44-16 Clemson. Bama's worst Bowl loss ever? (LONG)

May 20, 2019, 11:46 PM

One of the things I love about TigerNet is the stats/history that you get in some posts. Ever since the National Championship win over Alabama this year, I’ve been wondering what Alabama’s worst Bowl loss in history was (has Tim Bourret commented on this somewhere?). I think a case can be made for Clemson’s 44-16 victory in Santa Clara as Alabama’s worst ever Bowl loss.

1. Bama’s three largest margins of defeat in their 69 game Bowl History are by 32, 31 and 28 points. The teams that administered these beatdowns are Nebraska, Virginia Tech, and Clemson, respectively.

2. To find Bama on the wrong end of a Bowl blowout on the order of magnitude of this year’s NC game, you have to go back twenty years, to December 28, 1998, when Virginia Tech (then in the Big East), beat Alabama in the Music City Bowl. Va. Tech won 38-7, an almost identical score to Alabama’s worst margin of defeat in a Bowl ever.

But that Alabama team was not very good. They were an unranked 7-4 Mike DuBose squad that got pounded by a unranked/barely ranked Beamer Hokie team. So, though the margin of defeat was 31, it was not a great Bama team.

3. Then you have to go back to 1991, another not great Bama team (Gene Stallings first year as HC), with a 7-4 record, got shellacked by Howard Schnellenberger’s 9-1-1 Louisville Cardinals (then Independent), 34-7. Though Bama finished the season barely in the Top 25, they were a year away from being a great team. So, while a 27-point loss almost matches the margin of this year’s defeat, it was by an inferior Alabama team.

4. Going back another almost twenty years, you find the Granddaddy of them all. The legendary Bob Devaney’s Nebraska Cornhuskers came into the Orange Bowl of 1972 on a 31-game unbeaten streak. Though Bear Bryant was the Bama coach, and the Tide were undefeated, they were also 6 point underdogs and the Huskers expected to win. And that they did. Resoundingly. 38-6. Bama’s worst Bowl margin of defeat in history. Interestingly, the game stats were not lopsided, and Bama significantly outrushed Nebraska. Special teams and turnovers (4 by Bama) played a big role. Nebraska enjoyed game control from start to finish. This was an outstanding Bama squad, and they ended up ranked 2nd.

5. Beyond these games, you have to go back to 1952 and 1948 to find 20+ point Bama Bowl losses. Rice beat them 28-6 in the ’52 Cotton, and Texas beat them 27-7 in the ’48 Sugar. And though the Bama losses to Oklahoma in the 2014 Sugar and to Utah in the 2009 Sugar felt big, they were only by 14 points.

6. Why should our 2019 beatdown of the Tide be considered their worst ever Bowl loss? Several reasons.

A. In margin of defeat, as is, it’s in their top three, and we all know, it could have been worse. If Dabo had wanted to score in the 4th, we could have. A touchdown on the final drive would have done it. Can you imagine? 51-16, and 52 if the usually reliable Greg Huegel hits the extra point in the 3rd. That would have been a five-touchdown-plus margin of victory.

B. Clemson defensively manhandled the Tide, holding them to the lowest Bowl point total of the Saban era, and doing so against Saban’s best ever offense (and arguably against the best offense in Bama history). BTW, you have to go back to 2006 and the Mike Shula era to find Bama scoring fewer points in a Bowl (13 in a win) than they did against the Tigers in the NC this year. IMHO, if Big Dex had played, they would not have been able to run on us either.

C. Offensively, only two other teams have ever scored 44+ points on Bama in a Bowl (Colorado (47) in the ’69 Liberty against a bad Bama team, and Oklahoma (45) in the 2014 Sugar against a very good Bama team). While this was not Saban’s best defense (and let’s face it, they had been riddled by injuries stretching back into the spring and summer), the Tigers’ offense had an easier time with Bama than they did with Syracuse, Boston College and Duke this year. Take that in.

D. Nebraska came into the ’72 Orange as the significantly dominant team of that three-year period (’70-72) in college football, and they were expected to win, even against a very good Tide team. While the size of their win may have surprised people, the win itself did not. While Bama and Clemson came into this year’s game with virtually identical records over four seasons, Bama was leading the series 2-1 and most pundits were predicting a Bama victory, with some even saying in a blowout. There was a lot of “Greatest Ever” talk about Bama during the season (but not about our Tigs, as Dabo noted). People were surprised that Clemson won, and shocked that they did so in such a dominate fashion. When Finebaum is “gobsmacked,” you know it’s bad.

In short, the Tigers’ resounding victory this year stunned Alabama in ways that the 1972 Nebraska loss did not, partly because of expectations. In an era when Saban’s teams have been consistently dominant, Clemson completely outcoached Saban, controlled both sides of the line of scrimmage, shut down one of the best quarterbacks in Bama history, led for all but about 2 minutes, broke the will of the Tide before halftime, and never let off the gas. It was a thing of beauty.

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44-16 Clemson. Bama's worst Bowl loss ever? (LONG)

Re: 44-16 Clemson. Bama's worst Bowl loss ever? (LONG)

The fact that we did it to Saban is a huge bonus to me.

Re: 44-16 Clemson. Bama's worst Bowl loss ever? (LONG)

after all the excuses this offseason.. don't you wish we

Re: after all the excuses this offseason.. don't you wish we

I'm sure they felt absolutely helpless on that last drive. I

Yup...

Re: after all the excuses this offseason.. don't you wish we

Re: 44-16 Clemson. Bama's worst Bowl loss ever? (LONG)

Alawho?***

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