute of the third period as the Tide held LSU to five first downs and only 90 yards of total offense. When Washington stung UCLA, 16-3, the Tide were back up to number three in the country with three games left. Michigan State crushed Iowa, 56-7, and Notre Dame thumped Pitt, 40-0, so the Irish remained on top and the Spartans second with the season winding down.



Les Kelley returned to the team on the Monday following the LSU contest to find that his name was no longer listed on the depth chart. South Carolina was in town for homecoming, and the Gamecocks were 27-point underdogs despite being led by a man who less than a decade earlier had coached LSU to their first national title, Paul Dietzel, who had been a Bryant assistant at Kentucky. During homecoming week, another story floated that suggested that one of the bowls wanted to match up Alabama with Georgia Tech, less than two years gone from the SEC. It made sense because Tech was unbeaten and ranked fifth in the country. Bobby Dodd, angry over a Bryant comment that Tech's practices were like playing "drop the handkerchief," all but dared Alabama to play Tech with comments that Alabama had nothing to gain and everything to lose, saying that the press would have to ask Bryant if he'd actually play Georgia Tech and that Bryant wouldn't do it because he might "have to eat his words." In the interest of historical accuracy, this comment appeared in "The Atlanta Journal," whose sports editor was none other than Bryant's old nemesis, Furman Bisher. And Alabama was getting more unfavorable coverage by David Densmore, a sportswriter for the Amarillo Daily News. His column appeared on November 11 and covered Daugherty's playoff proposal but managed to disparage both of the Alabama's 1964 and 1965 national titles, noting Alabama's defeat to Texas after the 64 season and feeling Alabama had somehow backed their way into the 65 title thanks to the Michigan State loss. For reasons known only to the mythical brain of objective sports journalism, Alabama's 1965 bowl loss was proof of being unworthy while Michigan State's 1966 bowl loss had somehow robbed the Spartans. I include Densmore only to demonstrate that the anti-Alabama bias was, in fact, real. After all, how many of you had ever even heard of this guy until just now?



Despite facing an unworthy foe missing both their starting quarterback and tailback, Alabama cruised to a 24-0 victory over South Carolina. The homecoming parade featured Sylacauga born Jim Nabors, then a television star as the bumbling private in "Gomer Pyle USMC." Though nobody asked Nabors for a quote regarding the Tide's performance, his likely reaction would have been, "Shazam." Notre Dame beat Duke, Michigan State beat Indiana, and the biggest game in college football history was set for November 19.



THE GAME OF THE CENTURY



College football's "game of the century" was the result of scheduling fluke in 1960. When Iowa decided they'd rather play Thanksgiving in balmy Miami than at Notre Dame in the cold Midwest, the Irish had an open date as did Michigan State. As the ADs were old chums, they scheduled the game at a time when neither was setting the world on fire nationally. By the time the game arrived, it was the rarest of jewels, a 1 vs 2 showdown. Such a game had only occurred twice previously, when Notre Dame and Army tied in 1946 and when USC beat Wisconsin in the 1963 Rose Bowl.



The game was not originally scheduled for television. As it became clear that the game would have major ramifications, discussions began inside the ABC television network. Contractually, they were not permitted to show the game nationally because Notre Dame had already been on TV in 1966, but they were going to show it regionally in the Midwest. A major uproar occurred that saw fans who could afford it making sojourns into the viewing area, and ABC reached a compromise: they would show the game in its entirety via tape delay in the rest of the country. (This was common for several more years. Both the "Miracle on Ice" and the Indy 500s prior to 1982 were shown on tape delay several hours after the contest occurred).



Very little needs to be said about the game itself. Two fine books tell the story, "The Missing Ring" by Keith Dunnavant giving the Alabama perspective while the late Mike Celizic's "The Biggest Game of Them All" tells it from the Irish slant (and with play by play detail). Both books tell the exact same story but with a different spin.



Notre Dame played without star RB Nick Eddy, whose injured shoulder was hurt worse as he stepped off the train. Early in the game, the Irish lost both their All-American center and starting quarterback (Terry Hanratty) on the same possession. Coley O'Brien, the backup QB and diabetic in a different time medicine-wise, took over. After the Spartans took a 10-0 lead, O'Brien brought them back into a tie. With 4:39 left, Irish kicker Joe Azzaro missed the potential game-winning field goal wide right from 41 yards, and Michigan State got the ball in their own territory. After running two minutes off the clock and facing fourth and four on his own 36, Duffy Daugherty opted to punt and put the game on his defense. Punt returner Norm Schoen fumbled a fair catch just before getting plowed by six Spartans, but the ball fell true, and Schoen recovered it. With 84 seconds remaining at their own thirty, Ara Parseghian made a decision that would define the rest of his career in less than inspiring terms. Ara played to win on his own terms, and it cost him his reputation as a great coach.



With a second-string quarterback who had been rather erratic and Michigan State playing the pass, Ara sent in a running play in hopes of maybe catching the Spartans napping. A power sweep by O'Brien gained four yards. On second down, O'Brien dropped back to pass and then gave to Rocky Bleier on a halfback delay. Bleier gained three yards, but it was now third and three. Notre Dame lined up in a tight formation as if on the goal line, and O'Brien gave it to Conjar for two yards. On fourth and one at his own 39 with less than a minute to go, Parseghian called for a QB sneak, and it was good enough for a first down. Realizing what Ara was doing, Michigan State called timeout. Parseghian now sent in a pass play. O'Brien dropped back seven yards but was planted by Bubba Smith, future star of "Lite Beer" commercials and "Police Academy" movies. Smith leaped up and called timeout, but the game was over. With a then record television audience (even with the tape delay) on a dreary East Lansing day, Michigan State and Notre Dame played to a tie in the game that really did put college football on the national map.



In his postgame meeting with his team, Parseghian laid out his line of reasoning:



"Men, I’m proud of you. God knows I’ve never been more proud of any group of young men in my life. Get one thing straight, though. We did not lose. We were number one when we came, we fell behind, had some tough things happen, but you overcame them. No one could have wanted to win this one more than I. We didn’t win, but, by God, we did not lose. They’re crying about a tie, trying to detract from your efforts. They’re trying to make it come out a win. Well, don’t you believe it. Their season is over. They can’t go anywhere. It’s all over and we’re still Number One. Time will prove everything that has happened here today." He made an even more ridiculous assertion when he stated, ""The national polls mean everything to us, and those who vote in the polls put a premium on being undefeated."



