We live in a day of what have you done for me lately....

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The Crimson Tide would repeat as champions in 1965 after defeating Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Coming off back-to-back national championship seasons, Bryant's Alabama team went undefeated in 1966, and defeated a strong Nebraska team 34–7 in the Sugar Bowl.

However, Alabama finished third in the nation behind co-national champions Michigan State and Notre Dame, who had previously played to a 10–10 tie in a late regular season game.

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The 1967 team was billed as another national championship contender with star quarterback Kenny Stabler returning, but the team stumbled out of the gate and tied Florida State 37–37 at Legion Field.

The season never took off from there, with the Bryant-led Alabama team finishing 8–2–1, losing in the Cotton Bowl Classic to Texas A&M, coached by former Bryant player and assistant coach Gene Stallings.

In 1968, Bryant again could not match his previous successes, as the team went 8–3, losing to the University of Missouri 35–10 in the Gator Bowl. The 1969 and 1970 teams finished 6–5 and 6–5–1 respectively.

After these disappointing efforts, many began to wonder if the 57-year-old Bryant was washed up. He himself began feeling the same way and considered either retiring from coaching or leaving college football for the NFL.

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In 1971, Bryant began engineering a comeback to prove that he still had it. This included abandoning Alabama's old power offense for the newly fashionable wishbone formation. (Darrell Royal, the University of Texas at Austin football coach who invented the wishbone, taught Bryant its basics, but Bryant developed successful variations of the wishbone that even Royal had never used.)

The change helped make the remainder of the decade a successful one for the Crimson Tide. That season, Alabama went undefeated and earned a #2 ranking, but lost to #1 Nebraska, 38–6 in the Orange Bowl. The team would go on to split national championships in 1973 (Notre Dame defeated Alabama in the 1973 Sugar Bowl, which led the UPI to stop giving national championships until after all the games for the season had been played - including bowl games) and 1978 (despite losing a regular season matchup against co-national champion USC) and win it outright in 1979.

Bryant coached at Alabama for 25 years, winning six national titles (1961, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1978, and 1979) and thirteen SEC championships.

Bryant's win over in-state rival Auburn University, coached by former Bryant assistant Pat Dye on November 28, 1981 was Bryant's 315th as a head coach, which was the most of any head coach at that time. His all-time record as a coach was 323-85-17.

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