Rose Bowl Magic Touches The Tide
The Storied Ride of the Crimson Tide – Chapter III
“The best way to describe the 1925 season is to view it in retrospect, that is, as the first moment in what is going to become such a defining part of Southern life.”
Wayne Flynt, Professor of History, Auburn University
From the DVD, “Roses of Crimson”, 1997*
Starting football in 1892, the Tide had a reasonable number of one loss seasons. In 1924, under new coach Wallace Wade, the Tide added another one loss season.
President Denny, Coach Wallace Wade, the football team, the student body and fans state-wide, were hoping for their first undefeated season in 1925. If undefeated, they would hold onto to their first ever, 1924 Southern Conference Championship. Very few thought of achieving more than this.
Alabama’s opponents in 1925 were Union College, Birmingham Southern, LSU, Sewanee, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, Kentucky, Florida and Georgia. Only one opponent scored 7 points, against Bama’s 277, with this undefeated season earning them a #4 national ranking.
No Southern team had ever been offered the opportunity to represent the Eastern states in the Rose Bowl. No one was expecting this to happen for Bama for the 1926 Rose Bowl. But an out of the ordinary comment triggered some very unexpected events.
Only a few days after playing his final game, Illinois halfback Red Grange sparked the renewal of a long standing belief. Grange publicly made the statement that a post season game was excessive commercialism of college football. Both Yale and Illinois dropped out of consideration for the Rose Bowl bid.
With many universities also feeling this way for quite some time, Dartmouth, Michigan, Colgate and Princeton each declined an invitation. This left fourth ranked Alabama as the most obvious choice for representing the East.
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