But Duffy Daugherty wasn't going quietly into the night, either. Parseghian made repeated appeals to the fact his quarterback and running back were injured. Daugherty pointed out to the press that Notre Dame had beaten a decent Duke team, 64-0, and Eddy hadn't played a single snap. Daugherty was classy enough to not bash Parseghian for the tie, but some of his players weren't so forgiving. Daugherty then said something that may have served as a signal to the voters and certainly spelled out what he expected to happen: "What probably will happen is that the votes will be split between Michigan State and Notre Dame. And Alabama will get it. Of course, you fellows can change that. You could get together and all vote for Michigan State." Daugherty stated clearly he was going to vote his team in the UPI poll, and even suggested the idea of a co-championship with Notre Dame.



Parseghian was banking on the notion that Notre Dame was unique, the rules did not apply, and the voters would never drop the Irish from the top spot for anything other than a loss. Why exactly Ara thought this lacks strong evidence even though he turned out to be right. Alabama had an off week that day. Or more precisely the voters had an off year that year. Surely joy must have gripped the Tide players, who had to figure they now were going to ranked #1 in the polls. A study of every poll from October 19, 1936 to the poll prior to November 19, 1966 shows why they would have thought this. A personal study of the polls over the thirty years preceding the game shows that ties virtually always hurt the higher ranked team but helped the lower ranked team. Ranked teams played tie games 147 times over those three decades. On 111 occasions - a whopping 75.5% - the team that played the tie game dropped in the polls, sometimes severely. In 1952, Coach Bryant's unranked Kentucky team tied the #7 Tennessee Volunteers, dropping the Vols to nine and bringing the Wildcats into the poll. That same year saw #4 Oklahoma play to a 21-21 tie with Colorado and plunge to #20. On ten occasions, a team held the same spot. Two of those ten were the 1946 Army-Notre Dame game, where #1 Army and #2 Notre Dame tied, and Army kept the top spot. In what must have been a confusing finish to the season, Army tied with Notre Dame, won one more game, held onto the top spot until the final poll.....and then dropped to #2 when they only beat 18-point underdog Navy by three points, giving Frank Leahy his national championship. And on 26 occasions, a team that tied moved up in the polls, ALWAYS because their tie had exceeded expectations. Given that Notre Dame was a 5.5 point favorite, there should have been no way for the Irish to stay in the top spot. Parseghian of all coaches had to have known this. He was hired at Notre Dame away from Northwestern, where he had taken the Wildcats to incredible heights, including a #1 ranking. Surely Parseghian could not have forgotten that only four years earlier at Northwestern, his team had moved to number one when Rice and Texas played to a tie, and the voters dropped the Longhorns to five. For Parseghian to say - as he later would - that if you were number one and didn't lose you stayed number one was the kind of comment that would have enraged any sportswriter who actually did his homework. It was also untrue at every level since both Alabama and Michigan State had fallen from the top spot in 1966 despite not losing and, in some cases, winning.



Michigan State was done. They were stuck with a tie, and the UPI was their only real hope for a national title. The UPI had shuffled Michigan State to the top spot - barely - and Alabama was stuck at third in both polls. Notre Dame had one game to go against USC, and Alabama had two games remaining against Tulane replacement USM and a national telecast with Auburn. And when the polls came out on Monday, Alabama realized that their only hope now was USC upsetting Notre Dame as had happened in 1964.



There was also fallout from Dr. Paul Brechler in the wake of the televising of the big game, and his apocryphal warning sounds laughable five decades later. Brechler, the former Athletic Director at Iowa as well as the first commissioner of the WAC declared,"We have just killed football as a Saturday afternoon spectator sport." He insisted that the easy availability of games on TV would kill the sport and result in games before empty stadiums. It appears Dr Brechler may also have advised Columbus that the world was flat. He wasn't the only angry one. The game had sold out on July 15 with seats costing $5. One irate fan who had paid a scalper's price for them snorted, "You mean I paid $35 for a tie?" Alabama also got some public support from Iowa assistant coach Ted Lawrence, who said, "I really believe old Bear's Alabama team would beat either Notre Dame or Michigan State in a one-game shot." Even Nebraska Coach Bob Devaney got into the quotation game. Preparing for a game with Oklahoma - a game he would, in typical Husker fashion, lose, Devaney tweaked Notre Dame - AND Oklahoma - by pointing out that the Irish were so far ahead of Oklahoma that "Notre Dame decided they didn't have to play for a tie."



On November 21, Alabama officially accepted their bid to face Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl, a rematch of the 1966 Orange Bowl that propelled Alabama to the 1965 title. With the bowl games not counting towards the title, Alabama was now doing nothing more than going through the motions and hoping their on-the-field excellence would persuade some voters to their side.



The USM game was played at Ladd Stadium in Mobile, one of several alternative homes the Tide had away from Bryant-Denny Stadium long ago. Alabama smashed Southern Miss, 34-0. The Irish smashed USC, 51-0, and Parseghian made no bones about the fact he wanted and thought his team deserved to be named national champions. After all, they were number one, right? Indeed, now that there was no chance he would face Alabama or Michigan State, Parseghian's mouth got even bigger:



"...but I'd still like somebody to give me an answer as to how they make decisions on football polls. When that one outfit (UPI) placed us No. 2, they gave us all the incentive we needed to be high for the Trojans. I would suspect they might change their strategy-picking board after today." Yes, the same coach who played for a tie was now a testosterone-fueled bully.



On the Monday after the game - before the Auburn game was even played - the UPI issued a shocker in the final poll (by the coaches) by moving Notre Dame up to the top spot and denying Michigan State a shot at a repeat and Alabama a chance at a three-peat (although that word would not exist for another two decades). The National Football Foundation then announced they had selected co-national champions: Michigan State and Notre Dame.



