The period from 1997-2006 was not a great time for Alabama football.
From Gene Stallings’ retirement to Nick Saban’s arrival, the Crimson Tide suffered through three losing seasons, played in only five bowl games and made five coaching changes. But one season stood out during that up-and-down decade.
In 1999, Alabama finished 10-3 and won the SEC championship, its lone league title between the Stallings and Saban eras. And two players were largely responsible for the Crimson Tide’s success that season.
Running back Shaun Alexander and offensive tackle Chris Samuels, No. 60, were Alabama’s unquestioned leaders in 1999. Alexander was SEC Player of the Year that season, while Samuels was a unanimous All-American and won the Outland Trophy as the top interior lineman in the country and the Jacobs Trophy as the top blocker in the SEC.
Despite missing a game and parts of two others with an ankle injury, Alexander set Alabama program records with 1,383 rushing yards and 19 touchdowns in 1999. And more often than not, it was with Samuels — AKA “Big Sam” — leading the way from his left tackle spot.
“You run behind him, and he might block, one two or even three guys himself,” Alexander told the Associated Press midway through that season. “By the time I get to the line, there’s one dead body on the ground and maybe two or three badly bruised guys depending on what kind of mood he’s in.”
Alexander was a superstar at Boone County High School in Florence, Ky. — just south of Cincinnati — rushing for 3,166 yards and 54 touchdowns earning Parade All-America honors as a senior. He had his choice of just about any school in the country, but landed at Alabama largely via the efforts of running backs coach Ivy Williams, who had played college football in Cincinnati at Xavier.
Samuels, on the other hand, was considered something of a project. Standing 6-foot-6 but weighing just 260 pounds as a senior at Mobile’s Shaw High School, he’d missed part of his senior year due to a neck injury that left his football future cloudy until just before National Signing Day in February 1995.
Samuels’ other major offers were from Mississippi State, Tulane and Southern Miss, but he chose to join high school teammate Kelvin Sigler in Alabama’s abridged recruiting class. Due to NCAA sanctions, the Crimson Tide signed only 14 players in that class, though two of them became all-time greats.
Samuels and Alexander both redshirted as true freshmen, but began to make their marks in 1996. Samuels locked down a starting job at left tackle midway through the season, and would stay there the remainder of his college career.
Alexander’s ascension was more of a slow burn, but the redshirt exploded on Nov. 9, 1996, at LSU. He set a school record with 291 yards rushing, including touchdowns of 71 and 73 yards in a 26-0 rout of the Tigers in Baton Rouge.
Alexander had become the focal point of the Alabama offense by 1998, when he rushed for 1,178 yards and 13 touchdowns — including a record five in the season-opener vs. BYU. Both he and Samuels toyed with the idea of entering the 1999 NFL draft before choosing the return, Alexander with the promise Alabama’s athletic department would build a Heisman Trophy campaign around him.
Through the first six games of that season, Alexander appeared well on his way. He rushed for at least 100 yards in all of them and piled up 13 touchdowns, including three scores in a 40-39 overtime win over Florida and a 214-yard effort in a win at Ole Miss.
But an ankle injury suffered during a late-October loss to Tennessee caused Alexander to miss the following week’s game against Southern Miss and hindered him in a win over LSU in early November. Though he finished the season strong with big games against Auburn and in the SEC championship win over Florida, Alexander was all but out of the Heisman race by mid-November (Wisconsin’s Ron Dayne ended up winning the award).
Samuels was also playing hurt, having injured his right knee during the Ole Miss game on Oct. 16. He stayed upright through the SEC championship game, but couldn’t answer the bell in the Jan. 1 Orange Bowl vs. Michigan.
It’s perhaps no coincidence that Alabama lost that game, though Alexander scored three touchdowns. With future NFL legend Tom Brady at the controls, Michigan eked out a 35-34 victory in overtime.
Brady went on to be arguably the greatest quarterback in NFL history, though Alexander and Samuels made their mark as well after being drafted in the first round in 2000. Alexander, drafted No. 19 overall by the Seattle Seahawks, was the NFL Most Valuable Player in 2005 and was named to the league’s All-Decade Team for the 2000s.
Samuels, drafted No. 3 overall by Washington, made the Pro Bowl six teams in 10 NFL seasons and is a member of the Commanders’ Ring of Honor and was voted one of the franchise’s 90 Greatest Players in 2022. (Alexander and Samuels were briefly teammates again in Washington in 2008, though Alexander — diminished by injury at that point — played in only four games before being released).
Alexander and Samuels were both elected permanent team captains as seniors at Alabama, and both are now members of the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. They remain inextricably linked as key members — maybe the key members — of a 1999 Alabama team that was something of an oasis in the desert during an otherwise forgettable period in program history.
