100 Years Later, Alabama's First Rose Bowl Win Still Resonates in South, College Football

When Mike Shula was the head coach of Alabama football program two decades ago, he had a quick and easy way to determine if someone claiming to be a Crimson Tide fan was legit or not. He simply asked him or her to start singing the fight song, "Yea, Alabama."

Everyone knows the first line, "Yea, Alabama! Drown ’em Tide," but the pretenders always stumbled on the next part, "Every ‘Bama man’s behind you. Hit your stride." Anyone who got to the part mentioning Georgia or Georgia Tech, two of Alabama's biggest rivals back when they were all part of the Southern Conference (before the Southeastern Conference split off on its own in 1933), he'd usually stop the recitation with the proclamation of being true Crimson Tide through and through.

Every once in a while, though, especially if the person was good, he'd wait until after the part about the Rose Bowl, "Remember the Rose Bowl, we’ll win then," which is near the end.

While a lot of younger college football fans especially associate the "The Granddaddy of Them All" (as broadcaster Keith Jackson dubbed it) with the Big Ten and former Pac-12 conference, Alabama has a rich tradition with the signature games as well. When the Crimson Tide squares off against No. 1 Indiana for the first time on Jan 1, it'll be going for its sixth Rose Bowl win (5-2-1), the most of any team not in one of those previously-mentioned leagues, and fifth in Pasadena as the 2021 win over Notre Dame was played in Arlington, Texas, during the Covid outbreak.

Amazingly, it'll be the 100-year anniversary of the Crimson Tide's first trip to Pasadena, and the game that put Alabama football on the national map.

The first “bowl” game was played there back in 1902 as part of the Tournament of Roses celebration, held primarily because many of Pasadena’s transplanted residents were looking for an excuse to enjoy the fact that it wasn’t snowing or cold like where they used to live in the East and Midwest.

That first game featured Stanford (3-0-2) against Michigan (10-0), which hadn’t yielded a point all season. Although turnout for the game was favorable, the Wolverines crushed the local favorites, 49-0.

In part due to wounded pride, organizers turned their attention to other sports/activities as the centerpiece event, including polo and chariot races, which failed to hold the same kind of attention. So in 1916, football was back in, with Washington State playing Brown, and pulling off a 14-0 victory.

It wasn’t long until the Rose Bowl became the marquee event of the college football season, and in some ways the de facto national championship. However, for the next ten years no Southern team played in the game, although Georgia Tech turned down an invitation in 1917 because players didn’t want to wait any longer to enroll in the military for World War I.

That changed during the 1925 season, after Alabama, under the direction of Wallace Wade, got off to an 8-0 start while giving up just one touchdown. A pounding 7-0 victory against Georgia Tech set up a showdown with Georgia for the Southern Conference title, which was dominated by Alabama, 27-0.

On hand for that victory were representatives of the Rose Bowl Committee, who left unimpressed and instead extended invitations to Dartmouth, Yale and Colgate, which were all under pressure from the American Association of University Professors to decline. Finally, Alabama received the offer to play heavily-favored Washington out of the Pacific Coast Conference, which it eagerly accepted, and the entire region rallied behind the Crimson Tide. Even Auburn president Dr. Spright Dowell sent a telegram wishing its in-state rival good luck.

After falling behind 12-0 in the first half, the third quarter saw a complete momentum shift after Alabama knocked Washington’s best player, George “Wildcat” Wilson, who finished with 134 rushing yards and completed five passes for 77 yards and two touchdowns, out of the game, plus Wade unleashed Pooley Hubert’s ground game.

Alabama coach Wallace Wade stands with his players during the 1926 Rose Bowl, "The Game That Changed The South." | Courtesy of the Bryant Museum

Hubert punched in one touchdown and Johnny Mack Brown scored on both a 59-yard reception from Grant Gillis and a 30-yard pass from Hubert to give Alabama a 20-12 lead.

