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.

Rarely has an Alabama football victory been more unlikely than on Oct. 20, 1990.

On that day at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., the Crimson Tide scored a 9-6 win over previously unbeaten Tennessee behind Philip Doyle’s 47-yard field goal as time expired. Alabama entered the game at 2-3 under first-year coach Gene Stallings, and had lost several of its top offensive weapons to injury early in the season.

“The only ones who thought we had a chance to win that football game were in our locker room,” Stallings told reporters afterward, and he was probably close to correct.

Alabama began the season with consecutive losses to Southern Miss, Florida and Georgia by a combined eight points. During the course of those defeats, star running back Siran Stacy and starting wide receivers Craig Sanderson and Prince Wimbley were lost for the season with injuries.

The Crimson Tide rebounded with decisive wins over Vanderbilt (59-28) and Southwestern Louisiana (25-6), but didn’t appear to have the offensive firepower to hang with the third-ranked Volunteers. Johnny Majors’ team was 4-0-2 and riding a 12-game unbeaten streak — with ties vs. national power Colorado and SEC rival Auburn — and had bludgeoned Florida 45-3 the previous week.

But neither team’s offense could do much on the Third Saturday in October, combining for five turnovers and less than 400 yards of total offense. The score stood 6-6 entering the final two minutes, with Doyle and Tennessee’s Greg Burke each having connected on a pair of field goals.

The Volunteers had the ball on Alabama’s 33-yard line, and sent Burke on to attempt a 50-yarder to take the lead with 1:35 to play. He’d made a 51-yarder earlier in the fourth quarter, but this time Crimson Tide safety Stacy Harrison burst through and blocked it with his facemask.

The ball rolled some 23 yards before Alabama recovered at the Tennessee 37. Now it was the Crimson Tide’s turn to try and get in position for a game-winning field goal.

Three plays netted seven yards and put the ball on the Vols’ 30. That brought on Doyle, who drilled the ball through the uprights to give Alabama its improbable victory.

Doyle — a unanimous All-American in 1990 — and Crimson Tide holder Jeff Wall wound up at the bottom of a pile, which would have resulted in a roughing the kicker penalty had the field goal failed. Consequently, Doyle said he never saw the full flight of his kick.

“We got hit pretty hard, so I didn’t see the ball go through,” Doyle said. “But I saw our people jumping around, and I went crazy. I went running around the field jumping and screaming.”

Harrison said he never had a concern over whether or not Doyle would make the kick.

“When the ball was blocked, when I saw it rolling past the 50-yard line, I knew it was a victory all the way,” Harrison said. “We have one of, if not the best, kicker in the nation. The whole team has a lot of confidence in him.”

Here are video highlights of the 1990 Alabama-Tennessee game. The blocked field goal/winning field goal sequence begins at about the 17-minute mark:

Alabama lost the following week to Penn State 9-0, but then reeled off four straight wins to finish the regular season at 7-4. The final victory was 16-7 over Auburn, the Crimson Tide’s first in the Iron Bowl since 1985.

Alabama lost 34-7 to Louisville in the Fiesta Bowl to finish 7-5, but the championship seeds had been planted by Stallings and his coaching staff. The Crimson Tide went 11-1 in 1991, then 13-0 with its first national championship in 13 years in 1992.

Doyle and Harrison were the biggest heroes of Alabama’s victory over Tennessee in 1990, but the game’s most-enduring legacy might be a post-game quote from Roger Shultz, the Crimson Tide’s All-SEC center. After hearing and reading all week in the media about how Alabama had no chance against the Volunteers — ESPN’s Lee Corso had referred to the Crimson as a “glorified high school team” at one point — Shultz fired off an all-timer of a dig to reporters after his team recorded its third straight victory in Knoxville, and fifth overall in the series.

“We ought to pay property tax on Neyland Stadium,” he said, “because we own it.”

Years later, Shultz — one of the more quotable players in Alabama football history — said the famous quip wasn’t at all pre-meditated.

“It just came off the top of my head,” Shultz said in 2016. “I’m not that smart. I didn’t even know if it made sense, but after I checked it out, it did make sense. I didn’t even know what property tax was at the time. I know about it now.

“It was just one of those spontaneous things that came out.”

Alabama’s winning streak over Tennessee would go on another three years before being broken in a 17-17 tie in 1993. The Crimson Tide didn’t lose again in Knoxville until 1996.

Coming Tuesday: Our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 46, when an Alabama running back carried the load in the Iron Bowl.