Alabama Crimson Tide football, 1920–1929

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1920

Xen Scott's spectacular success with the 1919 Tide carried over as Alabama set a record for the second consecutive year for most victories in a season. Bama didn't give up a single point in its first six games. In the opener against Southern Military, Alabama didn't allow a single first down. In the seventh game Alabama finally let an opponent score, but gutted out a 14-7 win over Vanderbilt in which the Commodores threw an interception on 4th and goal at the Alabama 3 in the fourth quarter. However, two games later against Georgia, Alabama's school-record 11-game winning streak was snapped. The Bulldogs did not score a single point on offense but won a bizarre 21-14 victory by scoring three touchdowns on a fumble return, a blocked punt return, and a blocked field goal return. Alabama rallied from that disappointment to win its last two games and finish 10-1 for the season. Starting with Xen Scott every Alabama coach has won 10 games in a season at least once, with the exception of the disastrous tenure of J.B. Whitworth (Mike Price was fired before ever coaching a game and Joe Kines served as interim coach for one game).

Riggs Stephenson, star back on the 1920 team, became a Major League Baseball player after his football days were over and compiled a .336 lifetime batting average over 14 seasons in the big leagues.

1921

After going 18-2 over the previous two seasons, Alabama struggled in 1921. In the opener, Bama spotted Howard a 14-0 first quarter lead before rallying to win 34-14. A 17-0 loss to Sewanee kicked off a six-game winless streak. Against LSU the Crimson Tide dominated play, racking up 23 first downs to LSU's six, but could not translate that into points and had to settle for a 7-7 tie. Alabama tied Mississippi State by the same score after a Tide pass into the end zone late in the fourth fell incomplete.

Scott and the Tide avoided Alabama's first losing season since the 1903 team went 3-4 by pulling out a 14-7 victory over Tulane that featured a wild fourth quarter. After the first three quarters were scoreless (Alabama once fumbling the ball away at Tulane's 3-yard line), the Green Wave scored early in the fourth to take a 7-0 lead. Alabama answered by driving 65 yards for the tying score. After a punt Bama drove to the Tulane 15-yard line but fumbled the ball away again. After another Tulane punt Alabama drove down the field again and scored to take a 14-7 lead. As the clocked ticked away the final seconds Tulane had the ball at the Alabama 40. Tulane appeared to score a possible game-tying touchdown on a 40-yard pass completion, but the referee ruled that time had expired and he had blown the whistle before Tulane snapped the ball. The Tulane fans rioted and stormed the field and the referee required a police escort to escape.

1922

1922 was the first season of football play for the new Southern Conference. Alabama was one of twenty members of the old thirty-team Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association which joined to form a new conference.

Alabama's 110 points scored in the season-opening victory over Marion Institute is the all-time single-game Alabama record for points scored, and is the only time in school history that the Tide has broken 100 points in a game. Alabama dominated against Sewanee, holding the Tigers to six yards rushing and one first down, but had to settle for a 7-7 tie after Sewanee blocked a Tide field goal attempt, recovered five Alabama fumbles, and scored its only touchdown on an interception return. Against Texas Alabama again lost five fumbles, and this time suffered a 19-10 loss. The Tide overcame more turnover problems--two fumbles, an interception, and another interception returned for a touchdown--and beat Georgia 10-6. The Georgia game was Alabama's first ever game in Cramton Bowl in Montgomery. The Tide would use Cramton Bowl as another home stadium off and on until 1954.

The game of the year was Alabama's Nov. 4 road trip to Philadelphia to play Penn. The Tide was a heavy underdog against an undefeated, powerhouse Quakers team coached by legendary John Heisman. In fact Penn, seeking a breather one week before their showdown against archirival Pitt, had scheduled Alabama as an easy opponent. Grantland Rice predicted a 21-0 Quaker victory. However, Coach Scott had gotten good scouting reports from fellow coaches he knew that had faced Penn. Alabama struck first in the second quarter with a field goal, but Penn responded with a touchdown after a short punt gave the Quakers the ball on the Alabama 35. In the third quarter Alabama took the lead after Pooley Hubert fumbled on 3rd and goal and teammate Shorty Propst fell on the ball for a touchdown. The extra point failed, leaving Alabama up 9-7. Twice in the fourth quarter Alabama missed field goals, leaving Penn with a chance to win late. The Quakers drove to the Alabama 30 in the final moments but on fourth down Alabama came up with a sack to clinch a 9-7 victory. Alabama had pulled off the shocking upset. The Cleveland Plain Dealer called the game "intersectional history".

