The oral history of Alabama's 1992 national championship team (2024)

Palmer was named Alabama's Mr. Football as a high school senior in 1990-91, when he totaled 3,233 all-purpose yards and 42 touchdowns in 11 games. He would become a mythical figure during his three years with the Crimson Tide and a Heisman Trophy finalist as a junior in 1993, but also hit some memorable bumps in the road in 1992.

Sam Shade, Alabama safety (1991-94)
"David and I we went all the way back to little league football. We actually played against each other for years in little league ball. Our last year of park ball, before we went to high school, we actually played together. What everybody saw at Alabama, I had been seeing since little league ball."

Charles Hollis, Birmingham News Alabama beat writer (1984-93)
"He was almost a legendary name in the Birmingham metro area. This was a guy that wasn't very big, but he could do things that just seemed superhuman."

Gene Stallings, Alabama head coach (1990-96)
"I guess he's as good as I've ever seen. Every time he got the ball, you felt like he had a chance to score. He was an excellent receiver, an exciting return man, and we played him some at quarterback and he did a good job at quarterback. He was an outstanding athlete that could perform at any position we asked him to play."

Prince Wimbley, Alabama wide receiver (1988-92)
"When I saw David in high school, I knew we were recruiting a special athlete, because he played quarterback, he played running back, he played receiver, he played defensive back, he was the punter and he was the extra-point kicker. When I saw that I was like 'wow, we've got to have this guy.'"

Woody McCorvey, Alabama assistant coach (1990-96)
"I went up with Jim Fuller one night to Birmingham, Legion Field and watched him play in a high school game, and he was no doubt the most exciting football player that I had seen on the field from a coaching standpoint."

Antonio Langham, Alabama cornerback (1990-93)
"We had an off-week ... and coach Stallings let practice out and said 'if y'all are going to watch high school football tonight, if you get a chance, go over to Central Tuscaloosa and watch this kid from Jackson-Olin named David Palmer and tell me what y'all think.' We went over to the game, and I know football is a team sport, but this dude, he almost single-handedly beat Central Tuscaloosa by himself. If this guy don't trip him up by shoestrings on a kickoff return, that's ball game. I'm talking about, he did everything from quarterback to running back to wide receiver. One time I could've sworn he was at quarterback and threw a pass and then ran out there and caught it. He was doing so much that night. We got back to practice that following week, we were asked about him. We were looking around like, 'If y'all don't get this dude, something's wrong with recruiting around here.'"

Sherman Williams
"We were all up in Sylacauga. He was coming down (Highway) 280 after visiting Dameian Jeffries in Sylacauga. All of us were together. We were up there having a good time, some social event going on up there. David decided he wanted to drive back from Sylacauga (to Birmingham), it was 20-30 minutes. He felt like he could drive home. And then we heard about the accident."

Terry Smith, Chelsea resident (to the Associated Press, June 29, 1992)
"I was going about 45 mph. I was shifting into fourth gear when he hit me. He hit me dead in the tailgate. It smashed the bed of the truck over the top of the cab. The police said they had him running about 100 mph."

Prince Wimbley
"We don't know which direction it was going to go. We knew he was going to be suspended, but for how long, nobody really knew that."

John Copeland
"This guy was most of our offense. It was a huge concern. There was some time there where nobody knew what was going to happen. But we went out and went to work. We never considered not having him on the team. We never talked about him not being there."

Kevin Lee, Alabama wide receiver (1989-93)
"When all that went down, we pulled together. We actually had a private meeting, the coaches didn't know anything about it. We were at the dorm, locked the doors, and we sat around and talked. There are things that we need to do for one another. When you see somebody else drinking, let's watch out for our teammates. No matter what you say, you don't need to drive. We vowed from that point on, when we go out, let's all go out together. If we go out and everybody decides we want to stay out past curfew, everybody in the morning was going to run. That's just what's going to happen. We're all going to suffer the consequences together."

Sherman Williams
"We talked about it, and decided he was going to not drive after consumption of alcohol, not to mention that we were underage.

Woody McCorvey
"One thing, you knew David needed some guidance. And at a program like Alabama, when you've got a player like David that gets into a situation like that, naturally the media and everybody else is going to be heavily involved in it. But you want to give him a chance, because that was his first time really being in (trouble) at Alabama."

Derrick Lassic
"We definitely knew he was going to be suspended, whether or not he was going to be able to come back on that team was another thing. I don't recall a coach asking the captains about it, (Stallings) just made an executive decision."

Victor Lockett, Alabama linebacker (1989-93)
"I think he ran him and moved him out of the dorm. I don't know if the media got wind of that."

Sherman Williams
"We figured that there could be some consequences. It's just Vanderbilt, OK. We could probably beat Vanderbilt. ... So we felt like there was enough punishment. He missed one game. But after that, it didn't get better."

Derrick Oden, Alabama linebacker (1988-92)
"You play football at the University of Alabama, expectations nonetheless are high, but also too, everybody wants a piece of you, everybody wants to be part of it, they want to be able to say they were part of that."

Sherman Williams
"The night at the Citizens Club, young girls being young girls and young men being young men -- women and men and booze can be a deadly combination. We were at the Citizens Club, just hanging out, doing what we do. And then, there was some drama. The girls get in their feelings, and we've got to leave, we've got to make an early exit. It wasn't that the cops were called to get David arrested. When they gave the description of us leaving, they gave the description to the cops and the cops just flagged the car. When the other young lady or whoever it was that made the call, when they described the car, it just so happened that David was driving. He wasn't supposed to be driving, because we had already talked about that."

Antonio Langham
"At this point, it's either somebody that don't really like Alabama football or at that point they're just somebody is trying to make a little name for themselves."

Martin Houston
"I ain't gonna say David Palmer wasn't profiled. Did the police, did they all know who that was before they stopped him? You know what I mean? I make no excuses for what he did because what he did was against the law. But had any other student been in the exact same situation, it probably would not have led to that second (arrest)."

John Copeland
"The second time, it kind of speaks for itself. Had David Palmer not been David Palmer, he wouldn't have got a third chance. But at that point, he was David Palmer. We knew he was coming back at some point."

Antonio Langham
"You kick David off the team and send him home, then he's going to stand on that street corner every bit of thirty minutes. It's going to be every school in America after him."

Martin Houston
"We didn't want David kicked off the team, because we knew that what was waiting for David if he got kicked off the team was not good. And if there was a way to punish him and help him learn a lesson, the best thing would be will be for him to be around the team and with his teammates, whether he played again -- early in the season, late in the season or not."

Gene Stallings
"He grew up in a tough environment. His mother was doing the best she could to raise him and several other kids. Best I remember, he did not have a father at that time. He needed to be in a good environment. And the football team was a good environment for him. I felt like he needed to be in that environment."

David Palmer (to 78 Magazine, 2014)
"If it weren't for (Stallings), my career might have been over. People wanted to give up on me, but coach Stallings wouldn't let that happen. The whole thing cost me a whole lot, caused me a lot of off-the-field stress. But I owe a lot of my success to Gene Stallings."

Jay Barker, Alabama quarterback (1990-94)
"(Stallings') biggest thought on it was 'David needs Alabama more than Alabama needs David right now.' His situation, where he'd come from, it was true. David and I were in close in college. He rode home with me back and forth from Birmingham, so I saw some of the situation he was coming from. The worst thing for him would have been to be kicked off and go back where he'd come from. He needed to be in Tuscaloosa, needed to be around people that cared about him and loved him. Not to say there weren't people who cared about him there, but the environment was not conducive to what he could become, and that's an NFL player and a college football star, and a Heisman Trophy finalist."

Hootie Ingram, Alabama athletics director (1989-95)
"When you have a situation like that, every case is different. You can't set up a deal like if you run a red light, you get fined $500. Or you shoot somebody, you stay in prison so many years. Dealing with young people, you've got to take each case individually. If you've got somebody that's going to damage the rest of the squad, you want to get rid of them. If they just used some bad judgment, and it doesn't affect the rest of the team, I think one of your jobs is to try and resurrect people."

Jim Fuller
"After David got the second DUI, coach Stallings came in. He said y'all get out a pencil and a paper and write this down. He said 'I want to know what y'all think we ought to do with David Palmer. Just pass them up here to me.' We all put down what we thought, and it was unanimous among all the assistant coaches including myself, what we thought that we should do. He said 'well, that's about what I thought. Every one of y'all wanted to get rid of David, including Fuller, even you. You know more about David Palmer than anybody in this room. Just tell me what your thoughts are there.' And I told him. And he said 'well, David Palmer, we may not be able to help him football-wise, but we can help him stay in school, stay in the dorm -- because he needs supervision, and he needs somebody to work with him.' And so he did and I thought it was a really -- had to have been tough decision at that particular time. But I thought coach Stallings made the call, and it was a tough call. It was for him, and it was for all of us. And as it turned out, it was the best thing to do."

Woody McCorvey
"One of the biggest things that coach (Stallings) did was he made him come to practice. He couldn't miss anything, he couldn't miss class. He traveled, but he couldn't play. He never told anybody when he was going to let David play again. And it went for a while, and David saw that we were winning football games without him. And he knew that if he was going to save his career, to be able to go on and play football at Alabama, and then after that, there were some things he was going to have to change about his life."

Paul Finebaum, Birmingham Post-Herald
"I feel like, in some ways, that was one of the embarrassing parts of that season. Gene Stallings, say whatever you want about him, I'm a big fan of his -- he sold his soul to keep David Palmer on that team. David Palmer should have been kicked off. He certainly should have been suspended for far more games than he was. ... I just remember hearing about the second incident and I could not believe that Gene Stallings didn't do anything significant about that. I think Gene Stallings knew he needed David Palmer to win a national championship and he did."

Tony Barnhart
"You always wonder if it's another player, would you handle it differently? If it's the backup left tackle, would you handle it differently? I happen to have a great deal of respect for Gene Stallings. While it was a difficult situation, I just respected him a lot, and thought he would handle it the right way."

Matt Hammond, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-93)
"Everything I've read on David since then, that really made an impact on his life and gave him a shot he probably wouldn't have otherwise had. So you can't really question it."

Gene Stallings
"We needed to get his attention. I think the worst thing you can do for a player is get him off if he's guilty without any kind of punishment. So I felt like a three-game suspension was enough punishment for David. He handled it, handled it like a man and came back and played extremely well."

Prince Wimbley
"David, the days of the suspension, he worked hard in practice. He played scout team. He made our defense better of course, playing scout team. And when it was time for him to get back off suspension, he was ready to go."

Charles Hollis
"He has a three-game suspension and returns against Louisiana Tech. Alabama had kicked two Michael Proctor field goals, it's 6-0 and seems like there's about eight minutes to go. Palmer cut loose on a 63-yard punt return. He was that kind of game breaker."

Steve Busky, Alabama tight end (1988-92)
"They were a physical team. They were prepared for us. And then (Palmer) broke that open, and it was like 'there it is.' Sometimes it just takes something to get you going. You know it just takes something, and when that happens, I'm like 'Man, thank you. Somebody had to do it."

Willie Gaston, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"They called the punt return team the 'score team' back then. I was on there, Dabo Swinney was on there. It was primarily skill people, wide receivers and defensive backs."

Antonio Langham
"They kick it to him and he catches it, and I'm thinking 'either they don't know, or he didn't realize he was back there when he punted it to him.' That boy made about three moves. And the last thing I see when I look back is him pointing at me like 'get the kicker.' I'm like 'why you want me to block the kicker? If you and that kicker went one-on-one 25 times, that kicker would not touch you 25 times.' I remember the TV camera was sitting on a little podium right there (in the end zone). And he ran right to the camera and he stopped, and you can see the camera shot right in his face. You can read his lips, and he said 'I'm back.' I'll never forget that."

Chris Donnelly, Alabama safety (1992-93)
"He hadn't played in three weeks. I don't even know if he stretched before the game. And then he goes out and does that. It just showed the talent that he has. We were glad he came back that day."

Roger Shultz, Alabama center (1986-90), graduate assistant coach (1991-92)
"That's when you go 'that's what makes him special.' He comes back and what does he do? He scores a touchdown that puts the game out of reach. You hear coaches all the time say 'hey, get the playmaker the ball.' Well, they got the playmaker the ball."

