Alabama Crimson Tide Football History

ALABAMA CRIMSON TIDE FOOTBALL HISTORY

Alabama Crimson Tide Football History is full of great coaching and colorful characters on the field. In fact, we picked Bama as the all-time best SEC football college. This is mostly due to Alabama's tremendous football heritage.

Depending on which polls you count, Alabama Crimson Tide football is tied with Notre Dame and the University of Southern California for the all-time most college football National Championships with 12. Of course, many of those Championships were won under the leadership of legendary Alabama coach "Bear" Bryant. [Here's our latest Bear Bryant Story.]

Alabama Crimson Tide Football: Stadium History

Situated on its Tuscaloosa, Alabama campus, Crimson Tide home games are played at the Bryant-Denny Stadium. Fans gather on football Saturday's decked out in crimson and white. The "Yea Alabama" fight song plays in the background as the Million Dollar marching band takes its place. You can almost feel the electricity in the air when the Tide storms the field.

Over the years, Alabama football has developed some tremendous rivalries. Certainly the intra-state rivalry with the Auburn Tigers (the Iron Bowl) is probably the best all-time SEC football rivalry.

Then there is a great rivalry with the Tide's neighbor to the North – the Tennessee Volunteers (always played as the leaves are turning on the "Third Saturday in October"). Finally, there have been an number of legendary Alabama-LSU games over the years.

Bryant-Denny Stadium is named after former coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant and former president of Alabama, George Denny. It is the fourth largest structure in the SEC and one of the best SEC football stadiums. Today, Bryant-Denny can seat up to 92,158, making it the seventh largest on-campus sports stadium in the nation. The fact that every Alabama football home game has been a sellout since 1988. Amazing!

Alabama Crimson Tide Football History: Notable Coaches and Players

Of course, when you talk about "notable" Alabama coaches, the name of Bear Bryant is always the first to come up. We rate the Bear as the best all-time SEC football coach. Bryant served on the Alabama staff for 25 years (he was Assistant Coach there early in his career). It was under his guidance that the Crimson Tide was able to beat Auburn for the first time in 1959 and make an appearance in a bowl game.

In 1961, Bryant led his Alabama team to an 11-0 record, which culminated with a National Championship at the Sugar Bowl. Several National Championships followed, as well as 12 SEC titles, and 24 consecutive appearances at various bowls, including the Liberty and the Orange. Bryant was also honored many times as National Coach of the Year and SEC Coach of the Year.

Bryant would go onto coach many great players, but none so memorable (in his eyes) as Joe Namath. Namath led Alabama from 1962 to 1964, with a National Championship in 1964. In the 1965 NFL draft, he was chosen the 12th overall pick by the New York Jets. Namath played in several AFL All-Star games and was MVP of the 1969 Super Bowl. That Super Bowl victory over the NFL's Baltimore Colts was one of the signature events in the history of the NFL (first Championship by an AFL team over an NFL team). "Broadway Joe" was later selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But, the list of great Alabama quarterbacks is long. They also include Bart Starr and Ken Stabler (see below).

True old-timers will remember another Bama player with an illustrious post-Alabama career. His name was Harry Gilmer and he was selected to join the Washington Redskins as the first overall player in the 1948 NFL draft. During his time at the University of Alabama, Gilmer played the halfback position from 1944 to 1947. He started every game during his four years and was best known for his unconventional passing technique, which traded set feet and throwing for leaping as high as he could in the air before releasing the football. His Crimson Tide career saw appearances at two Sugar Bowls and a Rose Bowl. After a 9-year NFL career, Gilmer went on to coach professional football for 27 years, followed by an 11-year career as an NFL scout.

Alabama Crimson Tide Football History: SEC Distinctions

Alabama Crimson Tide football is simply the best in SEC football history. They have more SEC football championships than anyone else (21) (4 other's before the SEC was formed). Alabama has delivered more Super Bowl winning quarterbacks than any other college football program. They are:

Bart Starr (Green Bay Packers) won Super Bowls I and II;

Joe Namath (New York Jets) captured Super Bowl III; and,

Ken Stabler with the Oakland Raiders that took the 11th Super Bowl.

Besides those players noted above, three other Alabama Crimson Tide football players who were later inducted into the pro football Hall of Fame included: