EDITOR’S NOTE: Every day until Aug. 29, Creg Stephenson is counting down significant numbers in Alabama football history, both in the lead-up to the 2025 football season and in commemoration of the Crimson Tide’s first national championship 100 years ago. The number could be attached to a year, a uniform number or even a football-specific statistic. We hope you enjoy.

Debut seasons for new coaches aren’t always pretty, but Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first year at Alabama gave a glimpse of what was to come.

The Crimson Tide was coming off a four-year stretch in which it won a total of eight games — including an 0-10 mark in 1955 — when “Mama Called” and Bryant returned to Tuscaloosa from Texas A&M. His 1958 Alabama team went 5-4-1, including close losses to its two arch-rivals after barely being competitive in previous seasons.

To finish with a winning record was something of a Hurculean effort given the lack of competitiveness Alabama had shown in the years leading up to the 1958 season. From 1954-57, Alabama lost to Auburn by a combined score of 148-7, getting shut out three times.

In 1957, the Crimson Tide fell 14-8 in the Iron Bowl. Auburn wouldn’t score again vs. Alabama until 1963.

Alabama was shut out by Tennessee three straight times from 1955-57 — 20-0, 24-0 and 14-0. I 1958 in Knoxville, the Crimson Tide played within the Volunteers within 14-7.

Bryant was hired at Alabama in early December 1957, and quickly began remaking the team in his own image. During that spring and summer, he would engage in a weeding-out process similar to what he’d more famously done at Texas A&M four years earlier.

“Everything from here on out is going to be first-class,” Bryant told the team during his first full-squad meeting, according to the excellent 1996 book Turnaround, by Tom Stoddard, “which includes living quarters, food, equipment, modes of travel.

“And my staff and I are going to see that you play first-class football.”

By all accounts, Bryant’s offseason program that first year at Alabama rivaled anything that Texas A&M’s “Junction Boys” experienced during their infamous 1954 training camp. Two of his assistants on that first Crimson Tide squad were Bobby Drake Keith and Gene Stallings, who experienced Junction as players for the Aggies.

Alabama began offseason workouts with more than 100 players, but that number had been shaved significantly by the time spring practice began. Even fewer stuck around for the start of the season, by which time they had endured an endless series of brutal two-a-day practices.

Bryant’s philosophy was a simple one — he wanted players to quit in workouts or on the practice field, not in a game. It was a lesson he hoped they would carry with them later in life.

“Ten years from now you’re going to be married with a family, your wife will be sick, your kids are sick, you are sick, but you will get your butt up and go to work,” the coach told his team at one point, according to Turnaround. “Because we are going to do that for you. We are going to teach you how to do things you don’t feel like doing.”

Several veteran Alabama players who’d been well over 220 pounds during the Whitworth era — when a very large football player might weight 240 — but were close to 200 pounds by the time of Bryant’s first game. Those who didn’t get the message had Bryant “break their plate” — take away their meal privileges at the team’s training table — or would get sent across the Black Warrior River to live in an unairconditioned shack until their either got in shape or quit the team.

Alabama opened the 1958 season in Mobile against a powerful LSU team that would go on to win the national championship and featured future Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon. The Tigers had beaten the Crimson Tide 28-0 the year before, but managed just a 13-3 victory this time — and led just 3-0 at halftime. (This game is also widely remembered because part of the bleachers at Mobile’s Ladd Stadium collapsed during the second quarter, injuring several dozen spectators).

Alabama lost the game, but the difference from previous seasons was evident.

“Last night’s was the smartest Alabama eleven we have seen in a lot of seasons,” Naylor Stone wrote in the following day’s Birmingham Post-Herald. “It was in excellent condition — not a timeout was taken for any kind of injury. The team had all the earmarks of a well-coached eleven.”

Alabama played Vanderbilt to a scoreless tie the following week, then scored its first victory over Bryant vs. Furman in Week 3. Alabama also beat Mississippi State, Georgia, Georgia Tech and Memphis that first season, with losses to Tennessee, Tulane and Auburn by a total of 17 points.

Alabama wouldn’t lose four games in a season again until Bryant’s final year, 1982. In between they’d win 13 SEC championships and six national titles.

It all began with that 1958 team, including the freshman signing class he’d recruited after returning to Tuscaloosa prior to that season. They were undefeated national champions as seniors in 1961.

Coming Friday: Our countdown continues with No. 57, Alabama’s decades-long run of on-campus success.