EDITOR’S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy.
It’s difficult to imagine now, but Oct. 4, 1986, was truly a watershed moment for Alabama football.
The Crimson Tide crushed Notre Dame 28-10 at Legion Field in Birmingham that day, recording its first-ever win over the Fighting Irish. Alabama had been 0-4 in the series up to that point, including two high-profile bowl losses in the early 1970s.
To recap:
• Notre Dame beat Alabama 24-23 in the Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31, 1973, ruining the Crimson Tide’s perfect season. Alabama had already been awarded the UPI national championship prior to the bowl games, but the Fighting Irish claimed the AP crown (as well as bragging rights for winning what many considered college football’s ‘”Game of the Century.”)
• The Fighting Irish edged the Crimson Tide 13-11 in the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1, 1975, again spoiling a season in which Alabama won its first 11 games. Notre Dame had lost twice earlier in the season, so it didn’t win the national title, but it did keep the Crimson Tide from doing so.
• Notre Dame also recorded regular-season wins over Alabama in 1976 (21-18 in South Bend) and 1980 (7-0 in Birmingham). The 1976 game dealt the Crimson Tide a third loss for the first time since 1969, while the 1980 defeat dropped Alabama out of the national-title hunt.
There were also two off-field occurrences that led to bad blood between the two programs (or at least for Alabama fans toward Notre Dame). First was in 1966, when an 11-0 Crimson Tide team finished No. 3 in the polls behind the Fighting Irish and Michigan State, who had tied 10-10 during a titanic late-November meeting in South Bend.
Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian famously ran out the clock rather than go for the win late in that game, knowing his team would be assured of a national championship with a tie vs. the Spartans and a victory over USC the next week (and he was right). Many in Alabama still believe that the state’s poor civil rights record kept poll voters from “rewarding” the Crimson Tide with a third straight national championship.
Then in 1977, Notre Dame jumped Alabama for the national championship after a wild series of New Year’s Day bowls. The fifth-ranked Fighting Irish beat No. 1 Texas 38-10 in the Cotton Bowl, then No. 4 Michigan lost in the Rose Bowl and No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
Third-ranked Alabama, meanwhile, crushed Ohio State 35-6 in the Sugar Bowl, staking its claim to a national title. However, when the polls were released, it was Notre Dame No. 1, Alabama No. 2.
In short, Alabama carried a lot of baggage — not to mention a No. 2 national ranking — into its 1986 meeting with Notre Dame, which was off to a 1-2 start under first-year coach Lou Holtz. Alabama was 4-0, including a 16-10 win over Ohio State in the Kickoff Classic to begin the season.
The 1986 Alabama-Notre Dame game is of course widely remembered for Cornelius Bennett’s crushing hit on Steve Beuerlein in the first quarter. But there was much more to it than that.
Alabama stormed out to a 14-0 on a 66-yard punt return by Greg Richardson and a 52-yard pass from Mike Shula to Al Bell, one of three touchdown Shula would throw in the game. The Crimson Tide led 21-7 at halftime, and forced five turnovers overall.
But the signature play was made by Bennett on Notre Dame’s second possession of the day. With 6:47 left in the first quarter, Alabama’s All-America linebacker hit Beuerlein just as he planted and turned to throw, dropping him for an 8-yard loss.
Beuerlein suffered a concussion on the play, though in those less-aware days the Fighting Irish coaches didn’t remove him from the game until the second half. Beuerlein later said the hit from Bennett “really dazed me.”
“I never saw him coming,” he said. “I turned and he was there. … After that, I looked to see where Bennett was before I read the defense.”
It was the signature play of the game and of Bennett’s career, immortalized in a Daniel Moore painting that hangs in the den of many an Alabama fan to this day. Here’s video:
The victory was also probably the biggest of Ray Perkins’ tenure to that point. But the fourth-year Alabama coach downplayed the significance.
“The past had nothing to do with it,” he said. “That’s one of those things the press builds up.”
After beating Notre Dame, Alabama won its next two games to get to 7-0 and look like every bit of a national-championship contender. But the wheels came off down the stretch for the Crimson Tide, which lost 23-3 to Penn State at home, then in Birmingham to LSU (14-10) and Auburn (21-17) to finish the regular season at 9-3.
