This year marks the 100th anniversary of the victory that put Alabama football on the map

Before Alabama's victory over Washington in that legendary 1926 Rose Bowl, there was Alabama's upset win over John Heisman's Pennsylvania Quakers team in 1922. It was played on November 4 in Franklin Field in Philadelphia, PA. Billed as the largest southern invasion since Lee's Army of Northern Virginia entered Pennsylvania in June 1863, no one gave Alabama much of a chance. Penn was one of the powerhouses of college football, were undefeated, and coached by an absolute giant of the sport. Sportswriter Grantland Rice, arguably the greatest in the history of the collegiate game, predicted a 21-0 Quaker victory in his weekly column prior to the game.

Alabama QB Charles Bartlett and FB Pooley Hubert were the stars of the game as their late heroics helped the Tide win a hard-fought 9-7 victory over the Quakers on their home field. When word reached Tuscaloosa of the victory, the city quite literally rioted the night away in celebration. The owner of a local drug store painted the final score on the side of his building where the lettering could still be faintly seen some 50 years later.

Xen Scott was Alabama's head coach at the time. He had first arrived in Tuscaloosa in 1919, coaching the Tide to an 8-1 record in his first season followed by coaching the program to its first 10-win season in 1920. Failing health would mark his final two years in Tuscaloosa as the team's record fell to 5-4-2 in 1921 and 6-3-1 in 1922. Nevertheless, one of those six victories in 1922 was over the mighty Penn Quakers, considered by many to be the first significant victory by a southern team over a northern team. And it all went down a century ago this year.