Chris Donnelly
"We played the first three games without him and it forced us to call on other people to make plays. Late in the year, if we needed a play, we'd just go to him."

Sherman Williams
"I remember David making that punt return. People look at offense and defense, but special teams can really change a game. David gave us momentum on that punt return and we never gave it back."

Chris Donnelly
"When David returned that punt, that stadium was 75 percent Alabama, maybe more, maybe 85 percent. The game was loud when it started. It probably started at about a 6. When he ran that back, then that decibel level hit about a 10. And it never got below nine the rest of the game."

George Teague, Alabama defensive back (1989-92)
"When the Deuce gets loose returning them punts, watch out. I'd put (Palmer) right up there with Deion Sanders in the league. It was just electrifying."

Derrick Lassic
"He probably could have been the starting running back, starting receiver and starting quarterback on that 92 team. That's how good David Palmer was. He executed plays at quarterback during practice, that for some reason we never really used those plays. We had a lot of those plays in the game plan. I remember saying to myself 'Gee, when are we ever going to use these plays?' I think they were preparing for the next year."

Willie Gaston
"I tell people to this day had David stayed for his senior year (1994), we would have played for another national championship. His junior year, he finished third for the Heisman."

Woody McCorvey
"I was on a radio show (in South Carolina) the other day, and the guy asked me who was the best football player that I had ever coached? And just like that, I said 'David Palmer.' He said 'you said that mighty quick.' I said 'There was no doubt.'"

Chris Anderson, Alabama running back (1990-93)
"Bar none, this kid's the best athlete I've ever seen with my two eyes. Y'all saw the stuff he did in games, but the stuff he did in practice was unbelievable too. He wasn't but (150, 160 pounds) at the most, but he could stop on a dime and give you change for it. Just a freakish athlete. It's just God-given talent that comes around probably every 20, 30 years."

Alabama had a returning starter at quarterback in Jay Barker, plus five experienced offensive linemen and do-everything threat David Palmer. Still, it was a defense with seven returning starters -- including All-America candidates Eric Curry and John Copeland at defensive end -- that was expected to be the team's strength.

Alabama won its final 10 games in 1991, including a 30-25 victory over national power Colorado in the Blockbuster Bowl. However, the loss to Florida still resonated with the Crimson Tide players as the 1992 season began.

George Teague, Alabama defensive back (1989-92)
"We didn't lose again after that. That was kind of a defining moment for our team and where we going to be, even going into the next year. We were very confident, and knew if we played well my senior year, it was going to be hard for anybody to beat us."

Antonio Langham, Alabama cornerback (1990-93)
"We were losing some key guys, but we were bringing back a bunch of key guys too, so it was just a matter of us in the offseason dedicating ourselves to the process. We went into the offseason training like crazy. We came into the fall focused with one goal in mind, and that was just to finish what we started in '91."

Eli Gold, Alabama radio play-by-play announcer (1988-present)
"I don't know if I realized it at the time. We all knew how potent the defense was, with Curry and Copeland as the bookends, let alone everybody else. You knew that they weren't going to give up many points. I don't know that anyone can ever be bold enough, or silly enough, to presume a championship, but I think we all knew it was a very good team, it just remained to be seen how good."

Mario Morris, Alabama linebacker (1990-93)
"I think we had some of the best coaches around. And then we had a lot of guys (who) really wanted to get after it. We were very deep. We had a lot of players. I mean we could go two-deep on you, pretty much at any position."

Hootie Ingram, Alabama athletics director (1989-95)
"There's no question that in his day, (Bill Oliver) was the finest defensive coach in the country, in my opinion."

John Copeland, Alabama defensive end (1991-92)
"I think that guy's a genius. We would go into football games knowing exactly what the opponent is about to do, sometimes before they would do it. It's not the big picture with coach Oliver, it's all the big things that add up to the big picture. It could be something as small as 'if this guy lines up here, this is going to happen. If he lines up here, this is going to happen.' It was all those little things that put us ahead of the game."

Sam Shade, Alabama safety (1991-94)
"Probably half of the guys in our secondary had been mainly offensive guys in high school. Antonio Langham was a really good receiver. George Teague was a great offensive player. Tommy Johnson was a great offensive player, great receiver at Niceville. And then myself playing running back, I just thought (Oliver) did a great job of finding athletes and putting them in position to be successful."

Victor Lockett, Alabama linebacker (1989-93)
"We had the premier defensive ends: John Copeland and Eric Curry. Those guys were just monsters up front. Eric Curry was the tallest, skinniest guy I'd ever seen. And John Copeland was just a country strong type dude."

Mario Morris
"Those guys were just dominant. It was very tough to run on either side of us, or to drop back and pass because those guys could defeat any single player that they went up against and sometimes defeated double teams. Teams had to scheme for them."

Bill Oliver, Alabama defensive coach (1990-95)
"Didn't realize Copeland was already signed when we got there. Nobody knew anything about him. He came out of junior college. Didn't take long. And what a great guy. Both of them. Both great guys, great players. Very instinctive."

Matt Hammond, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-93)
"When you practiced against those two day-in and day-out, you never faced anybody on Saturday that was any better. So games often were easier than practices when it came to the quality of people you were playing against. And I played against a lot of good players during my time. But I never played anybody that was any better than those two."

Eric Curry, Alabama defensive end (1990-92)
"That's why we got the nickname 'the Bookends.' He took care of his side of the field, which was his domain, and I took care of mine. Truthfully speaking, there was never a beef or rivalry between us. We knew we had to perform at our peak. We were both hard, hard workers."

John Copeland
"It got to a point where I thought my name was Copeland Curry. Everywhere I went, that's all I heard. Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was Eric Curry. I tell people all the time, without Eric Curry, I don't know if there would be a John Copeland. Or without John Copeland, I don't know if there would be Eric Curry. Us being at that place at the same time, and the kind of personality that we both had, we pushed each other to the limit. I wasn't going to let Eric out-do me, and he wasn't going to let me out-do him."

George Teague
"We knew that if we covered them for a while, Curry and Copeland were going to get the quarterback on the ground. I give them credit for me getting drafted, actually, because they made me a better defensive back, allowed me to make plays that I probably wouldn't have been able to make with another group of linemen."

Tommy Johnson, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"Teague was such a leader back there. A lot of people don't realize about Teague is he's a very, very smart guy. Teague's knowledge of what we were trying to do was very, very high. With Teague, Chris Donnelly and Sam Shade, there's not too many times that we were lined up wrong, that we weren't where we were supposed to be."

Kevin Lee, Alabama wide receiver (1989-93)
"Ones on ones was always at the end of practice, and it was something we looked forward to. We knew how good our defensive backs were. They were they were really good at their game. They taught a lot of us how to watch film. I would ask Langham and Teague 'what is it that you see that I'm doing that tips you off on what route that I'm running?' They would tell me, 'we watch your hips and we watch your body language. If you stay more on a narrow path, we don't know which way you're going.' They wanted to be good."

Antonio Langham
"It was always a competition on interceptions. If I had one in a game, George wanted two. If George had two, I wanted three. And the battle never became personal, to the point where we weren't doing our jobs just for the sake of getting interceptions, it came at the end of the season. At the end of the season, we'd go to the stats and find out 'OK, who led the SEC in interceptions. Was it me or was it George? Who led our team?'

Jay Barker, Alabama quarterback (1990-94)
"I get asked 'who's the best defense you ever played against?' 'Easy, the one in practice in '92.'"

Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports writer
"I've said this a million times, that the 1992 Alabama defense is the best one I've seen. Now, Alabama has had some great ones in the Saban era, but when you think about those two All-Americans at defensive end and the overall strength of the players on that team, I still think it's the best that I've seen."

Gene Stallings, Alabama head coach (1990-96)
"I read an article not too terribly long ago, where they voted the 1992 team the best defensive team of all-time. They were extremely good. They led the nation in run defense, pass defense, total defense, giving up the fewest points. They were an outstanding defensive team. We had good players. They were well-coached, and that's a tough combination to beat."

Derrick Oden, Alabama linebacker (1988-92)
"We want to keep you from driving the ball and force you to punt, because we've got (David Palmer) back there that's a game changer that give us 20-30 yards on the return, if he doesn't break it all the way. At the same time, too, you've got a guy like Michael Proctor that can put it through the uprights. We understood our team philosophy. You see a lot of our wins were 6-3, 9-3, 9-0. It was that mentality we carried into every week -- we've got to win the battle of field position."

Charles Hollis, Birmingham News Alabama beat writer (1984-93)
"That team was built on defense. The offense was a bigger unknown going into that season with Jay Barker."

Gene Stallings
"The players had a lot of confidence in Jay. He would provide you with good leadership. As far as a passing quarterback, he wasn't a passing quarterback. But he made the big plays."

Matt Hammond
"The biggest memory that sticks in my mind on Jay is in the spring before that year. ... I remember us getting into a third-down situation and we ran some kind of option. We needed two or three yards to get a first down. And Jay turned it up, lowered his head and took one a lick from one the linebackers. Took a dang good shot. He gets the first down. He comes back to the huddle, he's got blood streaming out of his mouth. And I think it was at that point that everybody up front, the O-line, looked at him and said 'hey, this kid's got something. We like this guy. He's tough.'"

Tony Barnhart
"You knew he was going to throw it to the right guy, and not the wrong guy. You knew he was going to get you out of a bad play and into the right play. Because he was such a good game manager... I don't think people gave him credit for being a really, really talented athlete. But he was the perfect quarterback for that team, because he was surrounded by a lot of really good players."

Bill Oliver
"We didn't play with a high-powered offense every week, to say the least."

Jim Fuller, Alabama offensive line coach (1984-96)
"I can remember Brother Oliver looking down at me in the press box and saying 'do y'all think could get a first down? Just one first down?' I remember taking all them papers I had in front of me, I threw them right at Brother Oliver and said 'you're so smart, you call the offense. You go ahead and get on the phone and tell them what you want to do.' It was a little bit stronger than that."

Woody McCorvey, Alabama offensive coach (1990-96)
"I felt like Jay provided us what we really needed in terms of leadership."

Curtis Brown, Alabama wide receiver (1991-94)
"He just had that fire in his eye, you know what I mean? He wanted to prove to everyone that he could do it. Jay was a guy that just continuously worked at his craft. He probably wasn't the best, but he just worked his craft."

Jay Barker
"We had a great defense. My job at that time in '92 was to manage the offense. Don't put the defense in a bad situation by turning the ball over. Play field position. Get first downs. Move them back where you want to punt or you want to kick, you want them drive 80 yards or more to score. If you can't score a touchdown or kick a field goal, make them drive 80 yards for a touchdown."

Prince Wimbley, Alabama wide receiver (1988-92)
"As long as Jay just played within his parameters, we were going to be just fine because we had a great running game with Derrick Lassic and Martin Houston. And then if we need to throw the ball we had great receivers, David Palmer, Kevin Lee and myself and Curtis Brown to carry the load in the air if we needed it."

Derrick Lassic, Alabama running back (1989-92)
"We were very, very competitive, so it made us better. But we were a close-knit group of guys. To this day, 'RBs for Life' is our saying. There was no jealousy. I was more of a slasher. Sherman (Williams') style and my style were very similar. Chris (Anderson) was more of an outside runner, fast feet type of guy. If he got to the corner, you weren't going to catch him. He had that track speed. I was the fastest of the three in the 40, but I think Chris was the fastest of the three in the 100."

Martin Houston, Alabama fullback (1988-92)
"(Lassic) didn't have a lot of long runs, but he had a lot of those you know 20, 25-yard runs where he'd get outside and run by somebody. ... If you could go back and look at his career, he never ran out of bounds. So he was hard-nosed and once he got past those nagging injuries that he had fought through early in his career, he proved to be a really, really solid running back and a guy that he and I really meshed having been roommates as freshmen. We were able to have a good chemistry on the field. He was a joy to block for."

Kevin Lee
We knew we could run sweeps and stuff, because our (receivers) would be in the right place. It was pretty lonely out there. We don't get many opportunities."

