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.

It was on a December night 83 years ago in Knoxville, Tenn., that the conference Alabama would come to rule in football was born.

Following a meeting at the Farragut Hotel, it was announced that 13 schools that had been part of the Southern Conference would split off and form their own league. The new organization was of course the Southeastern Conference, made up of Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Florida, LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Sewanee, Tennessee, Tulane and Vanderbilt.

John J. Tigert, president of the University of Florida and chairman of the Southeastern Conference committee, announced the split — which was amicable, by all accounts — via a statement to the media on Friday, Dec. 9, 1932.

“The real reason for this organization is a desire to form a conference of institutions in the same geographical territory,” Tigert’s statement read in part. “… We the undersigned members courteously present our resignation.”

The other 10 schools — Clemson, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Virginia, Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Tech and Washington & Lee — remained in the Southern Conference. In turn, the first six of that group would join with Wake Forest to form the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953 (Virginia came aboard a year later).

Though Georgia, LSU and Tennessee were already or were becoming national football powers at the time, Alabama proved to be the class of the SEC from the beginning. Coach Frank Thomas’ Crimson Tide went 7-1-1 and won the first conference football title in 1933.

Alabama began the season with a 34-0 victory in Tuscaloosa over Atlanta’s Oglethorpe University on Sept. 30, then played Ole Miss to a scoreless tie in its SEC debut in Birmingham. The Crimson Tide recorded its first win in the new conference a week later, blanking Mississippi State 18-0 in Tuscaloosa.

Then came a 12-6 victory at Tennessee before the team’s lone loss of the season, a 2-0 non-conference defeat to Fordham at the Polo Grounds in New York on Oct. 28. Alabama went a perfect 4-0 in November, beating Kentucky 20-0 in Birmingham, Virginia Tech 27-0 in Tuscaloosa and then winning 12-9 at Georgia Tech and 7-0 at Vanderbilt.

Alabama’s 5-0-1 SEC record gave it the SEC title, with LSU finishing second at 3-0-2 in league play. The Tigers’ 7-7 tie with Tulane on Dec. 2 handed the Crimson Tide the outright conference championship.

Guard Tom Hupke was an All-American on Alabama’s first SEC team, while end Don Hutson played like the future star that he was. But perhaps the breakout performer on the team was halfback Millard “Dixie” Howell, a Hartford native who was a “triple threat” in the Crimson Tide’s Notre Dame box offense — equally adept as a runner, passer and punter.

Howell ran for 659 yards and averaged 6.7 yards per carry in 1933, and passed for 174 yards on just 12 completions. He averaged 42 yards per punt and led all scorers in the state of Alabama with 54 points, the latter of which was noted in a rather florid Associated Press report from Dec. 2.

“King football, ready to make his exit until next September, leaned forward from his throne today and tapped Dixie Howell of Alabama on the shoulder to make him knight of the high score in Alabama’s ‘big five,’” the report read. “For the Tide flash scampered across the goal line on Turkey Day for the winning touchdown, and ran his year’s mark to 54.”

The ruggedly handsome Howell, who also played baseball, was named athlete of the year at Alabama for 1933. He was an All-American in 1934, leading the Crimson Tide to a 10-0 record and a Rose Bowl victory over Stanford — a game in which Howell ran for two touchdowns and threw for another to fellow All-American Hutson.

Though Hutson enjoyed a Hall-of-Fame career in the NFL, Howell played only briefly as a professional in football and spent eight years in the minor leagues in baseball. He was later head football coach at Arizona State and Idaho, and was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1970, just a few months before his death from cancer at age 58.

“I have seen more than 100 All-American football players in action, including Red Grange,” legendary Birmingham News sports editor Zipp Newman wrote upon Howell’s death. “And I never saw a more perfect all-around threat in action than Dixie Howell. … He was as fine a defensive safety as he was a passer, runner and punter.”

Sewanee went winless in its first eight seasons in the SEC, and left the conference to move to a lower division in 1940. Georgia Tech departed in 1964, followed by Tulane two years later.

The SEC remained a 10-team league from 1965-91, after which Arkansas and South Carolina joined on. Missouri and Texas A&M came aboard in 2012, with Oklahoma and Texas arriving in 2024.

In that time, Alabama has won or shared in 30 SEC championships in football, more than any other two teams combined. Georgia is second with exactly half that number (15), followed by Tennessee (13), LSU (12), Florida (9), Auburn (8), Ole Miss (6), Kentucky (2) and Mississippi State (1).

Vanderbilt is the lone charter member still in the league who has never won an SEC football championship. None of the members who have joined since 1992 have either, though Texas is considered by many to be the favorite this year.

The Longhorns would have to win every SEC championship until 2044 to equal the total Alabama began compiling way back in 1933.

Coming Tuesday: Our countdown to kickoff continues with No. 32, a great Alabama star of years ago who is largely forgotten today.