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.

In 25 years as head coach at Alabama, Paul “Bear” Bryant lost a total of two games in Tuscaloosa.

One came on Oct. 12, 1963, a 10-6 loss to Florida at what was then Denny Stadium. The other was on Nov. 13, 1982, a 38-29 loss to Southern Miss that spoiled the coach’s final game at what had been renamed Bryant-Denny Stadium.

In between those two losses were 57 consecutive victories for Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Bryant’s final record at the stadium that now bears his name was 72-2.

It must be noted that Alabama typically played its biggest home games in Birmingham up until the late 1990s. Legion Field was a much larger facility than Denny/Bryant-Denny at the time, and Alabama drew up contracts with the city of Birmingham to always play Tennessee and Auburn — and often LSU and Ole Miss — in the Magic City.

Alabama played at least three games a year in Birmingham every season from 1959-1997, and sometimes four or even five. That arrangement finally changed after Bryant-Denny Stadium was expanded past 80,000 seats in 1998, with the 1999 Tennessee game and the 2000 Auburn game the first played on the Tuscaloosa campus since well before World War II.

The streak began with a 21-13 victory over Houston on Oct. 26, 1963. The 57th straight win came Oct. 23, 1982, a 21-3 decision vs. Cincinnati.

Both losses — the 1963 one to Florida and the 1982 one vs. Southern Miss — were absolutely stunning in their time. The Birmingham news headline from Oct. 13, 1963 read “Black Day: 10-6 — Hungry Florida brings Alabama string to end.”

The loss to the Gators was Alabama’s first on either of its home fields since 1958, Bryant’s first season. Jubilant Florida players carried head coach Ray Graves off the field to celebrate their first victory over Alabama since 1951.

The Southern Miss loss was probably not that shocking in retrospect given that Alabama had tied the Golden Eagles 13-13 in Birmingham the year before and was in the midst of a three-game losing streak to end the 1982 season, bookended by losses to LSU and Auburn. But the fact that the Crimson Tide would actually lose a game in Tuscaloosa was a true stunner.

“I feel like I lost some of my pride,” Alabama linebacker Robbie Jones told the Birmingham News afterward. “My ego is hurt. My feelings are hurt. This went deeper than just a ball game.”

There had been some close calls in the years between the two losses. Alabama beat Mississippi State 20-19 at Denny Stadium on Nov. 2, 1963, rallying from down 12-3 in the second quarter and scoring the winning touchdown on Joe Namath’s quarterback sneak in the fourth.

The Crimson Tide got its revenge against Florida a year later, winning 17-14 (curiously, the teams played in Tuscaloosa in back-to-back seasons due to the SEC’s schedule rotation). Namath was knocked out of that game in the first quarter after re-injuring the knee he’d first hurt two weeks earlier vs. North Carolina State.

Perhaps most famously, Alabama edged Florida State 8-7 at Denny Stadium on Oct. 12, 1974. The Seminoles came into that Saturday riding a national-worst 16-game losing streak (Alabama hadn’t lost a regular-season game in nearly two years and was ranked No. 4 in the country at the time).

Another close call vs. Mississippi State on Oct. 31, 1981 nearly cost Alabama a shot at the SEC championship. The eighth-ranked Crimson Tide held on for a 13-10 victory over the No. 7 Bulldogs on the strength of a Tommy Wilcox interception deep in Alabama territory with 25 seconds left, then clinched a share of conference title by beating Auburn 28-17 less than a month later in the Iron Bowl (Bryant’s record 315th career victory).

So suffice it to say, Alabama’s Tuscaloosa winning streak had begun to take on a life of its own by 1982.

 “Of course we knew about the streak,” Southern Miss coach Jim Carmody said after his team beat Alabama in 1982. “Who isn’t aware of that streak? A lot of the boys who won out there today were born that year.”

Alabama would lose the Iron Bowl 23-22 two weeks later, its first defeat to Auburn since 1972. That loss also made the Crimson Tide 7-4 after a 5-0 start, its first 4-loss season since 1958 — Bryant’s debut.

Bryant, of course, would not get another chance to win at Bryant-Denny Stadium. He announced his retirement on Dec. 15, two weeks before the Crimson Tide beat Illinois 21-15 in the Liberty Bowl in Memphis and some six weeks before his death at age 69 following the second of two heart attacks.

Coming Saturday: Our countdown continues with No. 56, a look back at the game that started it all.