“When I reached the three I looked around and sure enough the ball was coming down over my shoulder,” Brown said of Hubert’s pass after being told to run as fast as he could toward the end zone. “I took it in stride, used my stiff arm on one man and went over carrying somebody. The place was really in an uproar.”

Wilson was able to eventually return and led another scoring drive for Washington (10-1-1), but Brown’s open-field tackle of him ended the final threat for a 20-19 victory.

"And they told me that boys from the South would fight!"
Wallace Wade's entire halftime speech

Although Alabama wasn't a unanimous selection as national champion, as some services opted for Dartmouth, the result shook the very foundation of college football and earned the South a high level of credibility and respect. It was, and still is by some, considered one of the greatest Rose Bowl games ever played, and a rare moment of pride in the post-Civil War South, which was in desperate need of something to celebrate.

One hundred years later, the Rose Bowl is still synonymous with college football, but so is the Alabama Crimson Tide, which won the most national titles of any program over that century.

1925 Alabama Crimson Tide

10-0
National champions
Southern Conference champions
Outscored opponents: 297-26

Coach Wallace Wade
Assistant coaches: Hank Crisp, Russell Cohen
Freshman coach: W.T. Van de Graaff.
Manager: Thomas Joyce
Captain: Bruce Jones

All-American: First team — A.T.S. “Pooley” Hubert, quarterback. Second team — Johnny Mack Brown, halfback.
All-Southern Conference: Johnny Mack Brown, back; Bill Buckler, guard; Pooley Hubert, back.

Lineup: A.T.S. “Pooley” Hubert, quarterback; Emile “Red Barnes, halfback; Johnny Mack Brown, halfback; Grant Gillis, quarterback/halfback; Tolbert “Red” Brown, end; Claude “Cupid” Perry, tackle; Bruce Jones, guard; Gordon “Sherlock” Holmes, center; Bill Buckler, guard; Fred Pritchard, tackle; Hoyt “Wu” Winslett, end.

National champions:
Alabama — Billingsley, Boand, Football Research, Helms, Houlgate, National Championship Foundation, Poling, Sagarin (ELO-Chess).
Dartmouth — Dickinson, Parke Davis. Michigan: Sagarin

Date	Opponent	Location	W/L	Score
Sept. 26	Union College	Tuscaloosa	W	53-0
Oct. 2	Birmingham Southern	Tuscaloosa	W	50-7
Oct. 10	LSU	Baton Rouge, La.	W	42-0
Oct. 17	Sewanee	Birmingham	W	27-0
Oct. 24	Georgia Tech	Atlanta	W	7-0
Oct. 31	Mississippi State	Tuscaloosa	W	6-0
Nov. 7	Kentucky	Birmingham	W	31-0
Nov. 14	Florida	Montgomery	W	34-0
Nov. 26	Georgia	Birmingham	W	27-0
Jan. 1, 1926	Washington	Rose Bowl	W	20-19

1925 Southern Conference Standings

Team, Conference record; Overall record
Alabama 7-0-0; 10-0-0
Tulane 5-0-0; 9-0-1
North Carolina 4-0-1; 7-1-1
Washington & Lee 5-1-0; 5-5-0 
Virginia 4-1-1; 7-1-1  
Georgia Tech 4-1-1; 6-2-1
Kentucky 4-2-0; 6-3-0
Florida 3-2-0; 8-2-0  
Auburn 3-2-1; 5-3-1
Virginia Tech 3-3-1; 5-3-2  
Vanderbilt 3-3-0; 6-3-0
Tennessee 2-2-1; 5-2-1
South Carolina 2-2-0; 7-3-0  
Georgia 2-4-0; 4-5-0  
Sewanee 1-4-0; 4-4-1  
Mississippi State 1-4-0; 3-4-1
VMI 2-4-0; 6-4-0  
LSU 0-2-1; 5-3-1  
North Carolina State 0-4-1; 3-5-1  
Ole Miss 0-4-0; 5-5-0  
Clemson 0-4-0; 1-7-0  
Maryland 0-4-0; 2-5-1