To say Alabama was shocked is to engage in understatement.



Alabama entered the Iron Bowl having won six of the last seven meetings with Auburn, including four straight shutouts (1959-62). After a scoreless first quarter, Stabler drove Alabama close enough for Davis to miss a 31-yarder. After a three and out, Stabler torched the Tigers with a 63-yard strike to Ray Perkins. Another stop and another Stabler drive that saw Les Kelley score from the one made it 14-0, Alabama. Another drive and a field goal, and it was 17-0, Alabama, at halftime. Bryant emptied his bench in the second half, but it didn't matter. The Tide matched their first half points total in the second half and walked off the field after a smashing 34-0 win over Auburn. It was left to Bryant in the postgame to make the point that Alabama was the preseason #1 and had not lost. While methodically picking his spots, this point was a major thrust at Parseghian, who had argued in recent weeks that since his team was #1 and had not lost they should not fall in the polls. If the final choice was not devastating, the final vote had to have been.



On Monday morning, the AP vote tally showed that Notre Dame, the team that tied one for the Gipper, had won their first national championship since before the Korean War. The Irish collared 41 first-place votes while second place Michigan State got eight and the two-time defending champions who did nothing but win got only seven first-place votes and finished third. Despite an unbeaten season and finishing as the nation's only unbeaten team, Alabama lost eight of the 15 first-place votes they had gotten in the pre-season AP poll. Jerry Duncan, who would later serve as one of the Tide sideline reporters, said that at such a young age losing the championship that way "was like the end of the world." For a lot of Alabama fans, this "end of the world" was about to become a decade-long nightmare in the shadow of Ara Parseghian, a great coach who never had the name recognition of Paul Bryant, but who affected his career more negatively than any other coach. In December 1966, however, that was still years away. Bob Devaney, meanwhile, was building his own version of a crimson monster in Lincoln, Nebraska.



The 1967 Sugar Bowl was on January 2, and to call it a game is laughable. Unlike Nick Saban, who would find great difficulty channeling his team's focus in New Orleans bowl games after the brass ring was lost, Bryant had his team ready to unload on the Huskers, and they did. Stabler's first play from scrimmage pass to Perkins picked up 44 yards, and Kelley scored from the one just five plays later to make it 7-0. When Alabama got the ball back, Kelley's career ended with a shoulder injury on a play where he stayed back to block for a Stabler pass. Stabler darted in from the 14 for the Tide's second TD, and they led, 14-0, halfway through the first quarter. The Tide eventually took a 27-0 lead en route to a smashing 34-7 exclamation point on the 1966 season. And then came the final gut punch just two days later when the FWAA, who had waited until after the bowl games, awarded their national championship to Notre Dame as well.



If there is any immediate positive that came out of what must have been a crushing realization, both Bryant and Parseghian (as well as Daugherty) passed an important lesson onto their players: respect the selection process. Bryant's refusal to go beyond stating his disappointment and yet respect for the polls is appreciated more now than it was then. Parseghian gave a variant of the same statement, but it was easy for him to do so after having benefited from his questionable tactic. As it turned out, the choice to not win the game had far-reaching affects both good and bad for everyone involved.



On December 31, 1973, #1 Alabama and #3 Notre Dame finally met on the gridiron in what was basically viewed as a winner-take-all national championship football game. Lily-white Alabama now had some African-American football players, and the Tide had already clinched the UPI championship that was voted in early December. A classic unfolded, a back and forth heavyweight match that befitted the game that had taken so long to arrange. After a missed PAT and subsequent Irish field goal gave Notre Dame the lead, 24-23, the Irish had the ball at their own two-yard line late in the game facing third and long. Conventional wisdom of the passing rules in 1973 suggested that Ara simply try a run for the first down and punt if he didn't make it. Everyone watching the game knew Notre Dame was about to run the ball, including everyone on the Alabama sidelines. Irish QB Tom Clements faked to his running back and looked downfield and unleashed a perfect strike to receiver Robin Weber for a 36-yard game and a play that eventually won Notre Dame the 1973 AP national championship. Yes, the same coach who played it close to the vest and walked off the field with a tie made perhaps the most daring coaching decision in the history of college football at that time. Indeed, it was as insane as replacing a 26-2 starter with a freshman at quarterback while trailing in a national championship game who had never taken a meaningful snap.



One year later, in 1974, Ara left the stage, beating Bryant in his final game, 13-11, and taking yet another national championship from Alabama. To make matters worse, Ara became a broadcaster and touted the Irish for the 1977 national title using the argument, "But they beat number one Texas" to again bypass Alabama and give the Irish another national championship. One year later, Parseghian reversed himself on "beating number one makes you number one" and argued that USC's head-to-head victory over Alabama should determine the champion. The UPI (coaches poll) bought the argument so Alabama and USC shared the 1978 title. It was like Parseghian was a bad rash that wouldn't go away.



It took until the night of January 7, 2013, for Alabama to finally gain some sort of vengeance over Notre Dame. Aiming for back to back national championships, Alabama QB AJ McCarron came out on fire as did Eddie Lacy, and the Tide smashed their way to a quick 28-0 halftime lead that could have been worse and resulted in Irish Coach Brian Kelly's shellshocked halftime interview of mumbling, "It's....all Alabama.." The Tide robbed Notre Dame of their dignity, their unbeaten season, their national championship dreams, and the prestige of being the most glorious college football program in history with Alabama's third title in four years. What can you say about a game where the most notable player was the nonexistent girlfriend of a Heisman Trophy candidate? The toughest opponent Alabama's offense had was themselves, Barrett Jones rising to shove quarterback AJ McCarron as the result of a miscommunication.



The hurt will never subside for the crew of 1966. And Parseghian, whatever his explanation, never outran his reputation from one coaching decision made in East Lansing. When he died in 2017, most of his obituaries mentioned his accomplishments in the context of the tie against Michigan State. For a man who was unquestionably a brave individual (he served in the US Navy in WW2) and a very good football coach, he should be more remembered for his daring call in the Sugar Bowl than his questionable decision on November 19, 1966. But maybe the lessons of that day - and there are many - are the greatest legacy of the tie between Notre Dame and Michigan State. Alabama's players learned that the world is not always just. Ara Parseghian may well have learned the same lesson as well as another: the decisions made often have unforseen consequences that are not anticipated by the decision maker.
 