Chris Anderson
We didn't care how we got it done, we just had to find a way to win. We didn't care if it was 2-0 or 52-0. We blew a lot of teams out and some teams played us close. Teams were going to play us harder than they played anybody else. If you beat Alabama, that's just a notch in your belt."

George Teague
"We didn't get any respect. It was unbelievable to us that we weren't on the radar. Maybe it was because we weren't flashy. We weren't co*cky at all. Our offense wasn't flashy. A lot of people don't put much stock in 13-7 games or 7-6 games or 10-7 games, or whatever our scores were. It was not very appealing. So we kind of flew under the radar."

Martin Houston
"It was mostly (ESPN's) Beano Cook and Lee Corso that we heard. There wasn't quite that much noise that there is now. It was kind of frustrating because they were people just were refusing to give us any credit."

Corky Simpson, Tucson Citizen sports writer
"The NCAA used to have a gathering called the College Football Forum in Kansas City. In February of that year, they invited a dozen sports writers from around the country and I think about that many college football coaches. ... My friend Bill Lumpkin with the Birmingham (Post-Herald) was there. We got to talking about football and he said, 'you know, I think if Alabama can beat Tennessee this year, they'd have a shot at the national championship.' So that stuck in my mind. A little later that year, the Associated Press asked me to join its weekly poll. I had never participated in it before. I said 'sure' and I did. When time came later on that year for the preseason ranking, I remembered what Bill told me, so I put Alabama No. 1. And then the football season started, and Alabama kept winning and winning, and I kept voting for them."

***

Alabama struggled out of the gate offensively in 1992, capping a season-opening 25-8 win over Vanderbilt with an interception return for a touchdown by linebacker Michael Rogers and beating Southern Miss 17-10 on the strength of a 71-yard fake punt touchdown pass from punter Bryne Diehl to defensive back Tommy Johnson. The Crimson Tide got its offense going in a 31-11 win at Arkansas, only to take a step back in a closer-than-expected 13-0 win over Louisiana Tech.

Alabama routed South Carolina 48-7 on homecoming and won 37-6 at Tulane to improve to 6-0, moving up to No. 4 in the national rankings in the process. That set the stage for a showdown with No. 13 Tennessee on Oct. 20 in Knoxville.

George Wilson, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-92)
"We started off the season slow, I think probably our defense was playing great. We were sputtering on offense. We were trying to find -- it was like a slow start. And it was like 'hey catch up.' We were kind of slipping and sliding each way."

Lemanski Hall
"All I saw was Big Mike, get a tipped interception -- go get a block. And all I saw was Mike got that ball and I was turning and the first guy I saw was the quarterback. And all I wanted to do is rip his freaking head off. And get Mike in the end zone and I did."

Michael Rogers, Alabama linebacker (1990-94)
"That was awesome. We worked on that play all week long. Coaches told me, 'Michael, you've got to be ready for that play.' I saw the tight end come that way, I knew what was coming. And it was unbelievable. Of course, Lemanski got all the glory for the block. But people forget I had to set him up for it."

Antonio London, Alabama linebacker (1989-92)
"The majority of our games in '92 were a dogfight. Very rarely did we ever play with a comfortable lead. Most of the time it was always nip and tuck. We accepted that challenge. Our mentality was 'if we win on D, count on me.' We had a song that we would sing 'win on D, count on me, keep on swarmin'."

John Copeland
"We were used to being in those situations. As a defense, we thrived in those situations. We wanted to be on the football field, and I think coach Stallings wanted us on the field. We never panicked, especially during the '92 season, because we had already been in that situation so many times before."

Bryne Diehl, Alabama punter (1991-94)
"The fake punt touchdown I threw to Tommy Johnson (against Southern Miss) was a highlight. How many highlights does a punter have? Most punters have lowlights."

Tommy Johnson, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"It was one of those things where I lined up and I couldn't believe that I was that wide open. I'm like, 'there's got to be somebody around me.' But I just kind of gave Bryne Diehl a little wave with the hand and he looked at me and threw it over there. And I can remember a trail of guys blocking for me and the rest was a natural thing for me."

Bryne Diehl
"It wasn't 'called,' per se, but coach said 'if you want to fake it, do it.' I said 'OK, no problem.' I turn around, look at Tommy and Tommy looks at me smiling. I start hollering the code word to snap it now, just snap it. My personal protector, Craig Harris, looked at me like 'are you serious?' I say 'red, red, red' -- the code name. Everybody got set, and we snap it, and I threw it to Tommy, and the rest was history. I didn't have to do anything but just get it to him."

Curtis Brown
"Obviously a tough place to play over in Arkansas, but it just seemed like everything started clicking for us especially (on) offense. And I think at that point we kind of felt like it was going to be our year."

Chris Anderson
"I remember going into the end zone backwards. A guy hit me and got me turned around. And then (ESPN's) Robin Roberts saying 'go on with your bad self' on SportsCenter. And (future) President (Bill) Clinton was in the audience too. So we got to show off for him."

Tommy Johnson
"The thing about each one of those games is, I don't ever remember being worried that we were going to lose. I really don't. I don't ever remember thinking to myself 'we're going to lose this game.' We never had that thought in our heads, not that I can remember. We were never on the sideline worried that we were going to lose."

Sherman Williams, Alabama running back (1991-94)
"I remember La Tech being a very tough team, one of the toughest games we played. I don't know if we played down because it was La Tech."

Martin Houston
"Everybody forgets that Willie Roaf was the tackle. That was the only guy I saw that held his own against Copeland and Curry."

Antonio London
"All I can remember was Willie Roaf. They'd snap the ball and I felt Copeland on my heels. I was like 'this has never happened before. This is going to be a long day, if Cope is stepping on my heels.'"

Willie Gaston, Alabama defensive back (1992-94)
"I'm standing there, and Willie Roaf looked at me and said '22, 22' (Gaston's number). I'm like 'Lord, please don't let them run the ball over here.' Every time they came out, he'd call me out, I guess to let them know what personnel we were in."

Lemanski Hall
"What a game, man. That game was really the start of something. We needed a game like that."

Derrick Oden
"As you progress through the season, you start trying to stay focused on the task and that's winning ball games. It doesn't matter how pretty or ugly they are, a W is a W."

Sherman Williams
"(Tulane was) when I first did the 'Sherman Shake' and everybody went crazy. Everybody went wild. It was down there in New Orleans, the Big Easy, everything is laissez faire down there. Have a good time. We're having a good time, winning, blowing Tulane off the map. So I decided to go ahead and do the Sherman Shake."

Alabama beat Ole Miss and LSU by double-digits before a tougher-than-expected 30-21 win at Mississippi State. That set up the Iron Bowl on Thanksgiving Day against a struggling Auburn team, which saw head coach Pat Dye announce his resignation on the eve of the Alabama game.

Star cornerback Antonio Langham made the signature play of the Iron Bowl with an interception return for a touchdown, then repeated the feat in the first-ever SEC Championship game against Florida at Legion Field in Birmingham. That victory clinched a berth in the Sugar Bowl against top-ranked Miami, in what proved to be a de facto national championship game.

Just seven weeks prior, however, the Crimson Tide hadn't won much yet:

Eli Gold, Alabama play-by-play broadcaster (1988-present)
"I am not and was not the world's greatest football mind. I would listen to a lot of people I respected. When more and more people, big-time coaches and big-time analysts, started jumping on that bandwagon to some degree, I started thinking 'well this is a pretty good team, but is it that good?' I really didn't know. But clearly it was."

Gene Stallings, Alabama head coach (1990-96)
"We were 8-0 and we were at practice, it was a Monday evening. I got to thinking, if we could win out, we'd have an opportunity to win it. I did not think in terms of winning the national championship until we were 8-0."

Jay Barker, Alabama quarterback (1990-94)
"Against Ole Miss, they were going to come up with crazy blitzes and all kind of stuff, so we went out and threw it. We had a great day. We had a chance to open it up and play like that, the receivers loved it because they were used to blocking downfield. As a quarterback, you love it as well."

Kevin Lee, Alabama wide receiver (1989-93)
"That was one game I caught eight passes. I was like 'wow!' That was a great moment, that game. It started out tight, but once Jay found his rhythm, he was unstoppable. He was on point. Get open, I'm going to hit you. He came into his own. We knew if we had to throw it, we could do it."

Prince Wimbley, Alabama wide receiver (1988-92)
"That also gave us confidence and gave our team confidence, knowing that if we had to go into battle with a shootout team that scored a lot of points, that we can go hold our own as well."

Chris Donnelly, Alabama safety (1992-93)
"I remember being at LSU after the LSU game, and (No. 2) Washington lost. We were going to move up to No. 2 after Miami. For us to be in a position to win the national championship, so many things had to line up. That weekend, a couple of teams lost for the first time, and that moved us into second. Those types of things we knew needed to happen."

Corky Simpson, Arizona Daily Star sports writer
"Every time I would call the Associated Press in New York, these guys would groan and say 'aw, Alabama again?' There were 62 voters, and every week, there'd be Miami at the top and down around eight or 10 there would be Alabama with parentheses (1), and that was my vote. It was that way all year long. Late in the season, someone told Mark Edwards at the Decatur Daily I was voting for Alabama, so he called me and wrote a column about it. Then I started getting calls and letters and that sort of thing, most of them from people who didn't agree with me. It was mostly Miami fans. One guy was going to fax me his rear end. I'm grateful he didn't do that."

Lemanski Hall, Alabama linebacker (1989-93)
"When we played Mississippi State over at their place, that to me was where I knew we've got a chance. We were in a dogfight. It's hard to win in the SEC on the road. Just to see our guys being resilient, leaning on each other - we found a way to win. And that's really the whole season for us."

Kevin Lee
"When we played Mississippi State, and we hopped out to a big lead, and they came back and took the lead going into the fourth quarter, it was time to find out what type of team we had. And we were able to come back and win that game. Mississippi State had a pretty good team that year. We were like 'you know what man, I think we've got an opportunity to do something special here.'"

Willie Gaston, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"When they started running their fullback trap and they start moving the ball; it was crazy watching the game unfold. Because you go from being up 20-0 and down 21-20, and everybody is on the sideline looking around going 'what is going on?'"

Derrick Lassic
"Mississippi State was a scare. They always played us tough when I was there. You know how the story goes. They wanted to show the University of Alabama that they were good enough to play with us. They played extra hard against us. And it was at the end of the season most of the time. That was almost like their bowl game."

Mario Morris, Alabama linebacker (1990-93)
"I remember those cowbells going off. It was a tough game. But once we got past that game we were like 'hey we've got a shot here. We've really got a shot at winning it all.'"

John Copeland, Alabama defensive end (1991-92)
"Going into that Auburn game, I think we knew that we really had an opportunity. We knew that we controlled our own destiny."

Charles Hollis, Birmingham News Alabama beat writer (1984-93)
"I remember a circus atmosphere and (Pat Dye's future) was the storyline going into the week. And they had a team sort of in turmoil"

Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"I remember getting a phone call about midnight on (Wednesday) night, because I was going to the game the next day, that Pat Dye was going to resign after the game."

Roger Shultz, Alabama center (1986-90), graduate assistant (1991-92)
"Me being an Alabama guy, I'm thinking, they're trying to motivate their players. They know they can't whip us, some kind of false motivation -- play for Pat Dye, send him out on top. It worked out like it should have worked out. But it shocked everybody."

Jim Fuller, Alabama offensive line coach (1984-96)
"You don't keep something like that just completely shut out. I remember I had heard different things. We were anticipating something, but just the final reality that coach Dye would no longer be the coach at Auburn was a big, big deal."

Gene Stallings
"It sort of surprised me a little bit, for him at that particular time to announce his retirement. You're worried more with what your team does, not what the other team does. So I tried to build my team up, and didn't really worry about Auburn or who was coaching at Auburn. I'm sure I mentioned it, but I did not make a big deal out of it."

Chris Donnelly
"I remember being at the hotel and hearing about it. I remember the coaches and players and everybody saying 'let's not let that be a distraction.'"

Derrick Oden, Alabama linebacker (1988-92)
"With him announcing his retirement, that was huge motivating for his team to send him out on top. But at the same time too, huge motivation for us to send him out on bottom. You want to see a guy succeed, as long as it's not against you. That was one of the hardest-played games of the season."

