It's a difficult thing, really, to find too many memorable moments in season-opening games for Alabama. Particularly recently. The reason for this is simple: Alabama's season openers haven't been terribly memorable for most of my lifetime. With a few notable exceptions, Alabama normally opens the season quietly, with an opponent that's barely notable.
In the last two full decades, here are Alabama's season openers: Southern Miss (loss); Temple (win); Vanderbilt (win); Tulane (win); Tennessee-Chattanooga (win); Vanderbilt (comeback win); Bowling Green (win); Houston (win); Brigham Young (win that featured Shaun Alexander setting records); Vanderbilt (win); UCLA (loss); UCLA (loss); Middle Tennessee (win); South Florida (win); Utah State (win); Middle Tennessee (win); Hawai'i (win); Western Carolina (win); Clemson (win); Va. Tech (win); San Jose St. (win).
That's nearly 20 years' worth of season openers, and the only notable games (until the Clemson and Va. Tech games) were games Alabama lost (the '90 game vs. USM is somewhat explicable in retrospect given that Alabama was breaking in a new head coach and was facing then senior quarterback Brett Favre).
In any case, I say all that to say that the blog is returning, and we're going to attempt to cover some of Alabama's most memorable season openers. Even if most of them happened before I was born.
Here's one of my favorites: the 1971 trip to the L.A. Coliseum, a Labor Day weekend game that nobody saw coming, other than coach Bryant.
It was the night Alabama rose back to prominence, and set up the decade of the 1970s. The upcoming game vs. Kent State isn't nearly so pivotal for the sake of the program, but it will make a big difference in Alabama football going forward.
As usual, I can barely wait. Roll Tide.
1 comment:
How about those white helmets? Maybe we should break out a 40th anniversary version of those at some point this season?
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