Coach Bryant had nine ties at the Capstone:
1958 Vanderbilt - Vandy was heavily favored in this game that ended in a 0-0 tie in Bryant's 2nd game. He took over a team that had won 4 games the previous 3 years.
1959 Vanderbilt - perhaps worth noting this was the third year in a row the two teams tied. We missed what would have been a game-winning FG but we were trailing, 7-0, entering the fourth.
1959 Tennessee - entering the game, the Vols were ranked #14, and it was very similar to the Vandy game except we tied it in the second quarter. Yes, missed a field goal that would have won it late - from 16 yards. The two teams combined for 15 first downs (Vols had 5).
1960 Tulane - we trailed the whole day, scored a TD in the final minutes - and missed the PAT that would have won it. Tulane was 3-6-1 that year.
1960 Bluebonnet Bowl (vs Texas) - I wasn't around, but I'm guessing this was a "whew, we got away with it." We only had four first downs the entire day, lost the turnover battle (2-0), offensive yards were about the same, but we got socked with twice the penalty yardage.
1965 Tennessee - this is the infamous Stabler throwing the ball out of bounds on fourth down.
1967 Florida State - honestly don't know much about this one. But I will say that 37-37 in 1967 sounds like a dazzling ballgame, too.
1970 Bluebonnet Bowl (Oklahoma) - we missed a final field goal attempt from 34 yards. Brutal, I'm sure.
1981 Southern Mississippi - this maybe should have been a warning for what happened in 1982. Reggie Collier sliced up our defense for over 200 yards passing - and his AVERAGE for the season was 90 ypg. He absolutely cut up our D (14 for 25, 202 yards, 0 INT plus 13 carries for 43 yards and 1 TD). Bear in mind, our "starting QB" (the passing one, Ken Collier) was out, so we only threw the ball 3 times that day. We didn't have to throw it, we rushed for 273 yards. The story AT THE TIME was that we had called timeout that wound up enabling them to set up the field goal, where Steve Clark hit a 40-yard line drive for the tie. And that gave rise to "is there something wrong with the old man" stories. The story relayed on this board is that someone (an unknown someone) on our team called the timeout with 8 seconds left, and USM had none, so they probably wouldn't have gotten the play off - and Bryant threw himself on the grenade and took the blame.
"I don't know why I did that," Bryant said.
Of those nine ties, MAYBE three of them were acceptable.
Most were "damn, we had it won."
