ALABAMA FOOTBALL [WBC]

I am located in the Heart of Dixie in a town called Tuscalloosa. A.K.A. "T-Town" I have been around since Nov.11th 1892 when I won 55-0 over Birmingham High School and have enjoyed a long and storied history as one of the most recognized and successfull college football programs EVER. I have won 12 National titles (followed by record):
1925...11-0-0
1926...9-0-1
1930...10-0-0
1934...10-0-0
1941...9-2-0
1961...11-0-0
1964...10-1-0
1965...9-1-1
1973...11-1-0
1978...11-1-0
1979...12-0-0
1992...13-0-0
THE OTHER FIVE
In addition to the 12 "recognized" national championships owned by Alabama, the Official NCAA Football Records Book recognizes Alabama as producing national champions in 1945, 1962, 1966, 1975, and 1977. In 1945, the 10-0 Tide was recognized as champions with Army by the National Championship Foundation. The 1962 Crimson Tide, 10-1, was chosen by Billingsley and Sagarin, while the 1966 team, 11-0, was selected by Berryman. The 11-1 Tide team in 1975, along with Ohio State, was selected by Matthews. In 1977, Football Research picked Alabama, 11-1, and Notre Dame as co-national champions.
Alabama has won 782 (need to updated)career games, in the top ten of winningest teams ever. The Tide has won 12 national championships and finished in the Top-Twenty in voting by the AP a total of 44 times, with six first-place finishes in that poll. Alabama has had 32 Top-Ten finishes in the AP poll. Alabama has had more bowl appearances (55) and bowl victories (31) than any other team in the nation. A total of 91 football players have earned All-America honors a total of 101 times. The Crimson Tide has nine undefeated, untied seasons. Also since Alabama has been playing football, thed Tide has posted an NCAA record 27 seasons of 10 or more vicories.
SO WHAT IS ALABAMA FOOTBALL?
It is Wallace Wade.
It is Bear Bryant
It is Gene Stallings
It is this man in charge
It is not Bobby Bowden, Phil Fulmer or Dennis Franchione.
It is the Rose Bowl.
It is hearing Keith Jackson call an Alabama game.
It is watching George Teague running down Lamar Thomas in the 1993 Sugar Bowl then rewinding it and watching it again.
It is hearing the first notes of Sweet Home Alabama.
It is the desire to beat Auburn at any competitive event that exists.
It is a houndstooth hat.
It is being "Dixie's Football Pride"
It is having enough pride to fight for your school but having enough class not to.
It is cheering the same amount for a first down on second and 6 as on fourth and 1.
It is watching Cornelius Bennett give Notre Dame quarterback Steve Beuerlein a concussion on that October day in Birmingham in 1986.
It is determining who you are going to date & marry by which team they swear allegiance to.
It is beating Florida in the SEC title when everone said the game in "The Swamp" was a fluke.
It is watching The Bear on the jumbotron before a game in Bryant-Denny Stadium and almost seeing him leaning against the goalpost in the end zone.
It is right behind God and family.
It is spending a day at The Bryant Museum and still not seeing everything.
It is cool crisp autumn Saturdays where you can smell football in the air and feel it whenever there is a slight breeze.
It is watching The Bear get number 315 against Auburn.
It is watching The Bear get number 323 against Illinois.
It is hearing Paul Kennedy do the play-by-play when Van Tiffin kicked the 52-yard field goal against Auburn in 1985.
It is remembering the feeling of the upper deck at legion field rumling due to feet stomping.
It is knowing how many days until the start of a season year around.
It is driving down Colonial Drive to see Bryant-Denny Stadium not the sorority girls.
It is getting chills up and down your entire body whenever you hear anything about the 1993 Sugar Bowl and the pride you feel because that night tradition ruled.
It is hearing The Bear's voice and having all the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up because you know no matter he said, it was something special.
It is hearing The Million Dollar Band play "Yea Alabama" and knowing it just does not get any better.
It is imagining hearing Penn State Quarterback Chuck Fusina ask Alabama linebacker Barry Krauss "How close is it?" and hearing Krauss say "About an inch, you'd better pass" right before fourth down during The Goal Line Stand in the 1979 Sugar Bowl.
It is almost coming to tears whenever Alabama loses to Auburn or Tennessee.
It is The Kick. It is The Goal Line Stand. It is The Desperation Block.
It is purposely not wearing any clothes with the colors orange and blue.
