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I posted part 1 the other day, didn't know if anybody has already posted part 2 yet...
Column: The decline of Alabama football
Bill Robinson
Columnist
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series on the decline of Alabama football ... a program plagued by NCAA sanctions the past few years. The 2004 Tide edition also suffered an uncommon amount of injuries.
As the football announcers say, when the game gets out of control, when one team just jumps all over the other in a rash of early scoring... “This could get ugly ... and in a hurry.“
Well, I warn you! ... this is going to get ugly as home-made soap. And real early. And we’re talking Alabama, too. The proudest name in football just a few autumns past. Of all places!, who would have believed the deep trough, the total abyss, that Crimson Tide football would slip into?
This is like the Rockefellers going broke. Or Bill Gates and Donald Trump facing bad check charges. Couldn’t happen, now could it? Or if Old Faithful, the geyser out in Wyoming, suddenly quit. What if Old Faithful stopped spouting up, putting on that big old show out West?
In this still-young century, Alabama has won but 30 games in five years (only two have been winning seasons). How many have the Tide lost? Well, the Crimsons have dropped 31 ... making the Tide losers for this century. And actually, Bama has dropped 32 games; for after the 1999 season, Alabama played Michigan in the Orange Bowl. Coach Mike DuBose appeared to be on his way to success in Tuscaloosa, in this, his third year as Tide boss. Alabama, in one of its great games, upset Coach Steve Spurrier and Florida 40-39 in overtime in Gainesville ... fighting off the Gators in The Swamp was an achievement. Bama, with its tremendous running back Shaun Alexander again scoring three TDs, beat Auburn 28-17.
This set up Florida again in the Atlanta SEC title game in Atlanta. The Gators scored first, but then it was all Alabama ... the Tide won 34-7.
Michigan was dead ahead in the Orange Bowl, and Bama built a 28-14 second half lead. But Wolverine QB Tom Brady, with sharp passes, brought Michigan back.
In overtime, Michigan prevailed 35-34, as the Tide missed, of all things, a point-after-touchdown. DuBose was SEC Coach of the Year, Alexander and tackle Chris Samuels were All-Americans, and Alabama appeared ready to assume its place at the head of the parade. But internal warfare broke out among the assistant coaches; the back-biting demoralized the football program. Bama, a preseason No. 3 in the AP poll, slipped to eight losses against only three wins.
DuBose was gone; new coach Dennis Franchione seemed to be the answer; he won but seven games against five losses in 2001. A single triumph, a 31-7 shelling of Auburn on The Plains was BIG! It gave hope for 2002, and Alabama WAS good in ‘02. Dennis’ team was a “menace;” the Tide in the stretch beat Tennessee 34-14, then traveled to LSU and won 31-0! Bama was BACK! Yet it all quickly fell apart; Franchione, in the still of the night, stole away to Texas A&M, and didn’t have the gentlemanly quality to tell his players he was leaving.
Treachery in Tide Country! But it really happened. And Bama’s NCAA woes continued. Newly named coach Mike Price was caught up in an impropriety so confounding that folks still try to figure out it full scandalous dimensions. He was fired. Old Tide hero QB Mike Shula, with less than 100 days to ready the Tide for a new season, bravely took over the helm.
Battling huge odds and tremendous casualty lists, Shula had a good team in 2004 ... A+ excellent on defense, but with the offense riddled with injury, the Tide faded a bit in the stretch. Alabama has lost four to Auburn in the past five years (and three of the last four).
But the fact remains, Alabama has been basically flat for a long while. Know how long it took Bear Bryant to lose 32 games at Alabama? Well, you won’t believe it, most probably, but Bryant didn’t lose 32 games until he had coached in Tuscaloosa 17 seasons!
In fact, his record from 1958 through the final game of 1974 was 151 victories against 31 defeats (with eight ties). Counted among all this winning were four national championships, eight Southeastern Conference champioships, not to mention 16 bowl games in those 17 seasons (five Sugar Bowls, five Orange Bowls, two Cotton Bowls).
I told you that it wasn’t fair, these comparisons. But life is not fair. Bear came close ... oh so close! ... to winning yet another national title in 1962. His only loss was to Georgia Tech, and by a single point, 7-6.
And 1962 was the season that The Bear showed his independence. The Tide, led by sophomore Joe Namath on offense and Lee Roy Jordan on defense, beat Oklahoma and its great retiring head coach Bud Wilkinson.
President John Kennedy sat on the Oklahoma side, since Bud was his national fitness director. Asked what he thought of the president siding with the Sooners, Bryant said that wasn’t so, that his president was sitting on the Alabama side of the field.
Told that it was Kennedy, the U.S. President, The Bear, tongue in cheek, barked back: “Oh, I thought you were talking about President (Frank) Rose of the University of Alabama.“
Alabama won 17-0, and it wasn’t that close. It was also Wilkinson’s final game as OU’s coach ... one of the great winners of all time had lost. Ah, the good old days! But will they come back!
(To be continued.)
This story can be found at: http://www.oanow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=OAN%2FMGArticle%2FOAN_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031784032548&path=%21sports%21index.html
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