Alabama Crimson Tide football, 1960–69

After the worst decade in the history of Alabama football, Paul Bryant took the Tide to its greatest successes to date. From 1961 to 1966 Alabama won four SEC championships, three national championships (in 1961, 1964, and 1965), and enjoyed winning streaks of 19 and 17 games. Alabama participated in a bowl game every season. However, the end of the decade saw a slight decline into mediocrity.

1960
Bear Bryant's third team at Alabama was better than his second, which was better than his first. The 1960 team went 8–1–2, which was the best record for any Alabama team since the 1952 team went 10–2 and played in the Orange Bowl. Highlights of the season included a victory over defending SEC champion Georgia and a 3–0 win over Auburn in the Iron Bowl. After trailing Georgia Tech 15–0 at the half, Bama rallied to win 16–15 on a field goal as time expired. However, Alabama lost 20–7 to Tennessee, a team they had not beaten since 1954, and that loss cost Bama a share of the conference title in 1960. Alabama played Texas to a 3–3 tie in the Bluebonnet Bowl.

1961
In 1961 Bear Bryant's work in rebuilding the Alabama football program, which won only eight games in the four years before his arrival, was complete. Alabama went 11–0, winning its fifth SEC title and first Associated Press national championship. The Tide defense allowed only 22 points in the regular season; only three other SEC teams allowed fewer than 120 points. Only twice all year, against Tulane and in the Sugar Bowl against Arkansas, did Alabama win by less than ten points. Bama's 34–3 victory over Tennessee was its first since 1954 and only its second since 1947.

1962
Behind new starting quarterback Joe Namath, Alabama won its first nine games in just as dominant a fashion in 1962 as it did in 1961, every victory by double digits. However, on November 17 Alabama lost to Georgia Tech 7–6, and a 19-game winning streak came to an end. Namath threw four interceptions that day and a Bama two-point conversion attempt in the fourth quarter failed. Bama rebounded to beat Auburn for the fourth year in a row but the loss to Tech cost Bama a share of the SEC title, which went to Mississippi.

1963
The 1963 Alabama squad was not quite as dominant as the previous two years. The defense's 88 points given up in the regular season was still second-best in the conference but more than their points allowed in 1961 and 1962 combined. Bama's upset loss to Florida was one of only two games Paul Bryant lost in Tuscaloosa in his 25 years as Alabama head coach (the other came in his last game there, vs. Southern Miss in 1982). An Iron Bowl matchup of top 10 teams lead to a 10–8 Auburn victory, its first in the rivalry since 1958.

Alabama's December 7 game with Miami was postponed from its original scheduled date of Nov. 23 due to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The season ended with an unusual bowl matchup between two teams from the same conference; Alabama beat SEC champion Mississippi 12–7.

1964
Alabama returned to dominance in 1964, going 10–1 to win its sixth SEC title and second AP national championship. There were a few more close games this year. On October 24 Bama rallied for ten points in the fourth quarter to beat Florida (and their star quarterback Steve Spurrier) 17–14. Another ten-point rally in the fourth quarter led to a 17–9 victory over LSU. In the regular season finale, Ray Ogden returned a kickoff 100 yards, Ray Perkins caught a touchdown pass, and Bama beat Auburn 21–14. (18 years later, Perkins succeeded Bear Bryant as Alabama coach.) The bowl game loss to Texas did not affect Alabama's national championship, because in 1964 voting came before the bowl games. This National Title is disputed because #2 Arkansas defeated #6 Nebraska in the Cotton Bowl to finish the season undefeated at 11-0 while #1 Alabama lost its bowl game, to a #5 Texas team that Arkansas had beaten earlier in the year, to finish at 10-1. Alabama's loss led the The Football Writers Association of America and the Helms Athletic Association to select the Razorbacks as the National Champions. The following year, the Associated Press decided to wait until after the bowl games were finished for their final voting. The 1964 National Title is officially claimed by both schools.

Alabama's 24–7 victory over Georgia Tech marked the end of that rivalry, Georgia Tech having withdrawn from the Southeastern Conference earlier that year.

1965
The 1965 season opened with the fifth-ranked Tide suffering a surprise upset loss to Georgia. Bama fell behind 10–0, came back to go ahead 17–10 in the second half, then lost 18–17 on a Georgia touchdown and two-point conversion in the final two minutes. Against Mississippi on October 2, Alabama had to rally from a nine-point fourth-quarter deficit to win 17–16.

