Bama fans - your thoughts on "Against The Tide" doc about the 1970 USC game

its an interesting story but a lot of "facts" are myths or at the very least blown out of proportion.Still its a "good story."

What's lost in this is Southern Cal's own 1970 team had some racial issues.While integrated there wasn't necessarily harmony. After that Alabama game, they were #3 in the country . They wound up 6-4-1.One story is they went to a movie before a road game (Billy Jack -- I think)and the white players laughed at some scenes that the black players and Mexican players found offensive --obviously this is a Cliff Note's version-- and the team had some issues.

The biggest myth from that USC game was that it prompted Alabama to integrate their football team.

Problem with that theory is that Alabama already had a black player on the team. He was a freshman and freshmen weren't eligible to play back then. But he was in the stands watching that very game.

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Just because Alabama had one freshman sitting in the stands hardly made them "integrated."

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Just because USC had some great black players, it's not the reason Bryant started recruiting more of them.

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The truth is somewhat in between. Integration was well underway by that point anyway....not just at Bama but all southern teams. The fact is Bryant had been pushing for it years earlier but society wasn't ready. But the mud holeing SoCal gave Bama in that game reinforced the issue to the average redneck fan.

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this.

Well, I was sitting in the stands and Sam Cunningham did run all over Alabama. The team was moving toward integration and actually the State of Alabama was pretty settled with integration. High Schools were peaceful etc. The George Wallace grandstand stuff was years earlier, though some public stuff would continue for another decade.

I think Alabama quit playing "Dixie" at ball games about this time too. Many of you do not realize that every University in the South played the song at some time during a game, and the whole stands would stand up and cheer, both sides of the stadium. Just about every High School did it too, even the recently integrated ones, though this stopped in pretty short order.

But the SC game did help the average fan accept that the racial interaction that took place daily everywhere across the State could be emphasized by the football team.

Lots have been written but here is one thing to keep in mind. When SC won that game, they had 18 black players on their team. 10 years later Alabama won another NC in 1980 Sugar Bowl, beating Arkansas. In that game Alabama had 18 black players on the team.

It was moment that was long overdue. We could no longer compete with the big boys of college football and equality needed a foothold anyway.

Keep in mind that only 2 maybe 3 SEC teams were integrated in 1970 so it wasn't just Bama and Bama actually wasn't the last to do so. LSU, Vandy, Ole Miss and Georgia integrated after Bama. Bama was a national brand and it was easy to target while other SEC schools, not so much.

Give Bryant credit too. THIS GAME gave him the ammo he needed. He knew his days of domination were over but couldn't do anything. Bear didn't run the state, Wallace did and there was no mistaking that. Wallace was very quick to remind you. This gave the Bear the ability to sign whomever he wanted and the rest is history.

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Give Bryant credit too. THIS GAME gave him the ammo he needed. He knew his days of domination were over but couldn't do anything

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The biggest myth from that USC game was that it prompted Alabama to integrate their football team.

Problem with that theory is that Alabama already had a black player on the team. He was a freshman and freshmen weren't eligible to play back then. But he was in the stands watching that very game.

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Everything that you wrote it is true.

That said, all other SEC teams also had a "token" black player at that time.

The difference is that the Bear had Bama's team at like 50% black by the mid-1970s while all the rest of the teams in the conference still only like ten "tokens." There's a reason that Bama was able to win 9 SEC titles in the 1970s. That was the only time in the SEC's history that one team dominated the conference--otherwise, the SEC has been amazingly equal. Other major conferences have schools that have won 40 to 45 conference titles (see Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas), but in the SEC no school has even topped 25.

Around 1975 LSU started copying the Bear with integration and had Charlie Alexander and co., but their coaching change stalled their growth.

Then around 1980 Georgia's Vince Dooley also copied the Bear's integration plan and was starting to dominate the conference for about five years around Herschel Walker's tenure.

However, by 1985, all teams were majority black and the threat of one team dominating the conference ended again.

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Bear had Bama's team at like 50% black by the mid-1970s

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This is completely wrong. The Alabama football team did not get to be even 20 percent black until after 1980. And you are also wrong about the cause of Alabama's decline in the late 1960s. It was not because of a lack of black players...few teams even in the North or California had more than a few key black players... USC only had 18, 20 percent of the team, in 1970.

What happened to cause a momentary eclipse at Alabama was the type of player Bryant was recruiting could no longer compete. And this was echoed across the SEC. Even in 1966 Bryant's line would average less than 200 lbs. He emphasized speed and toughness and it worked for a long while... Alabama slaughtered Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl in 1966 despite being outweighed almost 50 lbs per man.

But all of a sudden in the late 1960s, 200 lb linemen could no longer compete against 250 lb linemen who were suddenly just as fast...(but not because they were black..black linemen were about the last to break down the color barrier on the football field in the SEC). So, Bryant changed the way he was recruiting in about 1969. This change which was very momentous, didn't show up until he completely changed his offensive system from a pro set to the wishbone in 1971.

One of his many great strengths was the ability to completely re-tool his program when it was needed. He said the reason he retired was that he realized the wishbone was finished and he would have to completely overhaul everything, asst coaches, recruiting, type of players, etc... and he just didn't have the energy to do it.

Saban is showing some of those strengths as he was willing to re orient the way he played offense.