Alabama’s ’66 team denied shot at 3rd straight national championship

Since the formation of the Associated Press poll in 1936, no team has won three consecutive national championships.

An Alabama team from nearly 50 years ago was in position to do so, but was denied the opportunity. Politics, among other factors, played a role.

Paul “Bear” Bryant’s Crimson Tide had won national titles in 1964 and 1965, but took different routes to get there.

The 1964 team — led by Joe Namath — began the season 11-0 before losing to Texas in the Orange Bowl. However, the AP gave out its national title before the bowl games, and Alabama was voted No. 1.

In 1965, Alabama lost its season-opener to Georgia and later tied Tennessee. But because the AP chose that year to hold its final vote after the bowl games, the third-ranked Crimson Tide was able to take home the title after it beat Nebraska in the Orange Bowl and No. 1 Michigan State and No. 2 Arkansas both lost on New Year’s Day.

Alabama was No. 1 in the preseason AP poll to begin 1966, but dropped to No. 2 behind Michigan State despite not playing on the season’s opening weekend. (The Spartans beat NC State 28-10 in East Lansing.)

Even with its undefeated record and consecutive national championships, Alabama remained stuck at No. 3 or No. 4 for the remainder of the regular season. Notre Dame jumped ahead of Michigan State in mid-October, despite the fact the Spartans — like the Crimson Tide and Fighting Irish — remained unbeaten.

Not that it mattered in the case of Michigan State and Notre Dame; they would settle it on the field when they met in South Bend on Nov. 19. Or so everyone thought …

The Spartans and Fighting Irish tied 10-10 in controversial fashion. Notre Dame coach Ara Parseghian, knowing his team could all but lock up the national championship with a tie, chose to run out the clock in the final minutes rather than try for a go-ahead score.

The deadlock in South Bend resulted in howls of protest, and not just from Alabama. Sports Illustrated’s Dan Jenkins, then the most well-known college football writer in the country, chided Parseghian and Notre Dame in a story published on Nov. 28, 1966.

“Old Notre Dame will tie over all,” Jenkins wrote. “Sing it out, guys. That is not exactly what the march says, of course, but that is how the big game ends every time you replay it. And that is how millions of cranky college football fans will remember it.”

Led by quarterback Ken Stabler, Alabama finished up its schedule with four consecutive shutouts — over LSU, South Carolina, Southern Miss and Auburn — to complete a 10-0 regular season. The SEC champion Crimson Tide was invited to the Sugar Bowl to once again face Nebraska.

Notre Dame and Michigan State, however, stayed home. The Fighting Irish at the time had a school policy to not play in bowl games (and wouldn’t do so until the 1970 Cotton Bowl vs. Texas), while Michigan State was hamstrung by a Big Ten rule that prevented a team from playing in the Rose Bowl two years in a row (Purdue went instead).

But by that time, Notre Dame had already been voted No. 1 in both polls (which switched back to a pre-bowl vote in 1966). Michigan State was No. 2, Alabama No. 3. (For what it’s worth, a Football Writers Association of America panel also voted Notre Dame No. 1 after the bowl games had been played.)

Benny Marshall, writing in The Birmingham News on Dec. 6, 1966, the day after the AP poll was released, described Alabama as “a champion who never lost a round.” He also quoted a rather discouraged-sounding Bryant.

“The voters have spoken,” the coach said. “I don’t agree, but that’s that. I congratulate two great teams with great coaches.”

So what was the rationale for voters listing the undefeated, two-time defending national champions third in the country? It’s impossible to say with 100% certainty, but it’s likely that politics played a role.

Alabama and the SEC were still segregated at the time, and would be until a few years later. Notre Dame integrated its team for the first time in 1952, while Michigan State by 1966 had numerous top Black players, including All-Americans Bubba Smith and George Webster.

So was the Crimson Tide being punished for maintaining an all-white team during the height of the Civil Rights era? That’s more likely than not.

The face of that attitude was Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray, who had been attacking Alabama for years for its segregated ways. And he wasn’t going to resist another chance to do so in 1966.

“I saw your team, Bear,” Murray wrote in a column addressed to Bryant and published Dec. 6, 1966. “Right nice little bunch of boys. Too monotonous, though. I mean they were all one color. … I admit USC had one too many colored boys in its backfield when it played Notre Dame. The one-too-many was Notre Dame’s end, Alan Page.”

Though the national championship was decided, Alabama still had a game to play. The Crimson Tide crushed Nebraska 34-7 in the Sugar Bowl to finish 11-0.

It was Alabama’s first unbeaten and untied team since 1961, and one of just three Bryant would coach (1979 was the other). Asked afterward how good his team was, Bryant didn’t mince words.

“It’s the greatest football team I’ve ever been associated with,” he said. “It’s the greatest football team I ever saw.”

Alabama has come close to three straight titles two other time since 1966. The 1977 team went 11-1 and won its bowl game, but was jumped in the polls — by Notre Dame, of course — and finished No. 2. The Crimson Tide then won national championships in 1978 and 1979.

Nick Saban’s Alabama teams won titles in 2011 and 2012, then was undefeated and ranked No. 1 for most of 2013. That team succumbed to the Kick Six in the Iron Bowl and fell out of the national championship race.

But perhaps none ever got closer to a third straight title than the 1966 “Missing Ring” team, which has been immortalized in the excellent 2006 Keith Dunnavant book of the same name.