58 Fun Facts About Alabama Crimson Tide Football

What is Alabama's traditional rallying cry?

Roll Tide! works far from the stadium too: fans who spot a stranger in Alabama gear use it as a greeting.

Which Alabama quarterback, benched at half-time of a national title game, later became a Super Bowl MVP?

Jalen Hurts stayed on as the backup, and the next season he came off the bench for an injured Tua Tagovailoa to win the SEC title game against Georgia, the same opponent.

Alabama's home stadium is named for coach Bear Bryant and which university president?

George H. Denny, once a college football coach himself, was president when it opened as Denny Stadium in 1929; Alabama's legislature added Bryant's name in 1975, while he was still coaching.

Alabama's home stadium holds roughly how many fans?

About 100,000: it opened in 1929 with just 12,000 seats, and a 2010 upper deck in the south end zone pushed it past 101,000 before a later refit trimmed a few seats.

Sportswriter Hugh Roberts is credited with coining 'Crimson Tide' to describe a 1907 game played in what conditions?

A sea of red mud stained Alabama's white jerseys crimson as the underdogs held heavily favoured Auburn to a 6-6 tie.

Before "Crimson Tide" caught on, headline writers popularised which nickname for the team?

The Thin Red Line. The name gave way in 1907, when a sports editor is said to have hailed the underdogs' 6-6 tie with heavily favoured Auburn as the work of a "Crimson Tide".

Which word completes the 1930 fan's shout behind Alabama's elephant mascot, "Hold your ___, the elephants are coming"?

Horses. Alabama had started its second team against Ole Miss, and when the huge first team rumbled on, sportswriter Everett Strupper reported the shout and writers began calling them the Red Elephants.

Asked after a 33-7 loss in 1922 what Alabama did have, a booster reportedly replied "a million dollar" what?

Band. By the university's account, alumnus Champ Pickens gave that answer to an Atlanta sportswriter after the defeat at Georgia Tech; the musicians had raised their own travel money from local merchants.

The Elephant Stomp pep rally gathers on the steps of which campus building before marching to the stadium?

Gorgas Library. An hour before every home kickoff the musicians fill its steps and play the fight song "Yea Alabama" in a rally that lasts barely ten minutes, then line up and march to the stadium.

Since 1948, Alabama's team captains have left what in cement at the base of Denny Chimes?

Their hand and footprints. The slabs form a Walk of Fame around the 115-foot bell tower on the Quad, and new captains add theirs during the A-Day spring game festivities.

Whom did Alabama rout 42-14 for the 2012 national title?

Notre Dame. The Irish arrived unbeaten and ranked No. 1, but Alabama scored touchdowns on its first three drives and led 28-0 at half-time.

Alabama's 1926 Rose Bowl win, its first bowl appearance, is remembered by what nickname?

The Game That Changed the South. Alabama trailed 12-0 at half-time, scored all 20 of its points in the third quarter and held on to win 20-19 in Pasadena.

Which film character's blazing speed earns him an Alabama scholarship and All-American honours as a kick returner under Bear Bryant?

Forrest Gump. The novel's author, Winston Groom, graduated from Alabama in 1965 and later wrote an illustrated history of Crimson Tide football.

Which coach, whose name is now on Duke's stadium, led Alabama to the 1926 Rose Bowl and its first national titles?

Wallace Wade. He had lost the 1916 Rose Bowl as a guard for Brown, then took Alabama to Pasadena three times without a defeat before leaving for Duke.

How did Paul Bryant earn his famous nickname?

He wrestled a bear at a carnival aged 13, in Fordyce, Arkansas, after a promoter offered a dollar to anyone who would try. By his own account he was never paid.

What pattern was Bear Bryant's trademark hat?

Houndstooth. He wore the black-and-white check on the sidelines, and fans still turn out in the pattern on game days in his honour.

Which top-ranked team did Alabama stop inches short on a goal-line stand in the 1979 Sugar Bowl?

Penn State. Barry Krauss met Mike Guman on fourth-and-goal to protect a 14-7 win over the No. 1 team, which gave Bear Bryant the fifth of his six national titles at Alabama.

Asked why he left Texas A&M for Alabama in 1958, Bryant famously said who had called?

Mama. "When Mama calls, you just have to come runnin'," he said of his alma mater, where he had played end on the unbeaten 1934 team.

Which hit by the country group Alabama do Crimson Tide fans sing along to heading into the fourth quarter of home games?

Dixieland Delight. The university dropped the song for about three years over the crowd's rowdy add-on chants, then brought it back for homecoming in October 2018.

Bear Bryant died four weeks after coaching his last game in which bowl?

Liberty Bowl. Alabama intercepted seven Illinois passes in Memphis to send Bryant into retirement with a 21-15 win, and he died of a heart attack on January 26, 1983.

