Alabama Football: A Tie Is Like Kissing Your Sister – 10 Crimson Tide Tie Games

Alabama Football – Birmingham AL, Oct. 16, 1965

Alabama 7 – Tennessee 7

Another third Saturday in October for Tennessee and Alabama football. A member of the Tennessee band rode a Tennessee Walking Horse on the sideline before the game. It is hard to imagine Paul Bryant giving approval for such sideline antics by an old rival.

At the end, the 1965 season treated the Crimson Tide kindly. Going into the New Year’s Day Bowls, the Crimson Tide had climbed back to the No. 4 ranked team in the nation. An opening day loss to Georgia and the tie to Tennessee had kept the Tide out of the top ten until late October.

On New Year’s Day, No. 1 Michigan State played No. 5 UCLA in the Rose Bowl; No. 2 played LSU in the Cotton Bowl; and the No. 4 Tide had No. 3 Nebraska in the Orange Bowl. Michigan State, Arkansas, and Nebraska all had 10-0 records.

Michigan State and Arkansas lost and the Tide beat Nebraska 39-28 to earn the 1965 National Championship. Fair to say that on New Year’s Day, fate was kind to Alabama football.

Fate being at best a petulant suitor had knocked the Tide around pretty solidly earlier in the season. Alabama lost to Georgia on opening day 18-17. The Bulldogs used a well-designed bit of “now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t” wizardry to take down Alabama.

The deciding play in the Georgia game was a flea-flicker pass, one receiver catching a pass and quickly lateraling the ball to a sprinting teammate who raced for a touchdown. Tide fans in Athens that day swore the pass catcher had a knee on the ground before the lateral. Newspaper photos the next day confirmed the knee was clearly down before the lateral.

Take a look at the play and decide for yourself:

Against Tennessee, Alabama had a decided edge statistically but three fumbles and a blocked field goal cost Alabama scoring opportunities. The only scores came in the second quarter when a Vol halfback and Alabama quarterback, Steve Sloan both scored from one-yard runs.

Late in the fourth quarter, Tide sophomore QB, Kenny Stabler orchestrated enough offense to give the Tide a chance to win. In the closing seconds, Stabler ran a third down play to the Vol six. The Tide field goal kicker had been subbed into the game prior to third down so Alabama could quickly lineup for a field goal on 4th down.

Stabler did not realize it was fourth down. He called a quick play and it appeared the Tide was going for a touchdown. When the ball was snapped Stabler rose up and fired the ball out-of-bounds.

Stabler thought it was third-down and he threw the ball out-of-bounds to stop the clock. Possession was turned over to the Vols who ran the last few seconds off the clock. Bryant took the blame for his young QB, saying he did not know what caused the confusion.