Coach Bryant might still be the Greatest of All Time …
A football column I've never published anywhere until now.
Note: I’m taking Saturday off to run errands and watch the SEC championship game. However, I want to keep intact my string of posting articles “almost every day.”
It turns out I’ve written many articles that have never been published anywhere. Several of these articles deal with college football and my favorite team, Alabama.
I found this article that documents the amazing run of success Coach Bryant’s Alabama teams had from 1960-1966.
In the article, I start with a refresher on the Crimson Tide’s stellar defense of 1961. I then make the case that Coach Bryant - not Coach Saban - should, perhaps, still be considered as the “Greatest of All Time.” (In my view, the “GOAT debate” should be a tie.)
1961 Alabama defense was the best of the last 85 years …
I’m biased because my dad was a senior on this team, but the 1961 Alabama defense has “modern-era” records (in all of college football) that will never be surpassed. For example, the 1961 team:
Gave up 25 points the entire year (11 games).
Shutout six opponents.
Allowed only three TDs all year (and two field goals).
Recorded five consecutive shutouts.
No team scored at TD against the team after the fourth game. (The first-team defense gave up only one TD all year).
Since 1961, no college football team has come close to putting up these defensive scoring records.
(Note: Only the 1939 Tennessee defense gave up fewer points in the last 85 years of college football. Amazingly, that Tennessee team - coached by Gen. Robert Neyland - shut out all nine opponents the Vols played in the regular season. Alas, the Vols got beat 14-0 by USC in that season’s Rose Bowl so the team gave up 14 points all season.
In 3 seasons (1960-1962) only two teams scored 15 or more points against Alabama - both games in the 1960 season.
In three seasons, Alabama recorded 14 shutouts.
From the 9th game of the 1960 season through the final game of the 1962 season (25 games), no team scored more than 7 points against Alabama.
Alabama’s defense gave up 56 points in 1960; 25 in 1961 and 39 in 1962. That’s 120 points in 33 games (3.6 points/game).
Over three consecutive seasons, Alabama averaged giving up 40 points per SEASON.
From 1960 through 1962, Auburn scored zero points against Alabama. (My late father started at defensive end against Auburn three years and Auburn never scored a point in any of these games.)
For contrast, Dad’s senior year in high school - Ear Whitworth’s final season before Coach Bryant returned to Tuscaloosa - Auburn beat Alabama 40-0 (and Coach Jordan probably called off the dogs).
*** (Thanks for sharing with any big fans of Alabama football, Coach Bryant or fellow sports history nerds.) ***
Who is ‘The GOAT’ - Coach Bryant or Coach Saban?
… I keep working on a piece that will try to show that the debate over the “GOAT” - Greatest of All Time - (Bryant vs. Saban) should not be “open and shut.”
If I ever finish this article, the main point I’m going to make is that Coach Bryant’s teams were either winning or competing for national titles virtually every year for 20 years - with few “blue-chip” prospects.
Coach Bryant’s Alabama rosters of this era were almost all small-town kids, almost all from the state of Alabama, few of whom went on to play in the NFL or were high-round draft picks.
How did this happen? I say “coaching” had something to do with this.
Coach Bryant had great teams pretty much every year, but he didn’t really have “great” players.
For example from 1960 - 1966, Joe Namath and Lee Roy Jordan were the ONLY first-round NFL/AFL draft pick who played for Alabama.
That’s two first-round NFL draft picks in seven years. And over those seven years Alabama was the most dominant team in college football.
In contrast, Coach Saban’s exceptional Alabama teams produced three to six first-round NFL picks almost every year.
In most seasons, Coach Saban had more first-round draft picks on one team than Bryant had in seven seasons.
Coach Bryant had some eye-opening victory runs too …
Coach Saban’s teams put together amazing “runs” but so did Coach Bryant’s teams.
For example, from 1960 through 1966 (seven seasons), Alabama lost a grand total of six games. Three of these losses were by 1 point; one was by 2 points and two were by 4 points.
From 1961 through 1966 (six seasons), Alabama won three national championships (’61, ’64, ’65), but the Tide was one play away from probably winning the national title in 1962 and was arguably robbed in 1966 (when Alabama was 11-0 and finished third behind Notre Dame and Michigan State who played to a tie and didn’t play in a bowl game).
So while Alabama won three national titles (and had to have some luck to do that), it’s also true that Alabama could have won five national titles in six years.
Alabama and Coach Bryant could have also pulled off a three-peat (’77 through ’79) if the 1977 team hadn’t been jumped in the final poll by Notre Dame.
That Alabama team blew out Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl (I was there). The Tide had been ranked No. 3 entering the bowl season and the No. 1 team and No. 2 team got beat. However, No. 5 Notre Dame, which beat No. 1 Texas, jumped Alabama in the final poll.
***
(Articles like this are really targeting a state or ‘sports market’ more so than my local Troy readers. But I once did a far amount of research for this story … so I figured I might as well belatedly publish it.)
I see Alabama didn't make the playoffs. SMU is better than Alabama? I doubt that. I might have to write a "vent column" ... still, I figured it was coming when SMU lost. If SMU would have lost by a large margin, Alabama would have probably made the field. Oh well, should have taken care of business in Norman.
To illustrate my point that Coach Bryant had great teams with few future NFL stars or high draft picks, the first player taken in the 1962 NFL draft after Alabama won the 1961 national title and gave up just 25 points, was All-American Billy Neighbors (in the fourth round). My late father was the next player selected in the draft from that team. Dad was picked in the 5th round by the St. Louis Cardinals. My father later opted to play for the AFL Houston Oilers, who picked him in the 6th round of the AFL draft. Neighbors also opted to play in the AFL for the Boston Patriots.
It was only later that I started thinking about how a team with no high-round draft picks could win all those college football games. My answer was that the team had an exceptional coach, who could win big with players who were not superstars coming out of high school
When Alabama won the national title in 1961, only one player on the team who played a significant amount of time was from outside the state of Alabama. Almost the entire roster of 35 or so players who lettered were from the state of Alabama (most from small towns).
When Alabama won one of its national titles under Coach Saban, I think only one or two starters were from the state of Alabama.
So Saban was recruiting nation-wide, while Coach Bryant was recruiting, almost exclusively, from one little state.