Which quarterback did Bear Bryant call the greatest athlete he ever coached?

Joe Namath. He led Alabama's 1964 title team, signed with the New York Jets for a then-record $427,000 and later guaranteed their Super Bowl III upset.

Alabama's 42-21 home loss to which team in 1970 is widely credited with hastening the integration of Southern football?

USC. Black players scored all six Trojan touchdowns against an all-white Alabama team, two of them by Sam Cunningham, in a season opener that Bear Bryant had helped to schedule.

Auburn coach Shug Jordan is credited with the name "Iron Bowl", a nod to the main industry of which host city?

Birmingham. The South's iron and steel capital hosted the game at Legion Field for decades, until Auburn took its home dates to campus in 1989 and Alabama followed in 2000.

Auburn's Chris Davis won the 2013 Iron Bowl on the final play by returning what for a touchdown?

A missed field goal. Alabama had argued for one second to be put back so it could try a 57-yard kick, which fell short, and Davis ran it back the length of the field for a 34-28 Auburn win.

Van Tiffin's 52-yard field goal that won the 1985 Iron Bowl at the buzzer is known simply as what?

The Kick. Auburn led 23-22 with under a minute left, after the lead had changed hands four times in the fourth quarter, and Tiffin's kick as time ran out won it 25-23.

"Punt Bama Punt" recalls how Auburn stunned unbeaten Alabama late in 1972 by doing what?

Blocked two kicks for touchdowns. Bill Newton blocked both punts and David Langner ran each one back in the fourth quarter, turning a 16-3 deficit into a 17-16 Auburn win.

Alabama's rivalry game with Tennessee is traditionally called what?

The Third Saturday in October. The name marks the game's traditional date, and the winners light victory cigars in the locker room, a decades-old custom that technically breaks NCAA rules.

After beating Alabama in 2022, Tennessee fans dumped a goalpost where?

The river. Tennessee won 52-49 on a last-play field goal to end 15 straight losses to Alabama, and fans tore the goalposts down and carried one out of Neyland Stadium to the Tennessee River.

Alabama's 1992 national title came in the Sugar Bowl with a 34-13 upset of which team?

Miami. The Hurricanes had won 29 straight, but Alabama intercepted their Heisman-winning quarterback Gino Torretta three times and ran one of them back for a touchdown.

Which coach was dismissed by Alabama in 2003 before ever coaching a game?

Mike Price. Alabama fired him for off-field misconduct in May 2003, about five months after hiring him, and former Tide quarterback Mike Shula took the job instead.

Nick Saban left which NFL team to take the Alabama job in January 2007?

Miami Dolphins. Less than two weeks earlier he had told reporters, "I'm not going to be the Alabama coach," and he left after two seasons as their head coach.

Which Sun Belt team beat Nick Saban's first Alabama team?

Louisiana-Monroe. The Warhawks won 21-14 in Tuscaloosa during a run of four straight losses that closed the 2007 regular season, yet two years later Alabama went 14-0 and won the national title.

Nick Saban spent four seasons in the early 1990s as defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns under which head coach?

Bill Belichick. The two had met at Navy in 1982, where Belichick's father coached beside Saban, and by 1994 their Browns defence allowed the fewest points in the NFL.

Alabama beat which team 37-21 in Pasadena for the 2009 season's BCS title, its first national championship since 1992?

Texas. Marcell Dareus knocked quarterback Colt McCoy out of the game on the Longhorns' fifth offensive play, then returned an interception 28 yards for a touchdown just before half-time.

Who was Alabama's first Heisman Trophy winner?

Mark Ingram II. Stanford's Toby Gerhart outrushed him in 2009, yet Ingram, fresh from three touchdowns against unbeaten, top-ranked Florida, won by 28 points, the closest Heisman vote on record.

Alabama's 21-0 win in the BCS title game after the 2011 season was a rematch against which team?

LSU. The Tigers had won the regular-season "Game of the Century" 9-6 in overtime, but the rematch became the only shutout of the BCS title-game era.

Whose SEC single-season rushing record did Alabama's Derrick Henry break during his 2015 Heisman season?

Herschel Walker. Henry passed the Georgia great's 1,891 yards in the SEC title game, where Alabama handed him the ball 44 times for 189 yards in a 29-15 win over Florida.

Alabama's 45-40 win over Clemson for the 2015 title turned on what fourth-quarter gamble?

A surprise onside kick. With the score tied 24-24, Adam Griffith's pop kick was caught by Marlon Humphrey, and an O.J. Howard touchdown soon put Alabama ahead for good.

Alabama beat Georgia in overtime for the 2017 season's title on a touchdown thrown on what down and distance?

2nd-and-26. Freshman Tua Tagovailoa, sent in at half-time with Alabama down 13-0, took a 16-yard sack on Alabama's first overtime play and then hit DeVonta Smith for a 41-yard touchdown and a 26-23 win.

