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.

The most-decisive Alabama bowl victory wasn’t coached by Nick Saban, Paul “Bear” Bryant or even Wallace Wade, but by Harold “Red” Drew.

The Crimson Tide set numerous school postseason records — some that still stand — in a 61-6 rout of Syracuse in the 1953 Orange Bowl. Alabama capped a 10-2 season by pummeling the hapless Orangemen before a crowd of 66,208 on New Year’s Day in Miami.

“A ‘souped-up’ University of Alabama riptide all but chased the boys from Syracuse back across the Mason-Dixon Line yesterday as they amassed the most lop-sided victory in the history of major bowl competition,” Zipp Newman wrote in the following day’s Birmingham News, using a Civil War metaphor, as was the sports-writing custom at the time. “The score: 61-6 speaks for itself.

“The boys from Tuscaloosa went into the game with the heady scent of orange blossoms but emerged four quarters later with the sweet fruits of victory after pouring on an astonishing performance of offensive football.”

Alabama had been a good, but not great team during the 1952 regular season. In addition to its nine victories, the Crimson Tide lost 20-0 at Tennessee in mid-October and 7-3 in mid-November to a Georgia Tech team that finished undefeated and ranked No. 2 in the polls behind national champion Michigan State.

But Alabama got hot down the stretch, routing a good Maryland team 27-7 in Mobile on Nov. 22 and shutting out a not-so-good Auburn team in the Iron Bowl on Nov. 29. That set up the Orange Bowl matchup with Syracuse, which was 7-2 with losses to Michigan State (48-7) and a team of former college and professional players from Bolling Field Air Force Base (13-12).

Ben Schwartzwelder’s Orangemen — making their first-ever bowl appearance — were a year away from signing future superstar Jim Brown and a half-decade from becoming a national power that would win the 1959 national championship. An Associated Press report prior to the 1953 Orange Bowl set Alabama as a two-touchdown favorite, with Schwartzwelder calling the Crimson Tide “the most powerful team I ever saw.”

The same report indicated that Syracuse “hopes to spring an upset with Pat Stark, a good-passing quarterback, and Bill Wetzel, 205-pound fullback who’s just back from driving a truck in Korea.” It was not to be, to say the least.

“I’m proud of my boys,” Drew said after the game. “They were fired up. I thought we would win. But I had no idea it would be by such a margin.

“I’m serious when I say this group of kids are the finest and greatest fighters I’ve ever coached.”

Alabama’s 61 points and 56-point margin of victory remain school bowl records. The Crimson Tide’s 586 yards of total offense has been exceeded only once, by the 621 yards against Ohio State in the 2021 College Football Playoff National Championship Game.

Among those 586 yards of offense were 300 passing, a rarity in those days. Newman, who had covered Alabama football since 1919, wrote that he couldn’t remember the last time the Crimson Tide had gained so many yards through the air in one game.

(The day ultimately proved to be a sad one in the state of Alabama, as news spread that country music superstar Hank Williams — a Butler County native who grew up in Montgomery — had died from heart failure while traveling by car to a show in Ohio. Williams, who had battled alcoholism and other health issues for years, was just 29.)

Alabama led only 7-6 after one quarter and 21-6 at halftime, but poured on 40 points in the second half. The game got so out-of-hand that All-America halfback Bobby Marlow — who had run for 950 yards during the regular season — carried the ball just 10 times for 32 yards in the Orange Bowl, scoring on a 1-yard run in the second quarter.

Starting quarterback Clell Hobson passed for 207 yards and two touchdowns, while freshman backup Bart Starr added 93 and another score. Fullback Tommy Lewis ran for 77 yards two TDs, while halfback Bobby Luna had a 38-yard touchdown run and a 27-yard scoring reception and Corky Tharp caught a 50-yard TD.

Alabama’s defense also rose to the occasion, holding Syracuse to 75 yards rushing and intercepting five passes. Hootie Ingram (the Crimson Tide’s future athletics director) had one of those interceptions and also returned a punt 80 yards for a touchdown, while Marvin Hill ran back an interception 60 yards for another score.

At one point late in the game, Alabama assistant coach Lew Bostick walked up to the bench and asked, “Is there anyone who hasn’t played?” No one answered in the affirmative.

“I couldn’t stop them,” Drew said. “This bunch just loves to play football.”

Wrote Newman, “It was about as near perfect for Alabama in a bowl game as it could possibly have been.”

Coming Wednesday: Our countdown continues with No. 52, one of Alabama’s early dual-threat quarterback superstars.