I'm 41, and I remember our titles in 1978 (ironically, the Sugar Bowl was the first Bama game I ever saw on TV), 1979, 1992, and 2009.
The best play in a title game never actually happened - Teague stripping Lamar Thomas. (What I mean is that that play didn't happen because it was called back on penalty).
I was 23 at the time. I lived in Biloxi, just a little while east of N'awlins. I really wanted to go to the game, but we were poor (military E-3 at the time, wife unemployed, just starting out). And on December 29, I had my wisdom teeth pulled, so I couldn't cheer very well.
We were HUGE underdogs perception-wise in that game. I've always thought the TURNING POINT of that game was when Tommy Johnson intercepted Torretta's first pass of the second half and set us up with short field (Jay Barker was terrible at passing that year, but he was unbeaten until the 1993 IB). We punched it in and then Teague intercepted the next pass and took it for six. We were up 27-6 and the Superdome was rocking. I wasn't getting too excited, though, because I'd seen Miami come back before and they were a pass only offense.
My heart began racing when Thomas caught what was - let's admit it - Torretta's best pass of that entire game. I figured Thomas was gone. Teague closed on him like a lion pursuing a zebra. I figured, "Well, maybe we can hold him to a field.." and about that time Teague took the ball away from him and turned back upfield. I leaped up off the couch shaking my head because I could not believe what I'd just seen. I was actually glad for our offsides penalty, though. I trusted our defense more than our offense that year and we would have had the ball inside our own red zone. While we would have run the ball with Lassic, I've always been glad it came down to defense there.
POSTSCRIPT
I was on the same military base as George Teague back in the early 1980s. We were both at Sembach AFB in Germany. No, I did not know Teague, but I was friends with a number of kids. One of them later did an Internet post (late 1990s) and said he had not given a thought about Sembach since he left until he saw Teague strip Thomas. He then said that Teague used to pull the same thing on the sandlot in seventh grade.
What I'm saying is, that was a PRACTICED play for years by Teague, and he had a national stage to do it on. That was by far the most exciting. (The Goal Line Stand...I didn't have enough knowledge of football yet to full appreciate but I do remember it. Yet folks forget that we nearly did ourselves in because we had a terrible punt out of that possession. Penn St had 12 men on the field and we ran the clock low before they got it back deep in their own territory).