Chukker Veteran

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Well done Selma, you've obviously put a lot of time into this. I find it extra interesting as it's based on your research and not your memory. Thanks for the effort.

I was a naive child of ten in 1966, under the impression that in life, everything always work out the way things should. It was just basic fairness. It was a bitter reality for me to realize fairness is not guaranteed in life and sometimes an awful result will be left standing.

Edit: ######

Slightly off topic, but Pat Tie comes to mind.
 
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78Alum

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Thanks for the excellent, write-up, Selma. Even after all these years, this one still stings and is the main reason that I hate ND.
 

Al A Bama

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So, can ND thank George Wallace for winning the 1966 NC? It just took about three years for the Elite to determine HOW to punish the U of A for what George Wallace did.

The U of A would have been better off if George Wallace had stayed in Montgomery on that infamous day!

Yep! I was around in 1966 and I'm still _______________ (you fill in the blank).
 

selmaborntidefan

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So, can ND thank George Wallace for winning the 1966 NC? It just took about three years for the Elite to determine HOW to punish the U of A for what George Wallace did.

The U of A would have been better off if George Wallace had stayed in Montgomery on that infamous day!

Yep! I was around in 1966 and I'm still _______________ (you fill in the blank).
That's Dunnavant's basic thesis. I'm unsure of how far to go with that one. After all, if Wallace cost Alabama in 1966, why not in 1965?

Michigan St and Arkansas STILL had better records than Alabama despite the bowl games. So, too, did Nebraska, but admittedly it would have been hard to vote the Huskers on top.

The state's reputation toward blacks unquestionably caused teams with black players to not come down here, and who can blame them? One thing I didn't mention was the fact that the reason Alabama and Nebraska played in the Orange Bowl and not the Sugar Bowl in 1965 goes back to an incident that caused the AFL players to boycott their All-Star game scheduled for New Orleans. (You likely recall this).

There's a lot myths I'll debunk in the epilogue, but there's no question Alabama's schedule suffered. The question is whether it really made any difference. Does anyone really believe that if Alabama had played Georgia and Georgia Tech - both top eight teams in 1966 - and won that they would have won the national title? It would have made their schedule stronger, but it wouldn't have taken them out of the region.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Maybe because it took them a year to work up the nerve to screw Bama and Coach Bryant the way they did. :eek: :)
I wasn't around, and I can't go far enough to say that Wallace as governor has no effect but.....it may be reaching at least in the direct sense.

In the indirect sense, the argument holds some water because of the problems we had scheduling teams. But I have to draw the line at Jerry Duncan's almost conspiracy laden musing that "there was no way they were gonna let a Southern team win it three times in a row if they could help it." Since the worse record didn't matter, they could have selected UCLA in 1965 as well.

I did come across some resentment towards Alabama (and Bryant) along the same lines of what we get today - "they won't play outside the South" and all that nonsense. There was some serious resentment - as I documented - about Alabama not deserving the championship in 64 and 65. If they had simply honored the system from 64, we don't win it in 65. Not our fault.
 

oskie

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Thank you so much for putting this together. Very enjoyable read.

On a side note - Not sure what you meant when you wrote " two good runners in Dennis Homan and Les Kelley...".

I was a very young fan in 1966, but my recollection has always been Homan, along with Perkins, was considered a "split end" - but I may have "mis-remembered" it over the years :)

Thank you again for the time and effort you put into this - 1966 was the defining year that forged a little boy into life long fan.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Thank you so much for putting this together. Very enjoyable read.

On a side note - Not sure what you meant when you wrote " two good runners in Dennis Homan and Les Kelley...".

I was a very young fan in 1966, but my recollection has always been Homan, along with Perkins, was considered a "split end" - but I may have "mis-remembered" it over the years :)

Thank you again for the time and effort you put into this - 1966 was the defining year that forged a little boy into life long fan.
You're correct that Homan was a receiver.

Keep in mind I found a number of factual errors even in the newspapers, but I missed that one heh heh.
 

selmaborntidefan

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EPILOGUE

It is impossible in what should be a short retrospective to fully engage every single issue. Although the body of this article covered the long cherished myth of “we only played Louisiana Tech because Tulane left the conference and we had no choice,” there are several other issues that I must address. For all the venom that has rained on Ara Parseghian, much of it justified, he had a legitimate complaint that was shared by both Duffy Daugherty and Paul Bryant. Just how in the world can you win a national championship when you don’t know what the voters are looking for? Indeed, inherent in that very question is the problem of why the train wreck of 1966 occurred.