Xen C. Scott coached the 1922 season while dying of oral cancer. Scott spent the whole season suffering from the effects of his illness, losing weight, barely able to speak, coaching against the advice of a doctor who told him to quit immediately, and bedridden except when attending practices and games. After the Oglethorpe game Scott tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the season. Xen Scott died in April 1924 at age 41.

1923

1923 marked the first season for new head coach Wallace Wade, a former assistant at Vanderbilt. One year after Alabama's triumphal trip to Penn, the Tide went on another northeast roadtrip with a different outcome, losing to Syracuse 23-0. The Sewanee game was scoreless until the last two minutes, when Johnny Mack Brown intercepted a pass, giving the ball to Alabama at the Tiger 48. Pooley Hubert scored with seconds left and Sewanee had time to run only two plays before the game ended. Against Georgia Tech, Alabama was very lucky to escape with a 0-0 tie. Tech had 18 first downs to none for Alabama, and the Tide never advanced the ball beyond its own 27-yard line. A driving rain and sixteen punts from Grant Gillis helped Bama to hold Tech scoreless. Tech drives stalled on the Alabama 2, 8, and 11-yard lines.

1924

In 1924 Wade and the Tide returned to the level of success enjoyed by Xen Scott's powerhouse teams of 1919 and 1920. Alabama was hardly challenged in its first seven games, six of which were shutouts. The closest was Alabama's 14-0 victory over Georgia Tech. Tech drove the ball to the Alabama 6 in the third with a chance to tie the game up but was stopped on 4th and 1, and another Tide TD in the fourth clinched the victory. The perfect season was ruined when Centre College, which had previously tied a Kentucky team that Alabama beat by 35 points, traveled to Birmingham and ambushed the Tide 17-0. Alabama bounced back to crush Georgia 33-0 and wrap up the Crimson Tide's first Southern Conference championship.

1925

The 1925 Alabama Crimson Tide was one of the most dominant teams in the history of the program. Alabama ripped through its regular season without mercy, finishing 9-0. Only one team scored: Birmingham-Southern managed a touchdown after recovering a fumble at the Alabama 25 and benefiting from two Alabama offside penalties. Two games were close calls. Alabama beat Georgia Tech 7-0 on a Johnny Mack Brown punt return for a TD. Tech turned the ball over on downs at the Alabama 28 and again at the Alabama 21. The Tide then beat Mississippi State 6-0, scoring after a short punt set Bama up on the MSU 26 and later intercepting a Mississippi State pass after the "Maroons" (now the Bulldogs) drove to the Tide 16.

The season was not finished. Alabama received a surprise invitation to head west and play in the Rose Bowl. It was Alabama's first bowl game ever and the first time a southern team had ever been invited to play in what then was college football's only bowl game. Its opponent was the Washington Huskies, who had gone 11-0-1, been just as dominant as the Tide, and were regarded as heavy favorites by the press. Through one half, that prediction looked accurate. Washington's star halfback George Wilson intercepted a pass in the first quarter and then led his team 63 yards for a touchdown and a 6-0 lead. In the second quarter Wilson ran for 36 yards and then threw a 22-yard touchdown pass, and Washington went up 12-0. Both extra point tries failed. At the half, Wade changed his game plan, telling Pooley Hubert to run more often. Possibly more importantly, George Wilson sat out the entire third quarter due to sore ribs. It was in that third quarter that Alabama struck. A short punt set up Alabama on the Washington 42 and the Tide quickly capitalized, Hubert scoring on a 1-yard run to make the score 12-7. The Huskies couldn't move the ball without Wilson and punted. Shortly thereafter Hubert hit Brown on a 59-yard touchdown pass and suddenly Alabama led 14-12. Not long after that Washington fumbled the ball and Alabama recovered at the Husky 30. Hubert found Brown for another touchdown pass on the very next play. The extra point failed, but Alabama still led 20-12. Bama scored three touchdowns in seven minutes of clock time. Wilson returned in the fourth quarter and threw a late touchdown pass, but the two missed extra points in the first half proved decisive, and Alabama won 20-19.

Alabama had completed its first real perfect season in school history. (Bama was undefeated in 1897 when the Tide played and won one game.) The NCAA retroactively deemed Alabama to be the consensus "national champion" for 1925 due to its selection by a majority of authorities. Johnny Mack Brown and Pooley Hubert were later inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Brown capitalized on his Rose Bowl exposure in southern California by signing a motion picture contract with MGM and beginning a 40-year career in the movies.