It is the Third Saturday in October.
It is not needing an alarm clock on game days, you sit bolt upright in the bed long before the alarm goes off because you know that it is a gameday, you can sleep after the bowl game.
It is walking into a stadium and knowing Alabama will win the game no matter who they are playing because is just the way it is supposed to be.
It is the saying "Offense wins games, Defense wins national titles."
It is the Bear Bryant 'A'.
It is getting to the stadium hours before the game just to be there.
It is walking into another team's stadium and having those fans hate you because you are from Alabama.
It is the pride that a father has when he brings his children to a game so they may cherish the tradition.
It is the hit by Roman Harper in the 2005 against Tennessee that meant everthing
It is beating LSU in Baton Rouge.
It is hearing the crunch as a linebacker dressed in crimson and white hits a running back dressed in orange and blue.
It is the pride you take in being every team's rival.
It is pulling for any team that is playing Auburn.
It is pulling for any team that is playing Tennessee.
It is singing Rammer Jammer period
It is hoping for the stadium to blow up when Auburn plays Tennessee.
It is knowing that the SEC Championship is a birthright.
It is being respected and feared at the same time.
It is holding up four fingers at the end of the third quarter.
It is not caring about a Heisman Trophy
It is knowing what "Mama Called" means.
It is whipping Auburn 31-7 in Jordan-Hare Stadium when nobody picked you to win.
It is NOT "The Jungle"
It is The Catch.
It is having 21 Southeastern Conference Titles.
It is having 12 National Titles.
It is more than I can ever mentioned in this list.
It is class.
It is tradition.
It is Alabama Football.
How the Crimson Tide Got its Name:
In early newspaper accounts of Alabama football, the team was simply listed as the "varsity" or the "Crimson White" after the school colors.The first nickname to become popular and used by headline writers was the "Thin Red Line." The nickname was used until 1906.The name "Crimson Tide" is supposed to have first been used by Hugh Roberts, former sports editor of the Birmingham Age-Herald. He used "Crimson Tide" in describing an Alabama-Auburn game played in Birmingham in 1907, the last football contest between the two schools until 1948 when the series was resumed. The game was played in a sea of mud and Auburn was a heavy favorite to win.But, evidently, the "Thin Red Line" played a great game in the red mud and held Auburn to a 6-6 tie, thus gaining the name "Crimson Tide." Zipp Newman, former sports editor of the Birmingham News, probably popularized the name more than any other writer.
The Elephant Story:
The story of how Alabama became associated with the "elephant" goes back to the 1930 season when Coach Wallace Wade had assembled a great football team.On October 8, 1930, sports writer Everett Strupper of the Atlanta Journal wrote a story of the Alabama-Mississippi game he had witnessed in Tuscaloosa four days earlier. Strupper wrote, "That Alabama team of 1930 is a typical Wade machine, powerful, big, tough, fast, aggressive, well-schooled in fundamentals, and the best blocking team for this early in the season that I have ever seen. When those big brutes hit you I mean you go down and stay down, often for an additional two minutes."Coach Wade started his second team that was plenty big and they went right to their knitting scoring a touchdown in the first quarter against one of the best fighting small lines that I have seen. For Ole Miss was truly battling the big boys for every inch of ground."At the end of the quarter, the earth started to tremble, there was a distant rumble that continued to grow. Some excited fan in the stands bellowed, 'Hold your horses, the elephants are coming,' and out stamped this Alabama varsity."It was the first time that I had seen it and the size of the entire eleven nearly knocked me cold, men that I had seen play last year looking like they had nearly doubled in size."Strupper and other writers continued to refer to the Alabama linemen as "Red Elephants," the color referring to the crimson jerseys.The 1930 team posted an overall 10-0 record. It shut out eight opponents and allowed only 13 points all season while scoring 217. The "Red Elephants" rolled over Washington State 24-0 in the Rose Bowl and were declared National Champions.
My personal fav Bama moment was the atmosphere inside and out of Bryany Denny Staduim on that Oct day in 2005 against Florida. To see old and young fans jumping up and down like they were at a rock concert adn to hear the trmendous roar that seemed to never stop. That was amazing, all the frustration of years of probation, heartbreak and letdowns were let out by me and the other 80,000 plus in attendance. Its was like a big sigh of relief to see what ALABAMA FOOTBALL is supposed to "feel" like.Leave your fav Bama moments in the comments below.....................
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