Win One for Dixie

If baseball is America’s pastime and the national sport, then football is Dixie’s game. It is far and away the most popular sport in our country and has been a sport we have long dominated. There is a reason why pop culture pieces covering the importance of high school football often take place in Dixie, especially Texas. But nowhere has this dominance been more pronounced than in college football. The NFL has never been particularly popular here, especially among the White population, something that is likely due to historical reasons – there were few NFL teams in Dixie prior to the 1960s, only St. Louis and Washington DC had teams, and even including those cities as part of Dixie is controversial, though people from Virginia traditionally cheer for DC based teams. And when Dixie did finally start getting teams, the teams were pretty poor. Only the Dallas Cowboys could really sustain success for the first few decades of the NFL’s arrival in Dixie.

However, college football has been a completely different beast. Here, Dixie has long dominated. As of this writing, 13 of the top 25 college football teams are located in the South, as are five of the top ten. Six NCAA national champions in a row have been from a Southern school, and 16 of the past 17 have been from Dixie. Going back ever further, coaches like Bear Bryant and Shug Jordan and players like Archie Manning and Terry Bradshaw, all Dixian men, are legends of the game. Canada has hockey and we have football, especially college football.

What is shocking, though, is that in the early days of college football, Dixie was considered far behind the rest of the nation, not just against the Midwest (which is today the only region that can even be mentioned in the same sentence as Southern college football), but also against the Western U.S. and even the Northeast. This is why Notre Dame tends to dominate discussions of college football during the first half of the 20^th century. As hard as it is to believe, in those days Harvard and Princeton were considered football powerhouses. Alabama, Georgia, and LSU were not. Dixie was considered a backwater and its college football programs were inferior to those in the North. So, how did all of this change? It was, of course, a process – Dixie’s dominance took years to fully develop.  

The beginning of Dixie’s path to college football dominance can be traced back to one game – the 1926 Rose Bowl that pitted the Alabama Crimson Tide against the Washington Huskies. Today, such a match up would be considered a gimme game for Alabama. But in those days, Washington was heavily favored. Alabama was considered completely outmatched. In the mind of Washington, and much of the Yankee establishment, the 1926 Rose Bowl was another chance to put Dixie in her place and remind them of what they were – a poor conquered nation and internal colony. And, the Alabama players and coach knew this. They knew what was on the line. This was about more than football. This was an opportunity to avenge, even in a small way, Dixie’s conquest in the dark days of 1865.

In fact, Dixie’s reputation was so poor, even though Alabama was undefeated and only allowed seven points all season, the Rose Bowl committee was skeptical that Alabama even belonged in the game, they were not the first choice. It was only by the accident of history that Alabama got in the game. There had been a backlash against football in academic circles, leading to Dartmouth, Yale, and Illinois dropping out. It was only after this that the Rose Bowl committee gave Alabama a chance.

Alabama went to California understanding full well the stakes. A loss would be further proof that Dixie was second fiddle to the North. A victory would not free Dixie or end her long-term poverty caused by the War, but it would give Dixie one thing they could hold over the head of the Yankees – we’re better in football. They went into the game not merely representing the University of Alabama, but all of Dixie. The game would be the long awaited revenge on the Yankees. The average Southerner knew this, too. Throughout the South, our people would gather around wherever there was a telegraph and await results.

When the game began, it looked as if the Yankees would be victorious and Dixie’s chance to get revenge for the War would have to wait. The Tide could get nothing going offensively and Washington marched 85 yards for their first touchdown. At halftime, things looked bleak for Alabama. The Huskies were up 12-0. The fact that it was still close was, in a way, a victory. Alabama was holding her own and almost none of the Yankee press predicted that. One writer even predicted that Washington would beat Alabama by over 50 points. By keeping the game as close, Alabama proved that they were not pushovers and if Washington wanted to win, the Dixie boys were going to make them work for it. Other than keeping the game closer than predicted, the only other bright spot was that Washington’s point-after attempts failed. This would end up becoming decisive, as in the 3^rd quarter Alabama would come alive, scoring 20 points to go up 20-12. Victory was now within reach, and revenge for the War was a possibility. The Tide dominated the quarter defensively as well, holding the Huskies to 17 yards and shutting them out. The 4^th quarter would see Washington try to come back, scoring a touchdown, and this time making the point-after. But, Alabama was able to hold off the late rally and win 20-19.

The game almost feels like the work of Providence. As it turns out, the game was more than a mere moral victory. A group of boys from rural Alabama had gone to California and beaten the Yankees in a game they were supposed to dominate. The 1926 Rose Bowl would, of course, not free Dixie and would not end the horrible poverty of the region, but it would give us back our pride. And, that is important.

We are an honor culture. Never again could the Yankees claim to be better than us at everything. We would have football and it was the beginning of Dixie’s dominance in that area. It truly was, “The Game that Changed the South.”