On October 16, Alabama and Tennessee played to an unusual tie. The score was deadlocked 7–7 in the closing seconds, and Alabama had driven to the Tennessee four-yard-line after a 14-yard scramble by Tide quarterback Ken Stabler. Stabler, however, believing that it was third down, threw the ball out of bounds with six seconds left to stop the clock. Unfortunately for Stabler and the Tide, it was actually fourth down, possession went to Tennessee, and the game ended in a tie. After the tie with Tennessee Bama won five in a row to win Bryant's fourth SEC title at Bama. Because the Associated Press, for the very first time, was holding its vote until after the bowl games instead of before, fourth-ranked Bama still had a chance to win the national championship when they traveled to Miami to play #3 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. On New Year's Day, #1 Michigan State lost in the Rose Bowl and #2 Arkansas lost in the Cotton Bowl Classic. Later that night, Alabama beat Nebraska 39–28 in the Orange Bowl. The Tide won its third AP National Championship in five years.

1966
Alabama’s 1966 team was one of Bryant's most dominant, ripping through the schedule undefeated while only giving up 37 points on the season. Bama won its third SEC championship in a row and ninth overall. The matchup with Tennessee was the only close game of the year. The Volunteers took a 10–0 lead in the first quarter and the score stayed that way until the fourth. Early in the fourth quarterback Ken Stabler scored on a two-yard touchdown run and then threw for a two-point conversion that made it 10–8. Later in the quarter a 14-play drive resulted in a field goal that gave Alabama an 11–10 lead with 3:23 to go. Tennessee drove the ball to the Alabama 3-yard-line in the final seconds but missed the field goal and Alabama won 11–10. The season was capped with a 34–7 beatdown of Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl.

Bama went undefeated and was two-time defending national champions, but did not win the national title in 1966. Instead voters rewarded Notre Dame after Fighting Irish coach Ara Parseghian, with his team tied 10–10 with Michigan State with 1:10 to go, chose to play for the tie rather than attempt to win the game. The Fighting Irish and Spartans both finished 9–0–1 and were ranked #1 and #2 in the polls, while Alabama finished third. Writer Keith Dunnavant suggests in his book about the 1966 season, The Missing Ring, that the continuing segregation of the Alabama football team (the Crimson Tide did not integrate until Wilbur Jackson and John Mitchell made the 1971 team), as well as violent resistance by white Alabamians to the Civil Rights Movement, cost the Crimson Tide support with voters in 1966 and led to the third-place finish.

1967
The latter portion of the 1960s saw Alabama football decline somewhat after its remarkable success from 1960 through 1966. In the very first game of the 1967 season, Alabama and Florida State fought to a 37–37 tie, snapping a 17-game winning streak. In one game Alabama surrendered as many points as it did in the entire 1966 regular season. After winning three in a row Alabama suffered a 24–13 loss to Tennessee in which Ken Stabler threw five interceptions. That loss cost Alabama the SEC title after Tennessee went undefeated in conference play.

The season finale against Auburn was played in "miserable and sloppy and nasty" conditions after rain started falling the night before and kept up during the game. Auburn was clinging to a 3–0 lead in the fourth quarter when quarterback Ken Stabler took the ball on a keeper, ran right, and slogged 53 yards through the mud for a touchdown that gave Alabama a memorable 7–3 victory. Bama finished the season 8–2–1 after losing 20–16 in the Cotton Bowl Classic to Texas A&M and coach Gene Stallings, who became head coach at Alabama 23 years later.

Auburn

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1968
Alabama's 17–14 game over Southern Mississippi on Sept. 28 was the last game the Tide ever played in Ladd Stadium in Mobile. The season was marred by a 10–8 loss to Mississippi and a 10–9 loss to Tennessee that was decided when Alabama failed on a fourth-quarter two-point conversion. Bama won four in a row after the Tennessee loss, including its fifth consecutive win over Auburn, but suffered a 35–10 beating from Missouri in the Gator Bowl to finish the season 8–3.

1969
In 1969 the defensive excellence that had been the hallmark of Alabama football for much of the 1960s was a thing of the past. Alabama gave up 268 points in 11 games (including the bowl game) and allowed four teams to score more than 30 points. Quarterback Scott Hunter threw for 484 yards against Auburn, a team record that still stands, but Alabama lost the game 49–26, snapping a five-game Iron Bowl win streak. The 49 points yielded to Auburn was, and as of 2012 still is, the most points given up by any Alabama defense in a regulation game since losing 54–4 to Sewanee in 1907. (In 2004 Alabama lost 51–43 to Tennessee in a game that went five overtimes).

The 41–14 loss to Tennessee was Bama's third loss in a row to the Volunteers. Vanderbilt beat Alabama for the first time in thirteen years. Alabama lost its third consecutive bowl game, this time to Colorado in the Liberty Bowl 47–33. The lone highlight of the season was a 33–32 victory over Mississippi in which the teams combined for 1,099 yards in total offense and four lead changes in the fourth quarter. It was the first ever college football game broadcast nationally in prime time.