Pandemic Could Affect 2020 Alabama Football - 247Sports

Without question, this is a new and frightening time in our nation, and among the incalculable areas affected by a worldwide pandemic is the Alabama athletics landscape. On Monday as the President spoke of the possibility of the ramifications of COVID-19 from a coronavirus lasting until July or August (which accelerated the plunge of the stock market), was it unpatriotic or dispassionate to consider 2020 without Crimson Tide football?

Obviously, there are things more important than sports in times of national peril, but that does not mean there is not interest in or concern for Alabama football.

For now insofar as athletics at The University is concerned, everything is suspended until at least April 15. That includes spring football practice (which may or may not be conducted in some manner), men’s and women’s basketball being concluded before post-regular season play; spring sports at least interrupted; recruiting activity canceled; etc.

The President’s remarks were not intended to raise hope for college football…and did not.

There is hope – though no guarantee – for a return to overall normalcy, including the epidemic being behind us in time for college football teams to prepare for and play this season.

Even if that is possible, will the terror of an epidemic in which we were cautioned to avoid “crowds” of 10 result in a continued – or even exacerbated – plummet in college football attendance? And if the season is lost entirely, what will be the fallout?

Alabama has had football seasons affected by war and weather and national catastrophe and even the administration of The University, but never for an epidemic.

In 1918 the Crimson Tide did not field a football team, but the reason given was World War I and the military draft in America. There were fewer references to the Spanish Flu, which came the same year as the war and which killed many.

It was a one-year suspension. Following the 1917 season under Coach Thomas Kelly in which Bama went 5-2-1, Bama returned to action in 1919 under Coach Xen Scott and managed a 5-1 record, including wins over Ole Miss, LSU, Georgia and Mississippi State, the lone loss to Vanderbilt.

By 1922 Scott’s Alabama team was able to go to Philadelphia and upset one of the nation’s powerhouse teams, a 9-7 Crimson Tide win over Penn that was as shocking then as it would be for Penn to go to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama today.

Wallace Wade replaced Scott in 1923 and by 1925 Bama soon was established as the nation’s best team, going undefeated in regular season games and 2-0-1 in Rose Bowls 1925-26-30.

The 1918 season wasn’t Alabama’s first without football. The sport had begun at The University in 1892, but the schedule was limited…even laughable. High schools and athletic clubs were only slowly being replaced by other college teams.

In 1895 The University administration deemed that no athletics teams would play off-campus. In 1896 the Crimson Tide football team was able to play Birmingham Athletic Club, Sewanee, and Mississippi State in Tuscaloosa. In 1897 the only football opponent was Tuscaloosa Athletic Club. Unable to find opponents willing to play only in Tuscaloosa, there was no football in 1898.

In 1899 the campus-only ban was relaxed. That year there were three athletic clubs (Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, and New Orleans) as home games and Ole Miss in Jackson completing the schedule. And while Alabama was able to begin filling its schedule with college teams, Bama did not play another true road game until opening the 1903 season at Vanderbilt.

World War II was the reason for Alabama’s third suspension of a football season, Bama among most Southeastern Conference squads to suspend football in 1943. Coach Frank Thomas’s Bama had gone 8-3 in 1942. Alabama returned to action in 1944, including ending the 5-2-2 season with a loss that earned the Tide as much respect as any victory could have.

Alabama went to the Sugar Bowl to face powerful Duke, a team made up of Navy trainees, many of them college football veterans. The Blue Devils made a final play shoestring tackle to prevent an Alabama touchdown and took a 29-26 win.

Bama took the impetus of that season to a 10-0 record in 1945, including a 34-14 romp past Southern Cal in the Rose Bowl.

Alabama has also suffered the temporary cancellation (and rescheduled) individual football games.

Paul Bryant suspended Joe Namath, who missed suspended Miami game (Photo: Bryant Museum, 247Sports)

In 1963, Alabama was poised to meet Miami in the Orange Bowl stadium on Saturday, Nov. 23. But the day before in Dallas, Nov. 22, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Almost all college games were canceled. Alabama and Miami instead met a week after the Auburn game, on Dec. 7.

Alabama’s starting quarterback against Miami on Nov. 23 would have been Joe Namath. But Namath confessed to having been drinking and was suspended for the rest of the season by Coach Paul Bryant.

The Tide was able to defeat Miami, 17-12, and then went to the Sugar Bowl, where Bama defeated Ole Miss, 12-7, to complete the 1963 season with a 9-2 record.

Alabama won the national championship in 1964 and 1965 and went undefeated in 1966.

In 1988, Alabama was scheduled to play Texas A&M in College Station on Sept. 17. That week Hurricane Gilbert grew to extraordinary proportions in the Gulf of Mexico, with at least one model showing the storm coming ashore in South Texas late that week.

Alabama Coach Bill Curry made the decision that he would not take his team into that kind of danger. Cynics suggested the noble gesture was influenced by Bama quarterback David Smith having suffered an injury and not being able to play that second week of the season.

The fact that the would-be game day in College Station was a beautiful afternoon, dutifully televised over ESPN, gave Bama-haters the opportunity to pile on. A line from Aggieland had it that Alabama’s team meal would be curry chicken.

But Alabama had the last laugh when the game was played at the end of the regular season on Dec. 1. With now-healthy quarterback David Smith throwing two touchdown passes, Bama defeated Coach Jackie Sherrill’s Aggies, 30-10.

The Tide completed its 9-3 season with a 29-28 win over Army in the Sun Bowl.

Curry’s last season would be in 1999, but he went out a winner, going 10-1 and tying for the SEC Championship before losing to Miami in the Sugar Bowl.

A third Alabama game canceled and rescheduled following the Auburn game was against Southern Miss in 2001. The game was originally scheduled for Sept. 15, but on Tuesday, Sept. 11 – better remembered as 9-11 – the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington put America on alert, including the cancellation of many football games to guard against a possible attack on a stadium with thousands of fans.

Coach Dennis Francione’s team was 3-5 heading into mid-November, but wins over Mississippi State and Auburn had evened the Bama record. The Tide defeated Southern Miss, 28-15, in Birmingham, and then finished the 2001 season with an Independence Bowl win over Iowa State, a fourth consecutive win and a 7-5 record.

In 2002, Alabama would have Francione’s last and best season, going 10-3.

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