Kevin Lee
"A lot of guys on the Auburn team were teammates of ours in high school. We wanted to go down with the bragging rights. When coach Dye announced he was retiring, you know the intensity is going to be high. ... And our defense was determined to shut them down anyway. We fought hard. Offense didn't do too much. We only won 17-0."

Eric Curry, Alabama defensive end (1988-92)
"I always had a great game against Auburn. I loved playing against Auburn. I got up for that game. I was really animated and hyped up to go into that game and shut that rivalry talk down."

John Copeland
"We had this play, they called it 'Hound Dog.' And I was the hound dog. When they called 'Hound Dog,' I could line up anywhere I wanted to on the line of scrimmage. So when they called it, they also called a 'defensive line game' with it, which means me and another defensive line could run a stunt or whatever it may be. So I thought, 'yeah, why not me and Eric, let's just do that.' So I lined up on Eric's side, and Eric opened that thing wide open for me. I never got touched. So when I hit Stan, I was going full-speed."

Lemanski Hall
"Stan White didn't have a chance that day. We were all over his butt. Copeland knocked him out. Curry had hits on him. We all had hits on him. It was a long day for him."

Eli Gold
"Gene Stallings and other coaches have said, 'you play all 70, 80, 90 plays in the ball game, for the right to play those five or six plays that make the difference. And that was certainly the case with Antonio."

Bill Oliver, Alabama defensive assistant (1990-95)
"When (Langham) was young and getting started. ... I caught him coming off the field and told him, 'you keep going like you're going, you're going to be back up there digging ditches, pouring concrete. You've got a certain amount of ability, and you're not using it. I don't know what's going through your mind.' He'd be the first one to tell you about what I'm talking about. He took it from there. And took it to another level and another level and another level. ... Antonio was so coachable."

Chris Donnelly
"At halftime, it was 0-0. We were playing lights out on defense. Coach Oliver comes into the locker room at halftime. We were kind of sequestered away from the offense, over in our own side room. He came down from the press box, and he said 'guys, I can't ask you to play any better than you're playing right now. You're shutting them out. I can't ask you to play any better, but I'm gonna have to. We are gonna have to make a play to help our offense. Somebody in this room has to make a play, more than just stopping them. We have got to figure out a way to score on defense. We have to get a fumble; we have to get an interception. We have to help our offense or we're not going to win the game.'"

Victor Lockett, Alabama linebacker (1989-93)
"We started looking at ourselves over there, starting to think that we'd done this well all year, and we're not going to get to this point and let these jokers beat us. It was terrible if we did. If you win every other game but then lose to Auburn, that would have been terrible."

Derrick Oden
"At any point in time when the ball left the quarterback's hands, our defense, that's our ball. That was our thing. If it leaves your hand, quarterback, it's our ball. If that ball's in the air, you've got a bunch of hawks. If it wasn't Langham, it was Teague. If it wasn't Teague, it was Donnelly. If it wasn't Donnelly, it was (Tommy Johnson) or Sam or somebody. You had a bunch of ball hawks out there, that just wanted it and when that ball gets in our defense's hands, our defense turns into the offense."

Steve Busky, Alabama tight end (1988-92)
"I didn't sit down a whole lot when the defense was on the field, because you never knew what was going to happen with those playmakers we had on the field."

George Teague, Alabama defensive back (1989-92)
"Langham, I called him the sly fox. He always found a way to come up with the big play when no one was expecting it. I remember him always saying 'Teague, I'm going to make a play. You just watch.' He was a very confident guy. Stan White, Copeland had put him on his back a couple of times. I saw him laying there, and I knew it was just a matter of time before somebody was going to make a big play, we were going to make something happen on defense."

John Copeland
"We knew Langham was going to do something to turn this game around. He had done it so many times before. When I saw him pick the ball off, it was like 'here we go again.'"

Antonio Langham, Alabama cornerback (1990-93)
"I was going to drop to a certain point, in case something came to the flat, I would break on it and make a play. Well, what happens was, (Stan White) checks 'hot' because he thinks we're in man. ... When I see Stan, he went into that motion, I just took off."

Martin Houston, Alabama fullback (1988-92)
"When he jumped that pass, it was obviously going to be a score. And I was at the angle where I was at, I saw him at the break on the ball. And when he broke on it, the only question I had was would he stay in bounds, because he had to do that hop to regain his balance, but once he did I knew that there wasn't anybody from the Auburn side, that was going to be able to catch him. So it was a game breaker."

Antonio Langham
"I ain't lying, I didn't think I'm going to get there to make that play. I thought I'd probably get there to make a tackle. But when I broke on that thing and I went up to try and tip it with one hand, I saw it and I caught it and was like 'oh well, I'm out of here of here now.' (Auburn wide receiver) Orlando Parker had world-class speed. I was worried about him catching me from behind because I didn't know if anybody back there was blocking. I was thinking 'OK, you've got to turn on your jets.'"

Jeremy Nunley, Alabama defensive lineman (1989-93)
"Once we finish the Auburn game and we're going into the SEC championship game against Florida. Going into that one, it felt like it could be something special if you can pull that one out."

John Copeland
"The thing that weighed heavily on everybody's mind, though, was that SEC championship game. It had never happened before. Normally, if we beat Auburn, we're going to the national championship and that's the end of it. But we knew we had to play that game, and we knew what kind of opponent Auburn would be."

Roy Kramer, SEC commissioner (1990-2002)
"When I became commissioner in 1990, the presidents had been discussing (expansion) for a while. ... It was clear from the beginning that two that were particularly interested were South Carolina and Arkansas. The presidents voted unanimously to bring in those two schools that would bring us to the number 12. We were aware all along that by doing that, if we decided to do divisional play, that we could have a Southeastern Conference championship game. That rule was in the books, had been there for a long time, primarily for Division III schools. It had never been utilized by Division I schools."

Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal Constitution
"I loved the idea of playing a game to decide the championship. In 1989, you'd had three teams tied for the championship, and I didn't like that. So to have one game to decide the championship was really, really cool."

Roy Kramer
"Our coaches were pretty well convinced that that was the end of our opportunity to ever have a national championship team. A lot of sportswriters wrote columns to that effect, that this would be the death of the SEC. That very circ*mstance occurred that first year because Florida had two losses."

Tony Barnhart
"It was an incredible atmosphere, even though it was not a neutral atmosphere by any stretch of the imagination. Just the intensity of the game, the way it set up. When Florida's got the lead, you're thinking 'oh my goodness.' Commissioner Kramer said 'it was a most uncomfortable situation, right until the end."

Gene Stallings
"I was glad that we played the game. I wasn't sure we would have an opportunity to play for the national championship if we did not beat Florida. You always look forward to the game. ... I felt like if we did not play that game, we might not have an opportunity to play for the national championship."

Chris Donnelly
"At the beginning of the season, when I knew they were having a championship, I was like 'hey, that would be fun. It would be great to play in it. It would be awesome.' But when we got to it, we had everything to lose, and nothing to gain. And Florida was just the opposite. The fear was, we could lose this game and really come away with no SEC championship, no shot at the national championship. So there was a lot of pressure on us."

Roger Shultz
"I think everyone was nervous about Florida because that was the last loss they had. And it wasn't just a loss. They beat the crap out of us down there."

Derrick Oden
"We remembered what Florida did to us the year before. When you get whipped like we did down there in 'The Swamp,' it stays with you."

Prince Wimbley
"It was mixed emotions. First off, I was like 'why didn't y'all have this game last year? Now we don't want it. Let's cancel this game.' That's basically it. With that said, we knew it was a lot of pressure on the SEC and a lot of pressure on Alabama. Florida didn't have any pressure on them. ... If we lost that game, we're out of the national championship game."

Roy Kramer
"As the commissioner, you have to remain neutral, and if (Alabama were to lose), well that's what happened. Our coaches would have really been waving the flag, so to speak. But as it turned out, it did not happen."

Matt Hammond, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-93)
"For us, it was certainly an opportunity at redemption. They'd embarrassed us badly the year before. We're ranked No. 2 at that point. You're thinking 'crap, if we're ranked No. 2 in any other season, we'd be going into the bowl right now.' It was an opportunity for us to redeem ourselves against Florida. And we had a chance to be a part of history with the inaugural game."

Steve Busky
"If we lose were out of the national championship. But man a lot of us wanted redemption from that butt-whippin' they gave us. A lot of guys in that locker room wanted redemption."

Chris Anderson, Alabama running back (1990-93)
"We were frustrated. The year before, we didn't have that. We were like 'why are you doing this to us now?' We didn't have to do it last year, because you went straight to the Sugar Bowl and didn't have to play another game."

George Teague
"Coach Spurrier, the wide receiver crew that they had, that high-powered offense they had, it was depressing that we were going to have to go do it one more time. I wasn't the happiest of guys, and I don't think our team was happy that we were going to have to go do it one more time to try to get to the Big Dance."

Lemanski Hall
"Obviously you want to get them get them back because embarrassed us down at their place. But the other thing was, 'why are we playing this game?' We've got an undefeated record, we should just get right to the national championship game. But what an opportunity. To say we were the first team to play in the SEC title game. And looking back on it now, we were the first. But at the time, that wasn't a conversation."

Matt Hammond
"Looking back on it, I wouldn't have traded it. I guess winning it helps with that memory."

Antonio London, Alabama linebacker (1989-92)
"I don't know if I had blinders on, but it didn't bother me. I felt like 'OK, this is another game we have to play, to get to where we want to be. ... My thing was 'if you want to be the champion, we've got one more game to play. No big deal. It's on the schedule. There's nothing you can do about it. Let's go to work.'"

Sherman Williams, Alabama running back (1991-94)
"It was too cold to being playing football outside."

Joey McLeod, Alabama student trainer (1990-94)
"I wore shorts. It was superstition. I had worn shorts all year and we had won all year, so I had to wear them again. ... You've got to do what you've got to do. You can't change the routine."

Antonio London
"I remember thinking 'let's wrap this thing up, so we can get out of this freaking cold.'"

Derrick Lassic
"I tell everybody, my mom is from North Carolina, my dad is from Alabama. I was raised in New York, but I have Southern blood. I didn't like that cold weather. It was freezing. Every time you got hit, it hurt. The ball was hard as a rock. You landed on that turf, it was like landing on concrete. I remember one time, pretty early in the game, I fell on the ball and I thought I cracked a rib."

Prince Wimbley
"Our hands felt like bricks. The ground felt like concrete. But with that said, the adrenaline that we have going, knowing if we get through this game that we're gonna play for a national championship out-trumps everything."

Sam Shade, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"I think we were a little bit tight going into the game, because technically we had won the SEC regular season. The year before if we had done that, we would have just gone on and played somebody for the national championship in a bowl game. So I think we were a little bit tight because we knew what we had riding on the line. I think Florida was a little bit looser and I think they played that way."

Curtis Brown, Alabama wide receiver (1991-95)
"I scored a touchdown in that game. I remember the particular play when Jay called it, I just surveyed the field and already knew what was going to happen. Jay threw a perfect pass, and it landed right in my hands. It was a great feeling. It was the first SEC championship game, and it was a phenomenal feeling."

Antonio Langham
"We had just come out of a timeout, and we were coming back on the field. ... I'm talking to Copeland and Curry during the timeout and I'm like 'listen, Shane is good, but if they start throwing the ball on us, if ya'll can put pressure on him, he might just throw one out there. He's going to throw one at some point, if we can just put some pressure on him and force it."

Kevin Lee
"We're all trying to be coaches on the sidelines. Watch out for this, watch out for that! When he just bit on him and stepped in front, I raised my hand and said 'that's it. He got it. Boom!'"

Roger Shultz
"It's like if you're watching a baseball game and they get one run up and you've got a pitcher that's dealing. A one-run lead is like 10 runs. That's how it felt when Antonio scored. It was over."

George Wilson
"That just happened, and it was just AHHHHH. Everybody just at one time, super relief and happy."

Bryne Diehl
"I was trying to get warm. Shane throws it, and next thing you know, Langham makes a great break on it. And then, boom, boom. It's touchdown city. Unbelievable."

Jim Fuller
"That warmed it up."