1926

Hubert, Brown, Bill Buckler, and other stars from the 1925 team were gone, but Alabama hardly missed a beat in 1926, sailing through the regular season for another 9-0 record, in almost as dominating a fashion as it had the year before. Against Mississippi State, Alabama intercepted seven passes. The Tide held Georgia Tech to two first downs in a 21-0 victory. Only one game was close. Against Sewanee, Alabama had multiple scoring chances but could not convert. Once Bama was stopped at the Sewanee 9, and in the fourth quarter Alabama was stopped at the Sewanee 1. Sewanee did not move the ball as much as Alabama did but reached the Alabama 6 in the second quarter before a 15-yard penalty threw them back. The game almost ended in a scoreless tie, but late in the fourth Alabama blocked a Sewanee punt which rolled out the back of the end zone for a safety and a 2-0 Tide victory.

Alabama's win over Sewanee was the last close game in a series that dated all the way back to 1893, was dominated by Sewanee early (9-1-1 Tiger advantage between 1893 and 1915), and was one of the Tide's biggest rivalries. Sewanee was dominant in the South in the early days of college football, but in the 1920s the Tigers were left behind by the growing football powers of the Southern Conference. The Alabama-Sewanee series continued as a series of blowouts periodically through 1938; Sewanee now competes in Division III of the NCAA.

Again the season was extended as Alabama received another invitation to play in the Rose Bowl. The 1927 Rose Bowl was the first sporting event to ever be nationally broadcast on radio. Alabama's opponent was the Stanford Cardinal, also 9-0 and coached by football legend Pop Warner. Stanford mounted a 63-yard drive in the first quarter to take a 7-0 lead. Stanford dominated play for much of the rest of the game, outgaining Alabama 305 yards to 98, but could not score again. Late in the fourth Bama got the big play it needed: Clarke Pearce blocked a punt by Frankie Wilton of Stanford, setting up the Tide at the Cardinal 14. Five plays later, with only seconds remaining, Alabama punched it in from the 1 to make the score 7-6. The two-point conversion would not become a rule in college football for another 32 years, so Alabama lined up for the game-tying extra point. As the teams came to the line, Emile Barnes of Alabama shouted "Signals off!". Stanford took that to mean that Alabama was resetting and relaxed. Instead, Alabama promptly snapped and kicked the extra point to tie the game. Stanford ran only two plays before time expired and the game ended a 7-7 tie.

The NCAA retroactively named Alabama and Stanford co-national champions for 1926 due to each being chosen by several of the ranking authorities. It was a second consecutive national championship for Wallace Wade and the Crimson Tide. The tie with Stanford snapped a 20-game winning streak that remains the second-longest in school history, behind a 28-game winning streak from 1978 to 1980 and another from 1991 to 1993.

1927

Against Georgia Tech Alabama did something it had not done since Nov. 15, 1924: lose. Alabama outgained Tech 188-144 in the game, but Tech scored a touchdown in the second quarter and scored another after recovering a fumble at the Alabama 1 with two minutes to go. It was the first time Georgia Tech had scored points on Alabama since 1922. Alabama came from behind in the fourth to beat Mississippi State 13-7 but limped home with three straight losses to end the year at 5-4-1. Four losses were one more loss than Bama had suffered in the previous four seasons combined.

The loss to Georgia was the first football game Alabama ever played in Legion Field, which had been constructed the previous year. Alabama would continue to schedule home dates at Legion Field for another 76 years, with the last being a 40-17 victory over South Florida in 2003.

1928

Alabama's October 20 meeting with Tennessee was the first game between the two schools in 14 years. While the game had been played on irregular dates up until 1914, when the series was renewed in 1928 the game was scheduled for the Third Saturday in October. Alabama and Tennessee have played yearly ever since, except when interrupted by World War II in 1943, although the game has more frequently been scheduled for the FOURTH Saturday in October since the SEC expanded to 12 teams in 1992. Alabama lost this renewal of the series 15-13, victimized by poor special teams play (a 98-yard kickoff return for Tennessee to open the game, a safety on a fumbled punt, a missed extra point) and mistakes (an offsides penalty that kept a Tennesee drive alive, leading to its second touchdown).

1929

The 1929 season opener against Mississippi College was also the inaugral of Alabama's new on-campus football stadium, Denny Stadium, replacing Denny Field and like it named for university president George Denny. In 1975 it was renamed Bryant-Denny Stadium after coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, it is still in use as Alabama's home stadium today.

Alabama lost to Tennesee for the second straight time, falling 6-0 with a blocked punt setting up Tennessee's touchdown and Bama turning the ball over on downs twice inside the Volunteer 10. The Tide lost in a similar manner to Vanderbilt, going down 13-0 after turning the ball over on downs at the Vandy 9 and 2. Alabama held Georgia Tech to one touchdown in a 14-0 victory.

References and external links

• All-Time Alabama schedules at the Paul W. Bryant Museum
• All-Time Alabama schedules at CrimsonTider.com