Growing up, I was a really big fan of Bear Bryant. As I have written many times on this blog, my theme is college football from 1967 till present day.
Why 1967? That was the first year that I actually remember watching the game, so it has special meaning for me and the Bear was the biggest name in the game back then. I was a fan and I tried to watch as much as I could.
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Just like modern times, Alabama had probably the best coach in the nation with the legendary Bear Bryant. There were other great coaches around, but not many could compare with the Bear.
In 1966, the Alabama faithful felt they should have won the national title, and they may have had a good point. The Crimson Tide finished their season with an 11-0 record. But, it wasn’t enough to pass the top two teams, Notre Dame and Michigan State who played to a very disappointing 10-10 tie. Michigan State and Notre Dame shared the national championship and Alabama was behind them.
Defense was Alabama’s forte in 1966 with 6 shutouts in 11 games and the 14 points scored on them by Mississippi State was the most they gave up all season long.
Talk to any old Alabama fan, and he will bring up that lost 1966 national title, eventually.
On the strength of that team, Alabama began the 1967 season ranked number 2 in the Associated Press polls.
Their defense was not quite as stout in 1967 which was proven by the 37 points they surrenderred in a tie game with Florida State to begin the season. They had given up 44 points in their entire 1966 season.
They did, however, return future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Kenny Stabler.
Despite having Stabler and All SEC receiver Dennis Homan, they stumbled to a less than Alabama like 8-2-1 season with an upset loss to Texas A$M in the Cotton Bowl game. The Aggies were coached by future Alabama coach Gene Stallings, who would win a national title in 1992.
Scott Hunter replaced Stabler in 1968 and then later tried to replace another former Alabama quarterback with the Green Bay Packers, Bart Starr. Of course, Bart Starr is also in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, so Hunter had the unlucky break of replacing Hall of Fame quarterbacks.
Incidentally, my friend and former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr also tried to replace Starr at Green Bay, but was cut in training camp.
Believe it or not, Stabler was a good running quarterback in his college days as evidenced by his supposedly controversial Run in the Mud against Auburn in 1967. Run in the Mud
But, Hunter was a pure drop back passer from my memory.
1968’s Alabama got away from the run just a bit and opened up the offense. It didn’t work that well as the Crimson Tide finished the year with an 8-3 record. Again, most schools would be thrilled with that record, but not Alabama. Losing 3 games at Alabama was mediocre, at best.
It would get worse.
1969 was not a good year for Alabama. Scott Hunter threw for over 2,000 yards, but the team finished with a very mediocre 6-5 record. The mumbling among the faithful was growing in volume and velocity. Like Woody Hayes at Ohio State and Darrell Royal at Texas a couple of years previously, the fans thought Bear Bryant had lost his touch. The game had passed him by.
They lost to Vanderbilt, of all schools, as the Commodores captured a very rare win over Alabama.
The Tennessee Vols crushed them, 14-41.
They also lost to LSU, and were beaten badly by rival, Auburn. They also lost big to Colorado in the Bluebonnet Bowl.
The Wolves were out in force and they were howling.
But, the 1969 season was the first year of eligibility of one of Alabama’s special players for me, at least.
Johnny Musso was a back that I loved watching. He only ran for a little over 500 yards as a sophomore, but he had 10 touchdowns and it was a good sign for the future. Johnny Musso
Musso would lead Alabama in rushing in 1970 and 1971 as well as the hard charging Italian Stallion ran his way into the hearts of Alabama faithful.
The opening game of 1970 would be very important to the history of college football in the south. The game is for it’s own blog post, but it was considered to be the game that opened the doors in the SEC and the south in general for black players.
That was a bold statement and it wasn’t completely true, but a team with a lot of very good black
players came to Birmingham and stuffed an all white Alabama team, 21-42.
USC and especially Sam Cunningham, made the Tide look bad and Alabama didn’t like looking bad. Supposedly this game opened the door for Bear Bryant to recruit black players, but they already had a talented black freshman who was ready to go in 1971.
In spite of a little misinformation and the stretching of the truth, this game is so famous that two books have been written about it.
After that embarrassing loss, the Tide wasn’t through with losing in 1970. They did win big over Virginia Tech and 13th ranked Florida. But, then, they lost another big game and this time to 7th ranked Ole Miss, quarterbacked by the legendary Archie Manning. It wasn’t even so much that Ole Miss beat them, it was how they beat them. Archie Manning and his Rebels ran wild over the Crimson Tide defense scoring 48 points while the Tide only scored 23 and come up just a tad short.
Alabama had a super tough schedule in 1970, playing 8 ranked schools. They lost to 5 of those teams. Finishing their season with a 6-5-1 record was just disappointing for Alabama and their fans. The fans that wanted a national title every season were protesting by the truckloads.
The game had passed Bear Bryant by. Fire the coach!!!! It’s time for change.
But, change was indeed in the works.
It would be a change that would make Bear Bryant and Alabama, the stuff of legend.