This will not be a popular opinion among a number of fans of so-called blue blood programs, but it is the fundamental reality: national championships awarded prior to the invention of the BCS were little more than popularity contests along the lines of what the Heisman Trophy was at the same time. This more than anything had to do with why Alabama won in 1964 and 1965 but lost in 1966. Simply look at the final standings. The only reason Alabama won the 1964 national championship is because USC scored on Notre Dame with about 90 seconds left and knocked the Irish out of Alabama’s way. Had the Irish won that game, Alabama would not have the 1964 title, either, not because they wouldn’t deserve it but because in the battle of name recognition of the time, Notre Dame was a bigger name than Alabama. Alabama won not because of their excellence on the field but because: a) they were undefeated; b) the only other undefeated team was Arkansas. Even Alabama’s 1961 title was not a slam dunk, although nobody even talks about it nowadays. Alabama began the year at three and then fell to four after crushing Georgia, 32-6. The Tide thumped North Carolina State, 26-7, and dropped TWO spots in the polls from third to fifth. In that same poll, Ole Miss fell from the top spot despite smashing Houston, 47-7, and despite having five more first-place votes than the new number one, Michigan State. The voters ranked Ole Miss ahead of Alabama in every single poll until the Rebels lost to LSU, 10-7. Michigan State lost, Texas lost, and then Alabama took over the top spot after shutting out Georgia Tech, and they had 39 first-place votes in the AP poll while #2 Ohio State had only six and trailed by 61 points. The only reason Alabama was ranked higher is because Ohio State had a tie on their resume, a 7-7 draw in their opener against TCU. The Buckeyes smashed Michigan, 50-20, and all of a sudden they snagged 13 of Alabama’s first-place votes in the next poll. Alabama went out and crushed Auburn, 34-0, which somehow caused Ohio State to lose one of their votes that didn’t make the final poll. In the football of 1961, Ohio State would have probably still won a national championship over undefeated Alabama by virtue of their name. In Parseghian’s defense, nobody knew the exact standards of how to impress the pollsters. The only thing everyone did know was that a loss was the end of the world. Given that Parseghian’s gamble worked and he won a national title, the picture was still fuzzy in light of the fact that probably no other team including Michigan State or Alabama could have pulled such a stunt and still made out like a bandit. When polls determine champions, the big name will always get the doubt. All anyone has to do is look at the polls for 1974 and 1975, both of which gave national championships to Barry Switzer at Oklahoma. The 1974 team was on probation and bowl ineligible, and yet the pollsters rewarded Switzer right after Notre Dame beat Alabama in Parseghian’s final game. Michigan had a big name, but they had lost to Ohio State in their finale back when Big Ten teams didn’t go to any bowl games except the Rose. Ohio State lost to USC, who probably should have won it but they had both a tie and a loss, leaving the pollsters to vote probation banned Oklahoma a national title. The very next year, OU won another title while #2 Arizona State was also undefeated but had neither a national profile nor the name clout that Oklahoma did. Their schedule might not have helped, either, but the fact is they did beat the same Nebraska team that Oklahoma did, so it’s not like they had a bad team. The problem is not that these titles were not justifiable, it’s that teams managed to get them without really having to settle the issue. But the reality is that blue blood schools had a distinct advantage in the awarding of national championships not all that different from NBA superstars who foul others and get away with it.

Readers are invited to check out an excellent article by Dan Jenkins published in the September 20, 1965 edition of “Sports Illustrated” that features Nebraska fullback (and future coach) Frank Solich on the cover (https://www.si.com/vault/issue/43200/0). Jenkins lays out how a 16-team playoff would work (https://www.si.com/vault/issue/43200/39). Jenkins further notes that it was not uncommon for three or more teams to win the national championship in the same season, and he further points out that eighteen times in the previous forty years, the team with the best record in the country received no recognition whatsoever. In other words, what happened to Alabama in 1966 was not as uncommon as a lot of modern fans might believe. But when the chosen method of determining a national championship was a popular vote conducted before the bowl games, Alabama was not going to win that competition with Notre Dame in 1966 regardless of whether George Wallace was the governor or not.

Fans mistakenly believe that the old poll days were much like boxing’s championship belts, held by the titleholder until the champion loses. Not only was that never true, it’s difficult to understand why anyone who paid minimal attention to college football would have ever thought so. A review of every poll from 1936 to 1966 shows that of the 31 seasons in question, a team ranked number one fell from the top spot without losing in 26 of those 31 seasons, including three times in 1939 alone. And three of those years were during World War Two when most of the teams were decimated by the effort to save the world from dictatorship. It has happened again since 1966, including Alabama dropping below Ohio State in 1979 only to win the title when the Buckeyes lost the Rose Bowl, and in 1987, when Oklahoma was the pre-season number one and held the ranking all the way until just before the Nebraska game – and was then moved below Nebraska until the game was played. Thus, the idea that a team ranked number one somehow keeps that ranking until someone beats them not only is not true, but it was never true in any way. Two SEC teams, Tennessee in 1939 and Georgia in 1946, ran through the seasons undefeated but did not win the AP title. Tennessee, in fact, dropped from the top spot despite shutting out Vandy, 13-0, because USC rose when they beat (wait for it) Notre Dame. The polls were more of a noose than a reality, and the four-team playoff ensures that never again will be have an undefeated major conference team denied the opportunity that to win the undisputed national championship. The number of injustices the old system wreaked on teams was way too many, and the BCS while problematic in some particulars was a major step forward as is the current playoff.

On September 17, 1966, John Mooney (his vision and sportswriting ability go with his name) unloaded on Alabama and Bryant as noted above. While most of you have not heard of John Mooney, his column was typical of several that I found. John Mooney was a graduate of the University of Iowa (e.g. a Big Ten homer) and originally from Waverly, Iowa. He was the sports editor for “The Salt Lake Tribune” for many of his fifty years in the newspaper business. Prior to the 1966 season, he unloaded a barrage of accusations on Bryant and Alabama. Let’s briefly consider each allegation one by one. Mooney began his article titled, “To Be National Champs, Tide Should Take Show on the Road” (Salt Lake Tribune, September 17, 1966, p 26) by accusing Southern AP voters of voting “straight ticket” (e.g. they all line up for the Southern team). He never named these Southern voters yet a look at the vote totals shows the allegation was absurd. In 1964, Alabama had six votes in the next to last poll while Notre Dame had 36. When the Irish lost, Alabama rose to 34.5 votes and Arkansas got 11.5. Notre Dame kept six votes despite losing (whereas Alabama was undefeated) and one-loss Michigan got three. How exactly could anyone vote for Notre Dame after they lost to USC? In 1965, Alabama got 37 votes to 18 for Michigan State. All of these votes were not in the South, and who exactly gave Arkansas a vote? Nevertheless, with that faulty premise, Mooney continued with his charges:

"..the Crimson Tide, in winning its bowl game, did not have the record to match Michigan State, Arkansas, or Nebraska, each of which lost its only game of the season in a bowl."

This statement may have been true but so what? People (like Mooney) complained that Alabama didn’t deserve the 1964 championship because of a lost bowl game. To appease the complainers, the AP decided to include the bowl games. The fact Alabama benefited isn’t Alabama’s fault, it’s the system’s fault. Yes, Nebraska had a better record than Alabama, but they also lost the only head to head competition between them despite being the pre-season #1. And Arkansas lost to LSU, a team Alabama had crushed on the road, 31-7. It’s truly amazing that Arkansas was supposed to be the 1964 champion because of common opponents but Mooney wouldn’t apply this logic to 1965. As far as Michigan State, well, the two teams both won national titles.