Chris Donnelly
"We had worked on it all week, when the inside receiver runs a corner route, (Langham's) supposed to take it, help me on the corner route and then break up and make the tackle on the hitch. That's how we had done it in practice, because we don't want to give up a 17-yard gain when we can give up a 4-yard gain. ... Then all of a sudden, during that play, the ball is snapped and Langham doesn't move. He squats. Doesn't move. He just kind of squatted down and obviously, Shane never saw him. He had been so programmed that we were going to take away that corner route, that he just thought 'there's no way the corner route's open, I'm just gonna continue what they're giving me.' But Langham squats. I give him a hard time because he squatted. He didn't even move. Granted, when he intercepted it, he ran it in."

Antonio Langham
"I'm sure Donnelly will call me a squatter. Any time he's on the radio with Jay (Barker), every time this play comes up, he always says the same thing. 'I don't know why everybody gives Antonio so much credit -- he's nothing but a squatter.' We laugh about it. He calls me a squatter, which he's right on this play. I squatted on this one. I hung him out to dry bad. Usually, the key behind Cover 2 is to give a little ground and force the underneath route and then the safety makes the tackle and you line back up. Well, this particular time, I'm thinking 'I've been giving him help all day, but what if I just squat right and hope he throws it to me.' And that's what happened. I did, I squatted hard on that one. ... The way I was set up, I was right in behind the receiver. And he let it go. Most breaks come across (in front of the receiver), but I came from behind the receiver and then intercepted the ball. It was a play that was needed at that point in time."

Tony Barnhart
"To me, like everybody, it looked like Langham kind of dropped, and sat on the route. Now, I have since found out, coach Spurrier had seen the (SEC Network) documentary of the game where I among many others explained what had happened. What I said was that Shane regretted the fact that he didn't look off the safety more and leave more room. Coach Spurrier called me and said 'now Tony, that's not exactly what happened. Here's what happened.' And he verbally diagrammed it for me 25 years later. One of the Florida receivers -- one of the other guys, not the one the ball was going to -- had not gone deep enough in his route, which gave Langham the opportunity to pick the ball off. Shane Matthews fell on the sword for his team, but it wasn't all Shane's fault."

Sam Shade
"I was actually in coverage on the other side of the field and all I remember seeing was ... I heard the crowd and then I looked and saw him kind of running toward the end zone. I saw John Copeland get a huge block on one of the Florida receivers. He got a huge block and it was kind of history. I was like 'wow, Antonio, he just saved the day.'"

John Copeland
"I was getting double-teamed, so when I looked up and saw the ball thrown, I followed the ball. And Langham was on my side. When I saw him catch the ball, I thought the receiver was going to make the tackle. So I just sprinted to that guy. I knew if I blocked him, nobody was going to catch (Langham). And I was able to get there."

Jeremy Nunley
"Everybody laughs whenever it comes on, because the best tackle I never made was on Langham. I had to do the 'ole' bullfight maneuver to get out of his way. He was running in for the touchdown and I had to get out of his way. Everybody gets a kick out of that."

Antonio Langham
"Once I intercepted the ball, I cut back. And he was coming running, trying to get a block. If you look at the film, (Nunley is) sticking his hands up like 'please don't let me run into him.'"

Derrick Oden
"He picked it off, and I think there was one guy that had a chance to make the tackle but ... that was a touchdown. And I just I envision him going into the zone, with both hands in the air, with the ball in the air just kind of high-stepping over the goal line. You talk about defining moments."

Tommy Johnson
"I was at the safety spot. I was the guy bailing out of that thing trying to get deep. I remember him picking that thing off, and I felt like everybody in the stands came out of the stands onto the sideline."

Prince Wimbley
"I hear the crowd roar. I look up and 43 was taking it into the end zone, baby. I just threw up my helmet and ran and jumped on his back, wrestled him down and hugged him. We all went crazy."

George Teague
"That was probably the only play that I remember, because I was worried that the game was going to get away from us. Going back and forth. Just to hear the roar of the fans, to see the excitement. Seeing him intercept it, see him going into the end zone, throwing his hands up in the air, there is no feeling like that and to know that we'd just won the ball game, and overcoming all the things that had happened last year, and all the struggles, and worrying about playing the SEC championship game and not getting to play for the national championship, and then to have that happen at that moment, it just seemed so surreal. It's one of the best feelings I've ever had."

Chris Anderson
"It's one of the biggest plays in Alabama football history."

Victor Lockett
"Of course, you look back on it, it was the turning point. But in my mind it was like 'OK, we're about to win this game. Good night, Florida. God bless."

Tony Barnhart
"It is one of the most impactful plays in the history of the conference, because of the game, what was on the line, Alabama going on to win the national championship. Who knows what the history of the SEC championship would have been if Florida had won that game and knocked Alabama out of a shot at the national championship? I still think it would have gone on because Roy Kramer was a visionary. He could see the big picture. But there would have been a whole bunch of fussing, I promise you that."

Antonio Langham
"From what I've been told, Mr. Kramer was headed down to the field to talk to the officials about setting up the overtime. He was actually in the elevator at Legion Field when the interception happened. He heard the cheer and asked what happened. They told him 'Antonio intercepted the ball and ran it back for a touchdown.' He said 'y'all can close the door, it's probably over with now.'"

Roy Kramer
"I really thought the game was going to end in a tie. I had left the press box and gone down to the field because the (overtime) rule had just come into the picture. I wanted to make sure our officials had the right decisions made and so forth in case there was (overtime). I was actually down on the sideline when Alabama intercepted the pass."

Antonio Langham
"When the game was over when we were in the locker room, coach Stallings started to give his post-game speech and all our fans were gathered around right next to the buses were, right by our locker room. And they started chanting 'Roll Tide, Roll Tide.' And you could hear it. It was loud. It was so loud it was vibrating the walls. And coach Stallings couldn't concentrate. He finally said, 'hey man, I'll talk to y'all later, go out there and greet your fans.'"

Prince Wimbley
"We knew we were headed to New Orleans."

Part V -- Underdog Alabama throttles Miami in Sugar Bowl to win national championship

By Dec. 6, 1992, Alabama was 12-0 and had just beaten Florida in the inaugural SEC championship game.

Alabama was ranked No. 2 in the national polls, behind defending national champion Miami. Postseason match-ups between No. 1 and No. 2 were not guaranteed in those pre-BCS/College Football Playoff days, but because the Hurricanes were an independent and not tied into any bowl, they agreed to face the Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl on New Year's Day.

Miami had won four national championships in the previous eight years, claiming one of those titles by beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl after the 1989 season. The Crimson Tide, on the other hand, hadn't won a championship since 1979.

The Hurricanes were more than a touchdown favorite, and most national and even in-state analysts were calling for a Sugar Bowl rout. It turned out they were correct but picked the wrong team to win.

As Alabama prepared to travel to New Orleans for the Sugar Bowl, the team got some shocking news. Linebacker Michael Rogers, the Crimson Tide's second-leading tackler, was severely injured in a Christmas Eve car accident near Greenville.

Martin Houston, Alabama fullback (1988-92)
"That was really devastating when you when you hear it. The first thing is, is he going to be OK. And then once he's OK, after you figure that out. You start going, OK, what is that going to do to our defense. How's that going to impact our defense? He's one of our leaders; he's one of our generals, he's one of our playmakers on the defensive side of the ball."

Michael Rogers, Alabama linebacker (1990-94)
"I don't recall anything about it. And I really don't like to talk about it. I lost a friend in that accident."

Steve Busky, Alabama tight end (1988-92)
"That was very emotional. Michael and I were great friends. We had just seen each other you know before we went our way for break.... It was just it was a very sad day. It was very emotional too because he was such a good football player for us. He was a tackling machine there in the middle. But it was more of a personal (thing) him doing such a good friend of mine."

Sherman Williams, Alabama running back (1991-94)
"The car some way landed on his head, his head got crushed in the car. He had a lot of swelling on his brain while he was in the hospital, and they didn't know whether he was going to live or die."

Derrick Oden, Alabama linebacker (1988-92)
"Your heart just goes out, because you work so hard to get to a certain place in life and then you have a setback like that, or you get sidelined by an event like that. You can't take the human being out of the scenario because that was so much bigger than football."

Lemanski Hall, Alabama linebacker (1989-93)
"We knew that Mario Morris was his back-up. Mario played a lot all year. And you had John Walters who is a young guy who played all year long. So we weren't worried about who's the next guy."

Mario Morris, Alabama linebacker (1990-93)
"I remember getting a call. My stomach just dropped. This is my teammate. This is a guy I'm spending 12, 16 hours a day, a guy I came in with in the same class, so very close to. I was really concerned about him, and at the same time, they're asking me questions about 'so what does that mean for you? Are you ready to step up?' For us, it's next man up, but having torn feelings about your teammates trying to figure out."

Sherman Williams
I remember Mike coming back and being an inspiration for us on the sideline (at the Sugar Bowl). ... Just to see Mike come out there on that field, and on that sideline, it made us feel like, if Mike could survive, we could do anything. That gave us a push and momentum, whenever you have a situation like that. The team rallied allowed the situation."

Curtis Brown, Alabama wide receiver (1991-95)
We wanted to win that game for him. He was one of the leading tacklers all year. It hurt us to see him on the sideline going through what he was going through and couldn't play."

Michael Rogers
"It was tough and I was still heavily medicated. I probably should have watched it from the stands. But I was there."

Martin Houston
I don't think Michael ever got back to what he was before that wreck, unfortunately."

As Alabama prepared for the Sugar Bowl, defensive coordinator Bill Oliver and his staff concocted a defensive scheme that would become legendary. To counterattack Miami's quick-strike passing attack, Oliver determined that the best course of action would be to put all 11 defenders on or near the line of scrimmage before the snap of the ball.

Charles Hollis, Birmingham News Alabama beat writer (1984-93)
"You're wondering what's going on here? Is this some sort of specialty? After practice, maybe toward the end of the week, before they left for New Orleans you see Bill Oliver or (defensive line coach) Mike DuBose, and you say 'what's going on here?' I can remember Mike DuBose saying 'what's going on here is, we're not going to really talk about it.'

Chris Donnelly
"We had tinkered around with it a little bit before we went on our Christmas break, but really hadn't officially put all 11 on the line. When we get back and go down to New Orleans, coach Oliver starts drawing it up and we're looking like 'what's he drawing?'"

George Teague, Alabama defensive back (1989-93)
"At first, I think we were all going 'what the hell are we doing?' You can hear coach Oliver saying 'I'm telling you, it's going to work.' We repped it over and over and over in secret, just so no one would have any idea what we were going to be doing."

Bill Oliver, Alabama defensive coach (1990-95)
"People call it the 11-man line. Hell, it wasn't an 11-man line. We had three linemen, one linebacker and seven DBs. We borrowed a guy from the offense. Eric Turner came from the offense. ... Lemanski Hall was the one linebacker. (James) Gregory was the nose guard. Gregory never got the credit he really deserved because the two ends that we had. Gregory occupied three people. They occupied one. ... I had done it when I left the USFL, and combined it with some things, and did it at Clemson. ... It was basically used against forms of the spread."

Sam Shade, Alabama safety (1991-94)
"There were times with coach Oliver, where we were in the game, and somebody would come out in a certain formation and it would be a certain down and distance or whatever, and you would know what the play was going to be. He would study people and he would break them down to the point where he would tell you what plays they were going to run against us. That made the game a little easier."

Charles Hollis
"I think Oliver will go down as the best defensive coordinator in our lifetime. He's just one of those guys that had this knack for making an offense play left-handed."

Chris Donnelly
"College coaches are probably some of the most paranoid people you can be around. They're nervous and scared that somebody else is watching their practice, filming their practice. They always think somebody else is cheating. Oliver was worried about showing that in our practice because we were practicing in the Superdome in New Orleans. There were all kinds of people there, and you couldn't tell who was with whom. So coach was adamant about never showing it. So we what did, as a defensive backfield, we'd line up where we were supposed to line up. On the other side of the field, the linebackers were going over where they were supposed to line up. And they're showing the linemen. But we never did it as a complete group together on the field."