DeVonta Smith's 2020 Heisman made him the first wide receiver to win it since which player in 1991?

Desmond Howard. Smith won it over three quarterback finalists, one of them the Alabama teammate who threw him the ball all season.

Alabama beat which team 52-24 to complete its undefeated 2020 championship season?

Ohio State. DeVonta Smith caught a title-game record 12 passes for 215 yards and three touchdowns, then left injured early in the second half as the Tide finished 13-0.

The 2023 Iron Bowl was won by a touchdown pass on 4th-and-31 from Jalen Milroe to which receiver?

Isaiah Bond. A bad snap and a penalty had pushed Alabama back to fourth-and-goal from the 31 before he caught the winner in the corner of the end zone with 32 seconds left.

After retiring as Alabama's coach in January 2024, Nick Saban joined the cast of which ESPN show?

College GameDay. ESPN announced the move four weeks after he stepped down on January 10, and that September Alabama named its stadium's playing surface Saban Field.

Kalen DeBoer came to Alabama from which school, where he had just reached the national title game?

Washington. Alabama hired DeBoer just two days after Nick Saban retired, in the same week his 14-1 Huskies lost the title game to Michigan.

Kalen DeBoer's first Alabama team lost 40-35 to which SEC opponent, the Tide's first defeat to them since 1984?

Vanderbilt. Alabama arrived in Nashville ranked No. 1 in October 2024, and the Commodores, who had lost 23 straight in the series, claimed their first ever win over a top-ranked team.

Alabama's record run from 2008 to 2023 was 16 straight seasons of what?

Ten or more wins. The run covered every Nick Saban season after his 7-6 debut in 2007, passed Florida State's 14 straight, and ended at 9-4 in Kalen DeBoer's first year.

Which Alabama linebacker won the 1988 Butkus Award and later set the NFL record of seven sacks in a game?

Derrick Thomas. His seven sacks of Seattle's Dave Krieg in 1990 still stand as the record, yet Kansas City lost 17-16 when Krieg slipped an eighth on the final play and threw the winning touchdown.

Which Alabama receiver did Atlanta trade five draft picks to select sixth overall in 2011?

Julio Jones. With a lockout barring trades of players, the Falcons could pay only in picks, sending Cleveland two first-rounders among the five to climb from 27th to sixth.

What earns an Alabama coach a statue outside the stadium?

A national title. Five coaches stand in bronze along the Walk of Champions, and Nick Saban's statue went up in 2011, while he was still coaching, to mark the 2009 title.

What is the name of Alabama's costumed elephant mascot?

Big Al. The elephant had been an unofficial emblem since the 1930s, but the costumed mascot made his first official appearance only at the 1980 Sugar Bowl against Arkansas.

Alabama won its first ever football game 56-0 against a team made up of whom?

High school players. The opposition was picked from several local schools, while Alabama was captained by William Little, who had brought the game home from a northern prep school.

Auburn won the first Iron Bowl in February 1893, but the schools still disagree about what?

The season. Alabama lists the February game as the finale of the previous autumn's season, while Auburn counts it as the opener of 1893, so the rivals were at odds from the start.

Which Alabama coach, one of Bear Bryant's "Junction Boys" at Texas A&M, led the 1992 team to a 13-0 season?

Gene Stallings. He was among the few dozen players who stuck out Bryant's brutal ten-day camp in Junction, Texas, in 1954, and he followed his old coach to Alabama as an assistant in 1958.

Which Alabama great became a Hall of Fame tight end in Cleveland and later ran the Baltimore Ravens' front office?

Ozzie Newsome. He never reached a Super Bowl in 13 seasons with the Browns, then won two as the executive who built the Ravens, whose first general manager he became in 2002.

Which Alabama quarterback, a 17th-round pick in 1956, was MVP of the first two Super Bowls?

Bart Starr. Benched as a senior on an 0-10 Alabama team, he was drafted only after the school's basketball coach tipped off a friend at Green Bay, where he won five NFL titles.

Which Alabama linebacker was a three-time All-American (1984–86) and later twice AFC Defensive Player of the Year?

Cornelius Bennett. Only Woodrow Lowe had matched his three All-America selections at Alabama, and he went on to play in five Super Bowls with Buffalo and Atlanta, losing every one.

Alabama halfback Harry Gilmer helped popularise which passing technique in the 1940s?

The jump pass. He leapt into the air to throw, yet he was MVP of the 1946 Rose Bowl mostly on foot, running for 116 yards in a 34-14 win.

What nickname did Alabama quarterback Ken Stabler carry into his Raiders career?

The Snake. He earned it at Foley High School for his weaving runs, and he went on to be NFL MVP in 1974 and to win Super Bowl XI with Oakland.