"How can anyone vote the Crimson Tide a national championship until it moves around the country and plays a few toughies on the road?"

He makes this point again in the comment below, so I will answer it there.

"That's a poor schedule compared to the Big 10 teams, Notre Dame, the Southwest, or the Pacific Coast, who annually mix with toughies outside their leagues, and away from home."

According to “The USA Today College Football Encyclopedia,” Alabama played the toughest schedule in the nation in 1964 (a number of papers I researched said the same thing at the time) and the ninth toughest in 1965. Only two Big Ten teams – Wisconsin (4) and Michigan State (7) – played tougher schedules than Alabama in 1965. Notre Dame’s schedule was ranked 12th while three SEC teams – Auburn, Tennessee, and Kentucky – were in the top six.

His nuanced statement about tough games “on the road” bears closer scrutiny, as it was something of a valid accusation against Alabama. But how valid was it? Michigan State had two relatively rough road games in 1965, Penn State and Notre Dame. It was maybe a nine-hour drive to Penn State, a 5-5 team in 1965. It was a four-hour drive to South Bend. These are hardly around the country though in fairness it must be admitted that Michigan State did play more long distance road games than most teams. The road games for both the PCC and Big Ten were basically each other once a year.

"Some of the experts down-graded Nebraska last year because of a poor schedule, but the Cornhuskers at least moved around a little."

Not in 1965 (the year he references) they didn’t. They played the seven in conference games, hosted Wisconsin and TCU in Lincoln, and they traveled to Colorado Springs to blast the athletically challenged Air Force Academy. Nebraska’s 1965 schedule was awful, but they still would have won the national title had they just been able to beat Alabama.

These kinds of columns are rampant in newspapers of the day, and they aren’t any different than the claims made against Coach Saban and Alabama nowadays. They were untrue then, and they are untrue now. Mooney finished with a cheap shot regarding integration that should be a textbook case of irony when one remembers he was writing this column in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1966. (For those who this confuses, the Mormon Church condemned blacks to outer darkness prior to a sudden convenient revelation in 1978). Mooney then cheap shotted Bryant in a column on December 11, mocking him for begging teams to play Alabama. As Bryant found out more than once, sometimes you just can’t make people happy.

What if the “Game of the Century” had ended with a clear victor?

The bizarre reality is that the tie between the two teams was the best Alabama could have hoped for. It just didn’t quite work out the way the Tide needed. It goes without saying that if Notre Dame won the national championship with a tie, they unquestionably would have won it with a win although Alabama likely would have finished second rather than third in the polls. The tie left the door seemingly open, but it was a false door. Had Michigan State beaten Notre Dame with no more games left to play, there is little question that the Spartans would have won their second straight title, particularly if the racial angle is true. After all, Michigan State had 12 black starters, most of them from the Southern United States. A win over Notre Dame would have sealed Alabama’s fate every bit as much as an Irish win. Once the three teams got to November 19 unbeaten, Alabama’s only chance was a tie and an elevation in the polls. There might possibly have been another chance after the tie if USC had been able to beat Notre Dame. But the beatdown of the Trojans ensured Notre Dame would win both the AP and UPI titles for 1966.

Did Parseghian “play for a tie”?

This is actually a more complicated morality tale than a lot of Alabama fans wish to admit. The convenient comparison with Tom Osborne’s 1984 Orange Bowl decision to go for two misses at several points in the analogy, not the least being that in Ara’s case the game was tied well before he was put in the position of making his decision. The passing rules and game of 1966 were not the same as today, so it’s not as though Parseghian had Aaron Rodgers taking snaps from his backup center. Ara always insisted that he did not “play for a tie” and that the only play that could be said to be pointing in that direction as the quarterback sneak on fourth and one. He makes a few valid points, including the erratic arm of Coley O’Brien, the missing players (his running back, QB, and All-American center), and the fact they tried to pass on the final play and O’Brien got sacked by Bubba Smith. But it was evident to those watching the game that he did not even make a minimally acceptable effort. Needing as many yards as Notre Dame needed combined with the fact field goal kicking in 1966 was not yet a specialty (coaches were content with field goal kickers of 60%) suggests that Notre Dame probably could not have won the game anyway given the circumstance. The problem is not so much that he “played for a tie” as the shorthand became later as it is he “didn’t try to win.” It should be known lest anyone think that Alabama fans in particular are being excessively harsh that Parseghian’s own players thought at the time he was playing for the tie and later justified his decision after they’d matured three or four decades and still had the rings to prove they were champions. Of course, Ara’s decision followed him all the way to the grave and beyond just as Tom Osborne’s will be lifted up as courage in the face of failure.

What about other coaches and whether they would play for a tie?

Woody Hayes, under whom Parseghian once coached, rushed to Ara’s defense almost immediately. Hayes endorsed the decision and said that had he been in Ara’s position, he would have done the exact same thing. (This, too, lends credence to the idea that he actually did “play for the tie”). Barry Switzer, who was not yet a head coach or a legend on that day in 1966, has always defended the decision as well. Indeed, Switzer said that if he had been able to get word to his old nemesis Tom Osborne, he would have told him to kick the point against Miami and walk away with the national championship. Pat Dye was another coach who earned a reputation of playing for ties that was so obvious he was mockingly referred to as Pat Tie. In the 1988 Sugar Bowl, Auburn was playing unbeaten and number three Syracuse. With four seconds remaining in a game that meant nothing to Auburn and everything to Syracuse, Dye sent out his kicker on third down to boot a 30-yarder through the uprights and spoil Syracuse’s dream season. Boos cascaded down from the stands and while the outcome obviously did not cost the Orangemen a national championship, it smacked of cowardice. Alabama Coach Ray Perkins pulled a similar stunt with greater consequence in the 1985 LSU game. After the Tide drove the length of the field to pull within one, the assumption was that he would go for two. Alabama had a head to head loss to Tennessee so a win was paramount to preserving Alabama’s already thin chance at winning the SEC. Perkins instead sent out Van Tiffin for a tying kick that essentially gave the SEC title to the Vols. LSU, with three timeouts left and a serviceable quarterback in Jeff Wickersham, went down the field and lined up for a 24-yard field goal that Ron Lewis shanked. The fact remains that the tie meant Alabama’s hopes for the SEC rested on Tennessee somehow losing two of their remaining games that just happened to be against the three worst teams in the conference. Tennessee won the SEC, and Perkins got a reputation as a coach afraid to lose. Fred Akers was another member of the Nutless Wonder club. In the 1984 Red River Rivalry game against Oklahoma, Akers sent out his kicker to tie the game for his #1 Texas Longhorns against the #3 Sooners.