John Copeland, Alabama defensive end (1991-92)
"I had no idea until I saw (the Sugar Bowl) film. I had all these people asking me 'why did y'all put 11 men on the line.' I didn't know what they were talking about. I'm a lineman. Once the ball is snapped, I'm locked in. I've got my hand on the ground and I'm locked in on my guy. So I don't know what's going on behind me. But when I saw the film, I thought it was pretty impressive."

After breaking for Christmas, Alabama's players re-convened in New Orleans on Dec. 26. In the days leading up to the game, the Crimson Tide players had numerous public run-ins with Miami players, led by brash wide receiver Lamar Thomas and outspoken linebacker Rohan Marley (the son of reggae legend Bob Marley).

Prince Wimbley, Alabama wide receiver (1988-92)
"Prior to going down to New Orleans, you get a chance to go home, a couple of days to be with your family before we have to meet in New Orleans. A lot of those guys I went to high school with and played Little League Football with. There was so much trash-talking going on. They're saying it's going to be a reenactment of a couple of years prior. Y'all don't have a chance. Just talking all kind of crazy stuff. I kind of just let them talk. And said 'I'll see y'all Jan. 1. We'll talk then.'"

Matt Hammond, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-93)
"Any time we encountered them out and about they started running their mouths. I really think it shocked them when the trash talk didn't affect us the way it had some of their previous opponents."

George Wilson, Alabama offensive lineman (1988-92)
"Were they arrogant? Were they co*cky? Yes. Did they win? Yes. Did they have great teams? Yes. Were they athletic? Yes. Did they have great coaching? Yes. The bottom line, they got results."

Jay Barker, Alabama quarterback (1990-94)
"We went out a couple of nights, and a couple of times their guys tried to pick fights with some of our guys. We all met as a team and said 'look, let's not go out. Let's go to the dinners and the things we have to do as a team, but let's get back to the hotel and spend more time with film. Let's get a great night's sleep. We have the rest of our life to enjoy this, and the rest of our lives to party and to come back down to New Orleans to remember the victory.'"

Willie Gaston, Alabama defensive back (1991-94)
"That first night we got there, after we had the meeting and everything, everybody went to their room, checked in and everything. We went down to Bourbon Street."

John Copeland
"If Miami had kept their damn mouths shut, it might have been a different ball game. But they got to running off at the mouth, and they didn't realize they were talking to some big dogs too."

Lemanski Hall
"I remember walking down Bourbon Street and seeing all the Miami guys, Rohan Marley and those guys talking trash. It was a heated exchange on Bourbon Street and that thing went through the media during the week when we were talking to the media. And then it just exploded on the game. Those guys talking trash, that's what they do -- that's Miami."

Sherman Williams
"We almost got into a fight three or four times. They thought they were going to intimidate us, but they couldn't. That made us want to just go out there and beat them worse."

Willie Gaston
"We didn't know Miami was down there. As we were coming down Bourbon Street, Miami was coming back up Bourbon Street. They'd already been out. So all of a sudden, we see them coming up the street, so they just stop in the middle of the street. They literally blocked off one side. So we come down, and we block off the other side. There were no people in between us. And I think we were maybe the equivalent of 10 yards apart."

Eric Curry, Alabama defensive end (1988-92)
"They were calling us country boys and we were not going to be competitive with them. We were a lesser team and the Miami mystique and all that. We had heard enough of that man. They woke up a sleeping giant."

Willie Gaston
"So Rohan Marley walks out and says 'Oh, so y'all finally decide to show up, huh?' Nobody said a word we just we all just looked. 'He said, we don't know why y'all came, you might as well give us the trophy now. Go on back to Alabama.' Lamar Thomas said 'ain't no running team gonna beat us. How y'all gonna beat us? We've got the best defense in the country. How y'all gonna beat us?' Nobody said a word. So then, (Ryan) McNeil, who was a corner, just shook his head and was like 'so do we just get the trophy now? Or do y'all want to take this ass-whipping later? Which one?' Nobody said anything. So they started walking up, we started walking up. Next thing you know New Orleans PD was everywhere. Coach Stallings had told us, 'you get caught in a confrontation, you're gone.' We weren't go fall into their trap of doing all that trash talking. Because we knew who the better team was."

Roosevelt Patterson, Alabama offensive lineman (1989-93)
"(Rohan Marley), I've got to give it to him. He was tough. You could knock him down and he would keep coming back. He called me out in the French Quarter. He and Prince Wimbley got in each other's faces -- Prince was from Miami -- so I got in between them. I told them, 'come kickoff, we'll find out who the best team is. This isn't where it needs to be. We'll find out (Friday) night.' He stepped in and said 'WHO? ARE? YOU? Fat 'beep, beep, beep.' I told him 'you will remember 77.'"

Prince Wimbley
"If you know me, you know I'm gonna talk trash. With that said, I think back in 1989, I was more of trash-talker as a younger player, just mixing it up down there. Now I'm older, more mature. I was more or less the mediator, if you can believe that, trying to tell my guys 'hey guys, let's get back. Don't do anything stupid, and we'll take care of business on the field."

Curtis Brown
"Long story short, after that, coach Stallings put curfews on us and we focused and were determined to whup that butt. And that's what we did."

New Year's Day 1993 was a Friday, and the war of words continued in public and through the media throughout the week. Except a few national reporters and analysts -- notably Arizona sportswriter Corky Simpson and ESPN handicapper Norm Hitzges -- just about everyone was calling for a Sugar Bowl coronation for Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Gino Torretta and the Hurricanes.

Antonio Langham, Alabama cornerback (1990-93)
"(ESPN's) Chris Fowler was trying to get something out of me. He was like 'man, Alabama players are so disciplined. We can't get y'all to say anything. Every Miami player we get in here, they're talking so much so noise. Lamar Thomas is in here saying Alabama's secondary is not real men because they don't play man-to-man. Rohan Marley, he's saying this.' I'm sitting there, smoke is coming out of my nose, out of my ears, out of my mouth. I'm steaming hot. I'm going to blow my lid. So I'm like 'Chris, you know what man? I'm so tired of Miami. They have to see us. We're going to kick it off. We're the underdogs. First of all, with Rohan Marley, he only comes in the game on third down. He comes in on passing downs. So if we keep on first and second down all night, he'll never get to play. And furthermore, sometimes people write a check that their behind can't cash.' And when it came out, I knew it was the wrong thing to say. When I said it, he started smiling and his eyes got big, he just said 'yes!' He looked at the cameraman and said 'shut it off, that's it.' Coach Stallings was hot about that the next day."

John Copeland
"We didn't have anything to lose. They're the great Miami, the dynasty, the team of the decade. We're little ole bitty Alabama. We were just playing carefree."

Norm Hitzges, ESPN college football analyst
"Miami was a very, very good football team. Nobody wanted to pick against Alabama. It had been a while since they'd lost, but it had been a while since Alabama lost. Everybody wanted to like them, because they're the defending champion for heaven's sakes. What's not to like? Sometimes the betting public likes terms like 'defending champ' and 'Heisman Trophy winner' or 'incredible offense.' And yet with Alabama -- if I could pick one asset to have, it would be to have the best defense in college football."

Willie Gaston
"We watched all their film, it was like 'they're so overrated. They were so overrated.' They were living off the Miami mystique that you can't beat Miami. And when we watched them on film and saw how everybody was playing, we knew we had the game won."

Joey McLeod, Alabama student trainer (1990-94)
"There was a moment that Lamar Thomas came through and set all his rings on the counter for an ESPN interview. Talked about how he had a thumb just waiting on his next one. And that afternoon, it seemed to me that everything just sort of turned up. I called my dad after that practice and that's when I told him 'we're going to win this. I have no doubt.' It was like a switch turned on. I just remember the guys talking about Miami's arrogance. We're Alabama, you don't do that to us. They felt disrespected."

Bryne Diehl, Alabama punter (1991-94)
"I see this picture and it's us before the ball game. Whites on offense and reds on defense. The day before the championship game. We knew then, it was over. They had no chance whatsoever. I felt like a belt had wrapped around the team. I knew it was special then."

Norm Hitzges
"I just couldn't believe that Miami was made more than a touchdown favorite against Alabama. I was stunned when I saw that line. Just stunned. You have certain things you go by and one them is that, if there is a better defensive team and a running team, and that team is getting points in a game, that for me is an almost automatic take. Alabama was better defensively, and better at running the football, and I'm getting significant points. Holy cow, holy cow."

Gene Stallings
"The team was ready to perform. They played at a high level. I couldn't worry about Miami. Miami has a reputation of swagger and so forth, but we were down there to do a job. We could run the football against anybody and we could stop the run and play defense. I felt like we had a better football team. Anybody that would listen, that's what I said. Nobody paid attention to me, but that's what I said."

Derrick Lassic, Alabama running back (1988-92)
"Coach Stallings and that reporter were probably the only two people outside of our fans and ourselves that felt like we had a chance at the national championship."

Corky Simpson, Tucson Citizen sports writer
"I'm the worst predictor in the history of the world. I picked New England to beat the Chicago Bears one time in the Super Bowl, and I think the Bears beat them 46-10. I always pick the underdog, so I very rarely win anything. However, this time in '92, I did pick the underdog and Alabama wound up winning 13 games and the national championship.

Roy Kramer, SEC commissioner (1990-2002)
"They were definitely an underdog going into the Miami game. Miami had gotten great press that year. Torretta was well-known as an outstanding quarterback, and Miami did have an outstanding football team. But on that day in the Sugar Bowl, Alabama was really a dominant football team. They really were. Alabama really showed they deserved to be in that game."

Derrick Oden
"Torretta was the kind of guy, he could throw the ball when he's not pressured. A lot of what Miami did was just a quick routes, quick routes, quick routes. And the reason they had the open quick routes, because the defenses they played against respected them too much."

Tommy Johnson
"I do remember those guys on the field, the receivers jogging by and going 'I'm gonna burn you, I'm gonna burn you, oh yeah, I'm gonna definitely burn you.' I remember that kind of trash talk going on. They were a very co*cky group of guys."

Martin Houston
"It was so funny because all you hear is 'man, if you guys can't run the ball, you can't beat Miami. I was like 'have you watched us play all year? If we couldn't run the ball, we wouldn't beat anybody."

Jay Barker
"For me, when we came out of the tunnel, I don't even remember feeling my feet hit the ground. That's how the emotions were. I'm a kid from Birmingham, Alabama, who grew up a huge Alabama fan. From the time I'm old enough to play football, I'm telling people 'I'm going to play football for Alabama, and I'm going to win a national championship.' And here it is, happening."

Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution sports writer
"I just remember wondering how they were going to slow down Gino Torretta and that passing game. He just had weapons all over the field, and they were great defensively. They just had so much going for them. But once the game started, you could see 'Alabama's got a plan, particularly on defense.' They have got a plan to make Gino Torretta's life miserable. They just couldn't move the ball on them.

Charles Hollis
"They opened the game with about 10 or 11 guys at the line of scrimmage and it was a big risk with the speed Miami had at wide receiver and Torretta, the Heisman Trophy winner, just knowing that he's got man coverage. But they were really playing zone. He was intercepted three times. He might have completed something like 23 passes, but he threw something like 32 incomplete passes."

Chris Donnelly
"The first time we did it, when we lined up, I was over the guard, standing up over the guard. John Copeland got was down in his stance, and he looked up and saw me and then kind of looked back like 'what the ... What are you doing?' I said 'don't worry about it. Do your job.'"

Hootie Ingram, Alabama athletic director (1990-95)
"I was going up the elevator with the defensive coaches before the game. And Brother (Oliver) told one of the other defensive coaches, 'let's hold that off til the second half, and see what happens.' We got off the elevator and I made a smart-aleck remark, I told Brother 'I knew you'd lose your guts and wouldn't run that defense.' And he looked at me like he wanted to hit me. We went in there and the first play of the game we were lined up in that defense. First play of the game, they got a delay penalty because they were so startled with what they saw. That first play of them just being shook about what they saw, and what they hadn't seen before, I think that got them off base before even the ball was snapped one time. I wasn't coaching, I was just jawing with my friend."

Antonio London
"When you take a team you're supposed to beat -- they're supposed to be inferior to you -- and they challenge your manhood, I think that was a problem for them."