Bobby Bowden was the rare coach who fell on both sides of the situation. In 1987, Bowden’s team came back from a 19-3 deficit to set up the choice of tie or win, and he opted for the win. Florida State lost and Miami went on to win the national championship, but Bowden gained respect across college football for the decision. In 1994, by contrast, his team put together another great fourth quarter rally and Bowden played for the tie. The difference in Bowden’s mind in 1994 was that his team was already eliminated from the national title hunt so he may well have enjoyed throwing a monkey wrench in Florida’s plans as they were still alive. Jimmy Johnson as well earned respect in 1988 when he followed the Hurricanes’s sensational comeback from seven turnovers in South Bend with a chance for the win that went up in smoke and set Notre Dame on the path to their most recent national title.

The invention of overtime in 1996 did away with tie games. Coaches now are willing to play for the tie in regulation and take their chances with overtime. Ara Parseghian did not have that luxury in 1966, but his contributions in the game of the century eventually led to both the adoption of overtime and the four-team playoff.
 

CrimsonEyeshade

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Since polls were all about impressions ... a couple of things come to mind from that year.

There was certainly an early groundswell for the reappearance of Notre Dame as a national contender, particularly with the dashing Hanratty to Seymour and all those great sophomore players Ara brought to South Bend. Like it or not, the Irish played a much more national schedule, which enabled them to be seen by far more eyes, in all parts of the country, before the days of blanket television coverage. Think about it: The Alabama-Tennessee game was not televised that year; the 'Game of the Century' was a regional broadcast only.

By comparison, Alabama seemed locked away in the virtually all-white SEC, filling in its schedule with puny Southern independents in part because no one wanted to play us and we were still four years away from bucking the last vestiges of apartheid and playing an integrated opponent in our home state.

When we absolutely destroyed big, bad Nebraska in the bowl, which laid to rest any notion that Alabama was a product of its schedule and of Southern segregation, it was too late to move the needle. We highly benefitted from the polls in '64 and '65. We certainly got burned by them in '66.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Since polls were all about impressions ... a couple of things come to mind from that year.

There was certainly an early groundswell for the reappearance of Notre Dame as a national contender, particularly with the dashing Hanratty to Seymour and all those great sophomore players Ara brought to South Bend. Like it or not, the Irish played a much more national schedule, which enabled them to be seen by far more eyes, in all parts of the country, before the days of blanket television coverage. Think about it: The Alabama-Tennessee game was not televised that year; the 'Game of the Century' was a regional broadcast only.
They also benefited - and Celizic, a Notre Dame grad no less - admits it, from biased and favorable media coverage. The main wire services were in New York and DC. Indeed, it's part of why the Irish were willing to play Army in Yankee Stadium, to increase crowds as well as ease of favorable coverage. They were also "the Catholic team" in those days when the country had more Catholics and just by chance had elected its first Catholic President in 1960.

Better still, the second largest city in America in 1966 was Chicago.....which is only 96 miles from South Bend. They, too, had a main wire desk and Northwestern wasn't usually good (though they were when Parseghian coached them) so the Chicago writers basically adopted Notre Dame as the college football team for Chicago (a town that of course had a number of Irish people including Mayor Daley).

And their whole national profile was sort of an accident borne of the Big Ten refusing to let them join what was then called the Western Conference. It is to Notre Dame's credit that they built what they did, but it also makes the idea of the John Wayne of college football playing to ensure a tie that much more nauseating, too.

Nevertheless, I concede that point that they did have a national profile and had earned it.

By comparison, Alabama seemed locked away in the virtually all-white SEC, filling in its schedule with puny Southern independents in part because no one wanted to play us and we were still four years away from bucking the last vestiges of apartheid and playing an integrated opponent in our home state.
This is a fair point, too. I think where it bothers folks has to do more with the idea of essentially punishing players who had no say in the schedule and couldn't have done anything about it anyway.

Alabama's scheduling was deeply hurt by the fact that Georgia Tech left the conference and Georgia and Alabama agreed to a cooldown period for their rivalry after the fix allegations. All three finished in the top eight in 1966. A lot of people don't realize that GEORGIA was co-SEC champion with Alabama in 1966. The Dawgs were 10-1 and their only loss was to Miami. But Georgia's scheduling makes an interesting case. The Bulldogs played two games in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1957 and 1965, winning the latter one. Florida played Northwestern in Chicago in 1965. Kentucky had played at Missouri AND BEATEN THEM in 1965 against a team that wound up in the final poll at six

If Georgia or Florida or Kentucky could play a power like Michigan or Missouri or Northwestern (the game was scheduled by Parseghian no less) on the road, why couldn't Alabama schedule such a game? That reality gave fodder to those who wanted to deride Alabama's schedule. Alabama not only did not play challenging road games outside the South (for whatever reason) but they didn't even play the best foes within the SEC and in those days the schools (not the conferences) scheduled their own games. I think the allegation that Bryant was afraid to play anyone is laughably absurd. After all, he added Ole Miss to the schedule when they were coming off three national titles in six years. He also added LSU right after they won a title as well.

But the fact remains that Alabama did not face either Georgia or Florida in 1966, and either one would have helped with the perceptions game, especially since Spurrier won the Heisman at Florida that year.

When we absolutely destroyed big, bad Nebraska in the bowl, which laid to rest any notion that Alabama was a product of its schedule and of Southern segregation, it was too late to move the needle. We highly benefitted from the polls in '64 and '65. We certainly got burned by them in '66.
We benefited in 1965 without question. The benefit in 1964 is questionable because if Notre Dame doesn't blow the 17-0 lead against USC, we likely get hosed that year as well. Then when Notre Dame lost, we had a bigger name than Arkansas did plus we'd played a tougher schedule. And neither school exactly had a stellar reputation on race in 1964, either.
 

UAH

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Just a couple of comments on background to your excellent article:

In terms of the enmity that existed with Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Constitution toward Alabama in the 1961 game this transpired: An Alabama player, Darwin Holt, had smashed Georgia Tech's Chick Graning in the face with his left elbow and forearm, in an unnecessary block when an Alabama teammate signaled for a fair catch on a punt. After the catch, though possibly before the referee's whistle had sounded. Holt hit Graning, rising off his feet as he drove his arm up under the taller Tech player's face guard. Graning was helped off the field with injuries diagnosed later as 1) fracture of the alveolar process(facial bones), 2) five missing upper front teeth, 3) fracture of the nasal bone, 4) fracture of the right maxillary sinus and the sinus filled with blood, 5) fracture of the right zygomatic process (bone beneath the right eye), 6) cerebral concussion and 7) possible fracture of the base of the skull. (Quoted from Sports Illustrated) https://www.si.com/vault/1962/11/26/592367/a-rough-day-for-the-bear

Graning's injury was reported widely across the country with pictures of him hospitalized and served to only increase the criticism of Coach Bryant on teaching spearing and other aggressive tactics such as the forearm blow to Graning's jaw. It is a fact that for years after the Graning incident Furman Bisher and the Atlanta Constitution would not even report Alabama's score in its Sunday Football edition.

Of course the following year the story of the College Football Fix appeared in the Saturday Evening Post which alleged wrongfully that Coach Bryant and Coach Butts had engaged in fixing the 1962 game with Georgia. Of course in hindsight we know that Coach Bryant's lawsuit and award played a large part in the demise of the post and certainly Joe Namath required very little extra assistance in his debut at the Tide's sophomore signal caller.

These were turbulent times between Georgia teams and Alabama and it took years for those memories to recede into history.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Just a couple of comments on background to your excellent article:

In terms of the enmity that existed with Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Constitution toward Alabama in the 1961 game this transpired: An Alabama player, Darwin Holt, had smashed Georgia Tech's Chick Graning in the face with his left elbow and forearm, in an unnecessary block when an Alabama teammate signaled for a fair catch on a punt. After the catch, though possibly before the referee's whistle had sounded. Holt hit Graning, rising off his feet as he drove his arm up under the taller Tech player's face guard. Graning was helped off the field with injuries diagnosed later as 1) fracture of the alveolar process(facial bones), 2) five missing upper front teeth, 3) fracture of the nasal bone, 4) fracture of the right maxillary sinus and the sinus filled with blood, 5) fracture of the right zygomatic process (bone beneath the right eye), 6) cerebral concussion and 7) possible fracture of the base of the skull. (Quoted from Sports Illustrated) https://www.si.com/vault/1962/11/26/592367/a-rough-day-for-the-bear

Graning's injury was reported widely across the country with pictures of him hospitalized and served to only increase the criticism of Coach Bryant on teaching spearing and other aggressive tactics such as the forearm blow to Graning's jaw. It is a fact that for years after the Graning incident Furman Bisher and the Atlanta Constitution would not even report Alabama's score in its Sunday Football edition.

Of course the following year the story of the College Football Fix appeared in the Saturday Evening Post which alleged wrongfully that Coach Bryant and Coach Butts had engaged in fixing the 1962 game with Georgia. Of course in hindsight we know that Coach Bryant's lawsuit and award played a large part in the demise of the post and certainly Joe Namath required very little extra assistance in his debut at the Tide's sophomore signal caller.

These were turbulent times between Georgia teams and Alabama and it took years for those memories to recede into history.
Thank you for bringing that up.
I knew the details of those stories but admittedly the younger folks may not.
 

Evil Crimson Dragon

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Just a couple of comments on background to your excellent article:

In terms of the enmity that existed with Georgia Tech and the Atlanta Constitution toward Alabama in the 1961 game this transpired: An Alabama player, Darwin Holt, had smashed Georgia Tech's Chick Graning in the face with his left elbow and forearm, in an unnecessary block when an Alabama teammate signaled for a fair catch on a punt. After the catch, though possibly before the referee's whistle had sounded. Holt hit Graning, rising off his feet as he drove his arm up under the taller Tech player's face guard. Graning was helped off the field with injuries diagnosed later as 1) fracture of the alveolar process(facial bones), 2) five missing upper front teeth, 3) fracture of the nasal bone, 4) fracture of the right maxillary sinus and the sinus filled with blood, 5) fracture of the right zygomatic process (bone beneath the right eye), 6) cerebral concussion and 7) possible fracture of the base of the skull. (Quoted from Sports Illustrated) https://www.si.com/vault/1962/11/26/592367/a-rough-day-for-the-bear

Graning's injury was reported widely across the country with pictures of him hospitalized and served to only increase the criticism of Coach Bryant on teaching spearing and other aggressive tactics such as the forearm blow to Graning's jaw. It is a fact that for years after the Graning incident Furman Bisher and the Atlanta Constitution would not even report Alabama's score in its Sunday Football edition.

Of course the following year the story of the College Football Fix appeared in the Saturday Evening Post which alleged wrongfully that Coach Bryant and Coach Butts had engaged in fixing the 1962 game with Georgia. Of course in hindsight we know that Coach Bryant's lawsuit and award played a large part in the demise of the post and certainly Joe Namath required very little extra assistance in his debut at the Tide's sophomore signal caller.

These were turbulent times between Georgia teams and Alabama and it took years for those memories to recede into history.
IIRC, Holt went to see Graning after the incident and had made things right with him..............both even becoming friends..................until a few years later, and it seems some people stoked the fires and got Graning mad again..............at least it's what I gleaned from an old article I read a few years ago. No doubt Furman Bisher helped stoke those fires.............he hated Alabama and Bryant, as do many GT fans. My father drove a bus for Atlanta Transit Company ( now MARTA) and told me about the animosity in Atlanta toward Bama fans and Alabama.
 

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