George Teague
"Gino took the snap and started going backwards and actually fell down on the ground without anybody touching. I know that's the point when everybody on defense was like 'OK, let's tighten up these screws.' We were going to shut them down. He was falling down on his own. We didn't even have to hit him. From there, we rolled."

Tommy Johnson
The first time we lined up with 11 men on the line, Torretta looked like he had lost his mind. He called a timeout and everything. When he started calling timeouts, like he didn't know what we were doing, we knew we had them then. No doubt. It was a done deal."

Jeremy Nunley, Alabama defensive lineman (1989-93)
"I remember the first play of the game, we all got up on the line of scrimmage, Gino Torretta's eyes looked like two saucers. He was definitely freaked out."

John Copeland
"I know that look, because I've seen it so many times. It just surprised me that I saw it from a Heisman Trophy winner. And you can tell, if you go back and watch that game, he was throwing that ball so fast. He didn't want to get hit by me and Eric. He was getting rid of that damn ball. He didn't care who caught it. I told him, 'hold the damn ball man, you keep throwing it to us.' I wanted to get a sack in the national championship game."

Bryne Diehl
"They had no running game. Well, let me rephrase that. They might have had a running game, but they weren't going to run on us."

Bill Oliver
"We knew that Torretta didn't want to run the ball. He ran it one time for a first down. We ran (the 11-man-on-the-line defense) 19 times. We got hurt one time when Torretta pulled it down and ran it for about nine yards. You can live with that."

Eli Gold
"When I do freelance work, I do other college games and NFL games, one of my color men was Gino Torretta. ... I remember him telling me 'when they brought those 11 guys up to the line of scrimmage, I just froze for a bit. I wasn't quite sure how to proceed.' So Bama had some great ideas, some great offensive and defensive plays, and players. As it turned out, it really wasn't that close of a ball game."

Bill Oliver
"Torretta and I played in a pro-am tournament in Pensacola ... We're sitting at the same table. He didn't know who I was. ... (Tournament host) Jimmy Lee was asking Torretta 'you know who that is?' and pointed at me. We'd eaten together and he didn't realize who I was. He said 'that's one of the defensive coaches when y'all played in the Sugar Bowl.' God dang, here he comes, he weaved through four or five people and said 'Man, y'all came out in that thing with all of them lined up on the line. I go to the sideline and I get on the phone, I call upstairs 'Hello? Hello? Nobody would answer. Is anybody up there?' He said 'Hello!?!' About that time a coach came on and said 'yeah, Gino.' 'What are they doing out there?!?" He said 'Gino, just wait a couple more series, we'll help you and find out and let you know.' He said 'Hell, the game will be over by then.'"

Alabama's defense shut down the Hurricanes, forcing three turnovers -- including an interception return for a touchdown in the third quarter by Teague. Meanwhile, the Crimson Tide running game -- led by Sugar Bowl Most Outstanding Player Derrick Lassic -- was having a great day as well, building leads of 13-6 at halftime and 27-6 by the end of the third quarter on the way to a 34-13 victory.

Martin Houston
I told people, we're like the 18-wheeler and they're like the Corvette. If we try to outrun them, we're in trouble, but if we run right at them, we can beat them. And that's what we did. We were able to run straight at them, get them out in space and force them to make tackles. I think Lassic had 100-plus yards in the first half.

Derrick Lassic
"On film, when we saw Miami, we gained more and more confidence offensively, because we knew that their run defense was suspect. They were very quick off the ball, so we had to run some counters, run some misdirection plays. They were bigger and stronger than our offensive line, so we had to put our offensive linemen in situations where they could win, or have some success, and counters gave us the best opportunity. So we're just killing them with counters."

Jim Fuller, Alabama offensive line coach (1984-96)
"We were not a trapping team, but we put in a couple of traps for the game to run up the middle. And as it turned out, (center) Tobie Shiels at center just played a great ball game."

George Wilson
"We're able to move the football. We're able to run the football, and protect the football. And the defense started making some plays, and things started happening pretty rapidly."

Kevin Lee
"We threw the ball maybe nine times the whole game. So you know that was a downer (for the receivers). I told the guys, 'strap up, let's block.' We knew how that was going to go. We were going to introduce the run."

Roosevelt Patterson
"What stands out to Roosevelt Patterson is pulling out, going down field, blocking two or three guys, going downfield and scoring touchdowns, making way for Derrick and Sherman. Those Miami guys were looking to the sideline going 'coach, pull me, pull me.' I was loving that, man. I was loving that. I love going downfield and taking it to the little DBs. My eyes got big. I was like a kid in a candy store."

Steve Busky
"We knew they were going to do certain things, they did them, and we just executed. We had fun doing it. That was the thing. We had fun whippin' that ass, that day."

Derrick Lassic
"I didn't think it was going to be the blowout it was. It was 34-13, but it wasn't that close. Kevin Williams had a punt return, but they didn't score any (touchdowns) offensively. They scored two field goals. We could have scored a couple of more times. One time we had to settle for a field goal, I think because of me spinning the ball. I'd never done that in the game. I just instinctively did that, thinking I was in the end zone."

Willie Gaston
"Oliver's philosophy was 'you don't cover grass. You cover people.' So when you look at it on film, you try to understand, why? And then when you look at it, all our defensive backs were interchangeable. You could take Sam put him at corner, take Tommy and put him at safety. We all knew each position."

Tommy Johnson
"I happened to be in the right place at the right. I got to blitz a couple of times. I got the only sack of that game. I got an interception. I got quite a few tackles, quite a few pass breakups. It's just because of where I was placed in the defense, I believe."

George Teague
"I had my whole routine what I was going to do when I scored my interception for a touchdown. You dream of something like that happening. The high-step, I don't really even know where that came from. The emotions just got going. My plan was actually to do the Heisman pose, but I could never get that off because we were celebrating and having fun."

Jay Barker
"I've never heard or felt the electricity I felt that night inside that stadium. It had been 13 years since we'd won a championship, and Alabama fans wanting to get back and play for it and be a part of that, and another generation had heard about it or read about it, and now was getting a chance to experience it for themselves. They made it a special night."

Of course, the most famous play of the 1993 Sugar Bowl came midway through the third quarter, with Alabama leading 27-6. Facing 2nd-and-11 from his own 11, Miami quarterback Gino Torretta flung the ball to the speedy Lamar Thomas, who broke into the clear and seemed destined for an 89-yard touchdown. But then George Teague entered the picture.

Chris Donnelly
"George and I were roommates on the road. ... We had six or seven hours to kill, just standing in the room. We're watching TV and all the coverage is 'stay tuned tonight for the national championship game.' And we're talking about it, I remember saying to him 'man, what if you could make a play in this game, you'd always be remembered for?'"

Willie Gaston
"I knew it was a crucial play in the game. Tommy had an interception the drive before, then Teague picks off another one and scores. We were in a man over the top (coverage), what we called 'two-man technique' where the corner plays man, everybody plays under the receiver and lets the receiver go, but if he turns make any cut, you play under it because you have to safety help over the top. Just so happened on the play, Teague did not get over the top."

George Teague
"Willie Gaston is absolutely correct. He was supposed to have my help over the top. It was a two-man coverage, where the guy underneath plays man and then the safety is supposed to help on anything over the top. I had so much confidence that our guys were going to be able to handle it and make a play and I needed a rest. This was just after the touchdown, and I was loafing. I was loafing."

Chris Donnelly
"We break the huddle, and George went to the wrong side. We got flipped. I'm at one safety and he's at the other, and we lined up on the wrong side. It was OK, because we both should know how to play both sides. But the ball is snapped, and if you notice, George thought it was a different coverage. He messed up. Willie thought he had some help behind him."

Willie Gaston
"You know how most quarterbacks throw a fade route, throw the ball over the shoulder. So I look up, looking for the ball over the shoulder, and Torretta threw the ball on a line drive. And when I looked up the ball went right across my face. When I saw it go across my face, I tried to reaching and grab Lamar. Lamar leaned out towards the sideline and caught it, and he just kept going."

Antonio Langham
"George was so caught up in trying to make a play, that when they run down the sideline, George instead of taking an angle at the meet point, where the ball is going to drop in, he just flat-lined. He called himself Glue. I'm like 'no, no, no, no Glue.' And then he catches and I see George turn up. I started chasing, but I said to myself, 'I'm so far on the other side of the field. I don't care what angle I have, I won't get there.' I said 'uh oh,' this one's over with."

Mario Morris
"Lamar Thomas was gone. I mean he was absolutely gone."

Willie Gaston
"When Lamar caught it, I had nothing left in the tank. But I couldn't stop because I was like 'if I stop I would never touch this field ever again.' So I have to keep running to make it look good. So Teague comes flying past me and I became the biggest George Teague fan that ever lived. Because I'm running behind Teague saying 'get him Teague, get him.'"

John Copeland
"When Teague goes down and catches that guy, I'm thinking 'OK, we've got another chance.' But then he takes the ball, and that's the best play I've seen, ever."

Antonio Langham
"I see George start running. You could tell when George was in top-end speed because his head would fall back and his arms would go across his body like he's fighting. I'm talking about, he was digging. Lamar kept running, looking back over his shoulder, like he was gone. I see George closing in, and I'm like 'go get him, Glue. Go get him.'"

Steve Busky
"It was just like a leopard or something ... a cheetah. He was just closing and closing."

George Teague
"He went streaking down the sideline and I saw Willie slide out of bounds, and that was my 'holy crap' moment. I was out of position and it was my fault. I know the play probably only took six seconds, but in that short amount of time, I saw my life flashing before me. When I go back to the sideline, coach Stallings is probably going to rip my facemask off. My teammates are going to be pissed off, wondering what I was doing. So then I went back to my track background and thinking 'how am I going to go catch this guy?' I put all that together in four or five seconds, and then decided, 'well, I'm going to catch him.'"

Sherman Williams
"If it was just somebody like the tight end, some big, old dumpy dude rumbling down the field, if Teague does that, it's not that big a deal. But you're talking about a guy that is supposed to be the fastest guy in the whole NCAA."

George Teague
"And then I catch him, so now what? Strip him. That went back to all those things we had been taught daily on how to strip the ball. That was really the goal, just to get the ball on the ground. But lo and behold, somehow, I ripped the ball downward, and it went up into my face. Just natural instinct after that, just grab it, throw the guy out of the way, turn around and start running. That was all God's moment right there."

Bill Oliver
"It happened so fast, and then all of a sudden he's turning around and running the other way with it. He was trying to, all in one stroke, rake the ball out. The thing stuck between his wrist and palm and the muscle of his forearm. He pulled it out, turned around and started to run with it."

Charles Hollis
"You're thinking 'holy ... expletive!' And you're trying to watch a replay. ... It's one of those plays you can watch a lot of football games and never see that happen."

Derrick Oden
"If you glance around the crowd, to my left was the Miami bench, and it was predominantly Miami fans behind them. They were just in shock and awe. And then you glance around and you see Alabama fans in shock and awe. And they're just kind of talking back and forth amongst each other like 'did that just happen?'"

Tony Barnhart
"How many times have you seen that? I've been doing this for 40 years. I don't think I've seen that done another time. A lot of guys can knock that ball loose, but to scoop it out?"

George Wilson
"I don't consider it a fluke. That was how Teague played."

Antonio Langham
"When he came down with his arm and the ball popped out, I saw him snatch it away and start running. I started waving him to me, so I could throw a block. It was amazing. He was laying on the ground and I was trying to pull him up. He was like 'I'm cramping, I'm cramping.' They took him over there and put the oxygen mask on."

Bryne Diehl
"I ran out on the field and grabbed him and said 'hey man, are you all right?' He said 'get me to the sideline, I'm give out.'"

George Teague
"I was dead. I think that might have been the first time I had to have oxygen on the sideline. I always laughed about the linemen putting that thing on their face, but I had to have it. I was gassed, so tired."

You can watch the 1993 Sugar Bowl in its entirety below. The famous Teague play takes place at the 1:42:50 mark:

Sam Shade
"After George made that play, I was running right over to Lamar to say 'All right, what about it now? You were talking all that noise before the game. What's up now?' I was running toward him, instead of George to celebrate."

Prince Wimbley
"When he made that play, I could have gotten a penalty because I threw my helmet. I was the first one out there. I'm on his back choking him, and he couldn't even breathe."

Jeremy Nunley
"I actually got my helmet ripped off on that play by Mario Cristobal. He ripped my helmet off, got his hand up in my facemask and just about ripped my nose off. I was trying to figure out where I was at, because he got a finger up one of my nostrils. I had a bloody nose. That's basically what I remember about that one."

Antonio Langham
"And then coach Stallings said 'hey man, we need you back on the field. We were offsides."

Eric Curry
"First of all, the play didn't even count. London always jumped offsides, oh my God. He'd probably get mad at me for saying that."

Antonio London
"Hold on, now. Timeout. Wait a minute. Let me defend myself. First of all, I always remind Teague that had it not been for me, he would not be remembered the way he is. Because the flag was thrown, Torretta just decided to throw the ball up. You've got a free play. That's not really true, but that's what I tell him. It wasn't a jump, it wasn't a flinch, I lined up in the neutral zone."

Antonio Langham
"We lined back up; everybody's looking at him. Everybody in the huddle was laughing. He was frustrated that everybody was laughing at him. We were like 'we're used to it London. You're all right, buddy.'"

John Copeland
"Still today, he still has to hear about that. One of the best plays in college football history doesn't count because his ass jumped offsides."

Eli Gold
"Although the play didn't count, it took that nail and knocked it deeper into the coffin. Even though it didn't count, we all know it happened. That was just another knockdown of the Hurricanes that night."

Jay Barker
"We stripped them of their title, we stripped of their co*ckiness, we stripped them of their antics, and this was Alabama football doing it the traditional way. To me it was more than just stripping the football, we stripped a lot more from Miami that night."

Sam Shade
"I tell young guys about that play to this day. George Teague caused more fumbles in practice than anybody that I ever saw, even in pro ball. He was always punching at the ball, stripping it, ripping at it."

Lamar Thomas (to South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1997)
"You know what I think that play should be used for? It should be a lesson to all receivers. Show it to them all. Let them learn from it."

George Teague
"When I first signed with the Dolphins, the picture in the Miami Herald wasn't of me in a Green Bay Packers uniform, it was of me stripping the ball from Lamar Thomas. It strained our relationship right from the beginning because it brought up old memories. I had been playing against him twice a year because he was at Tampa and we were in the same division. He was always trying to take my knees out. Once we got there, it was an every-day deal, not necessarily between he and I, but our teammates, anytime I walked in the locker room, some player would inevitably say 'watch out Lamar, Teague's behind you.' During one-on-ones, 'watch out Lamar, Teague's coming.' It was always some smart-aleck remark that brought that up."

Tommy Johnson
"I was coaching down in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, and the (college) coaches are coming in for recruiting visits during the spring. And in walks the receivers coach from Kentucky and it's Lamar Thomas. I'm sitting there talking to him and he's like 'yeah, you played at Bama. Man, I played at Miami.' I'm going 'yeah, I know, we played against each other in the championship game.' He said 'I can't live down that strip, you know.' We talked for a little while. He said 'a lot of people don't remember the first strip. I got stripped early on in the game.' I said 'yeah, I remember that.' We talk a little bit more and he goes 'hey coach, what number did you say you were?' I said 'I was number 10.' And then out of the blue he says 'you were that mother------ that stripped me, man! It was you!' I said 'yeah, yeah, it was. I wasn't going to say anything, coach.' I thought that was pretty funny."

George Teague
"I just talked about it this morning at the gas station, here in Dallas, Texas. All the time, with me still being in coaching and different things, it comes up. I just had another high school coach here in Texas tell me 'I show that play to my kids all the time, talking about never quitting.' It's a big part of my life still."

Antonio London
"You see it on the JumboTron at games. You see it in all the highlights. Even though it was a non-play, it still happened."

Lemanski Hall
"We worked our butts off, just going into the 92 season just grinding every day to be our best. And to see all the hard work we put in, it's over. And we get a chance to walk off that field as national champion in the way that we did it. I mean 34-13, to dominate a team like that the way we did and how we did it, it's still talked about to this day."

Little did most around the Alabama program know that in the hours after the euphoric victory over Miami, an incident occurred that would alter the Crimson Tide's fortunes for much of the next decade. Antonio Langham, the team's star cornerback, entered into a representation agreement with an agent, even though he had another year of eligibility remaining. Langham returned for his senior year, and was declared ineligible once news of the agent contact surfaced. The incident later contributed to NCAA sanctions against the program, including the loss of scholarships and the forfeiture of all eight victories Langham played in during the 1993 season.

Tommy Johnson
"Whatever it was, I know that it was an innocent thing that Langham did not mean to happen. He had no malicious intent behind it. I think he figured he was going pro. It was one of those situations where he was trying to look professional."

Chris Donnelly
"Langham is a very honest, very straight-forward person. I do believe that after that he was (intending to turn) pro. So I think after he came back, and everything kind of settled down from the national championship game, he had a few weeks to consult with his family, and he changed his mind. As we got into the (1993) year, I did hear some lingering things out there, but ... Langham kind of kept everything close to him. The guy wasn't actually a validated agent. It was like 'you sign on a piece of paper, that doesn't mean anything. The guy's not a registered agent. So it wasn't a big deal.' Once it got to the NCAA, and they started looking at it, it took on a life of its own."

Bryne Diehl
"I didn't know anything about it. Langham was my next door neighbor in Bryant Hall, actually. I remember coach Ingram coming up there and talking to him about it at different times. But as far as knowing the ins and outs of it, you don't really hear about the outside world."

Charles Hollis
"He signed a napkin, and that was I guess considered a binding agreement. Hootie Ingram, I think, had he taken it a little more seriously and reported it, some of what happened would maybe not have happened or in a 'very slap on the wrist' way."

Hootie Ingram
"Well it was just a situation where it somebody's word against somebody else's word. The wrong people won. The information that we had, the signed statements we had from people, it was ruled in another way. That was water under the dam. I never look back on anything like that. You have something like that happen, you've just got to close ranks and move on."

Bill Oliver
"It's a shame what happened, happened. He did what he did, but he didn't sign a napkin, I can assure you of that. There's a lot of things that went on that the public doesn't even know about. And it was not him. He did sign, but they could have taken that thing and ruled him ineligible for the first two ball games (of 1993). And he could have played the rest of the season if they had laid him out the first two games."

Willie Gaston
"Langham had said they had told coach Stallings about it and he told him 'don't worry about it.' So we go into the season. It didn't come out until like mid-season. So when it did come out and it was like he'd already played all these games while we were trying to find out what the NCAA was going to do."

Kevin Lee
"When he got suspended, the rumor was he'll be suspended for this game, but he'll be back the next game. But then he was suspended for the rest of the season. That was a downer because he was one of our captains."

Chris Anderson
"He's my brother, man. We all make mistakes, and we take a penalty for it. It is what it is. I have no feeling about it one way or the other. I'm more pissed off at the agent than I would be at my teammate. You give me 500 bucks, yeah, I'm gonna take it."

Gene Stallings
"I'm not even going to get into that. We've discussed that several times with Antonio. That's water under the bridge. It was an unfortunate situation. Antonio is a great part of Alabama's success, I assure you of that."

Antonio Langham
"I really don't discuss that anymore. There's a lot of ways that can be discussed. But the one thing I can say is, like I tell young people, a lot of people in this world are not always right. A lot of people, they don't play fair, they don't play by the rules. And when they want something, they'll do whatever they can to try and get what they want, whether it's underhanded or not. At the end of it, it was a bad (decision) that I made. And if you're not there, you don't know the whole story. You can take the story a million different ways. All I can say is, at the end of it, I have 150 percent loyalty to my university and I appreciate the fact that, through it all, all the people that went to the university and pull for the university, they have loyalty to me, they have respect for me, and I have respect for them. And I'll let that be that."

Roy Kramer
"It was obvious that a violation had occurred, because there had been contact with the agent. We had discussions with the NCAA and we had discussions with Alabama. It changed a little bit of the atmosphere around the Alabama team, but in the long run, it didn't take away from Alabama's success and Alabama's glory that year."

**

Twenty-five years later, Alabama is near the top of the football world on an annual basis. But that wasn't the case in 1992 when the Crimson Tide's level of success was a relatively new experience for those involved. Alabama's 1992 national championship provided a bridge between the Bryant and Saban eras, and the Crimson Tide's defense from that year is still regarded among the greatest in college football history.

Michael Rogers
"I still think we'll go down as the best defense to ever play college football. I've seen some great ones over there at Alabama, but I still think we're the best ever."

Willie Gaston
"It was destiny. We were celebrating the 100th year of Alabama football and it was destined to happen. Everybody said coach Stallings won with Curry recruits. He did. But he also won with his own recruits. And that's what I try to get people understand, all he did was fit the puzzle. He put the pieces in the puzzle that he needed to win."

Paul Finebaum, Birmingham Post-Herald columnist
"I'll never forget sitting in the press box at the Sugar Bowl asking John Forney, the legendary announcer, 'How significant is this?' He said 'I've never seen Alabama win a game like this.' It was such an epic upset. And it's hard to remember, but Alabama won in 92, and Alabama had not won before that since 79. Could you imagine going 13 years without a national championship now? It seems like it's hard to go 13 minutes without one."

Corky Simpson
"I never felt vindicated or anything else. I wasn't a part of it, I was just a footnote. It wasn't like I was part of the team or of the fans. I honestly thought Alabama was the best team in the country, and I never changed my mind. I wasn't going to until somebody proved me wrong, and they just couldn't do it. The next to last poll, there was 61 votes for Miami and 1 vote for Alabama -- mine. And after the game, there was 62 votes for Alabama and zero for everybody else. It was fun, it was total luck."

Hootie Ingram
"Well I think it definitely returned Alabama. We got our status back."

Charles Hollis
"It was still hard for Gene Stallings to believe. I remember talking to him and his wife after the game. You saw the exchange between him and (son) John Mark after the game, and I thought that was very touching. He said 'great job, Pop. You did OK, Pop.' Stallings said, 'we're national champions, partner. National championship son, that's big.'"

Gene Stallings
"I felt like, in order to be accepted at the University of Alabama, you have to win the national championship, you have to beat Auburn and you have to beat Tennessee. And we did those things. I felt like I would be accepted after that."

Eric Curry
"You can re-ring a bell, but you can never un-ring a bell. We were a part of history."

Mario Morris
"It's so special for us to be able to come together and be recognized and be recognized forever. We go back periodically and people reference us 'you're 92.' Ninety-two signifies the first championship after Bear Bryant. That's how they recognize us. To have people still recognize you, it's really special to have been part of a great group of guys. But I also tip my hat to all of those players that came before us."

Sam Shade
"When people ask you, what did you get out of playing college ball, or even me playing at Alabama, it's the relationships. That's what lasts. All-conference, national championships, SEC championships, top defense, all that stuff is fine and dandy, but as the years go by, it's the relationships that really last."

Antonio Langham
"We get together, that chemistry and camaraderie is still there. We're going to laugh and hug and joke. We're going to call each other and check up on each other. That was the most important thing that coach Stallings wanted, whenever everybody leaves and goes their separate ways, make sure y'all still check up on each other and take care of each other. And that's what we've been able to do."

Derrick Oden
"The expectations at Alabama are huge. I mean it's not just some years when they think you may win but it's every year. And to be able to put another trophy in that trophy cabinet or another ring in that trophy cabinet, to know that you're a part of it. Even to this day, with all the success coach Saban is having right now, people don't forget what we did on that day."

Derrick Lassic
"I won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys. I won a high school championship. I was Tri-State Player of the Year; we called it the Junior Heisman. The national championship means more to me than all of those things."

Chris Anderson
"You either grow up to be a Bama fan or an Auburn fan. And I just got lucky and chose crimson and white."

Roosevelt Patterson
"Dreams come true. It happened for me."

Prince Wimbley
"To this day when I'm having a hard day, I try to close my eyes and try to go back to the happy place. That's my happy place. You know just close my eyes and see that confetti coming down and us as a unit bringing that trophy back to Tuscaloosa."