Call it the final piece of a trilogy, if you will — or at least the latest chapter in a continuing saga.

Alabama (9-3) takes on Michigan (7-5) in Tuesday’s ReliaQuest Bowl at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. It will be the fifth time the Crimson Tide and Wolverines have met in a bowl game, the third time in a bowl game in Tampa.

Alabama and Michigan split the previous two meetings in Tampa, with the Wolverines winning 28-24 in the 1988 Hall of Fame Bowl and the Crimson Tide scoring a 17-14 victory in the 1997 Outback Bowl. Both of those games were played at Tampa/Houlihan’s Stadium, the original home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Here’s a look back at those two games:

1/10

Michigan 28, Alabama 24 (Hall of Fame Bowl, Jan. 2, 1988)

Alabama was very much an up-and-down team in Bill Curry’s debut season, beating No. 11 (and defending national champion) Penn State, No. 8 Tennessee and No. 5 LSU, but losing to unranked Florida and lowly Memphis State. The Crimson Tide entered mid-November at 7-2, but lost 37-6 at Notre Dame and 10-0 to seventh-ranked Auburn in the Iron Bowl to end the regular season at 7-4.

Defending Big Ten champion Michigan began the season in the Top 10, but lost to Notre Dame, Michigan State and Indiana before winning three straight games in November. Bo Schembechler’s Wolverines also lost their rivalry game, falling 23-20 to Ohio State to end the regular season at 7-4.

Then in just its second year of existence, the Hall of Fame Bowl pitted Alabama vs. Michigan against each other in football for the first time. NBC had television rights to the game, and with the Fiesta, Rose and Orange Bowls — all of which the network also broadcast — scheduled for New Year’s Day, the Hall of Fame Bowl was pushed to Saturday, Jan. 2 (the de facto national championship game had taken place the previous night, with No. 2 Miami beating No.1 Oklahoma 20-14 in the Orange Bowl).

Offensive coordinator Gary Moeller was Michigan’s acting coach for the game, with Schembechler recovering from his second heart attack. (Then 58, Schembechler coached another two years before retiring, and lived until 2006.)

Alabama led 3-0 after a quarter on a 51-yard Philip Doyle field goal, but three touchdown runs by Jamie Morris — covering 25, 14 and 77 yards — gave Michigan a 21-3 by the middle of the third quarter. Alabama, rallied, however, getting Jeff Dunn’s 16-yard touchdown pass to Howard Cross and scoring runs of 1 and 17 yards by Bobby Humphrey to go on top 24-21 with 3:45 left.

That set up Michigan’s game-winning scoring drive, which covered 62 yards in six plays. On fourth-and-3 from the Alabama 20, Demetrius Brown found John Kolesar down the left sideline for a touchdown and a 28-24 Wolverines lead.

Alabama got as far as its 48-yard line in the closing moments, but Dunn’s deep pass was intercepted by David Arnold at the Michigan 11. Arnold then ran the final seconds off the clock before stepping out of bounds to seal the Wolverines’ win.

Alabama lost despite outgaining Michigan 460 yards to 346, with a second-quarter turnover perhaps accounting for the difference in the game. Dunn fumbled while scrambling away from pressure at the Crimson Tide 25, and Morris scored his first touchdown on the next play.

Morris was the game’s Most Valuable Player, rushing for 234 yards and the three touchdowns on 23 carries. Humphrey ran for 149 yards and two TDs in a losing effort for Alabama, while Dunn passed for 269 yards with a touchdown and an interception.

1/10

Alabama 17, Michigan 14 (Outback Bowl, Jan. 1, 1997)

The 1997 Outback Bowl marked the farewell game for Alabama coach Gene Stallings, who had announced he was stepping down following a 24-23 win over Auburn in the regular-season finale in Birmingham.

As with this year’s team, the 1996 version of the Crimson Tide came into its meeting with Michigan at 9-3. Alabama won its first seven games before falling 20-13 at Tennessee, then beat LSU 26-0 before a stunning 17-16 loss at Mississippi State — its first defeat to the Bulldogs in 16 years. The Iron Bowl win clinched the SEC West title, but the Crimson Tide fell 45-30 to eventual national champion Florida in the conference championship game in Atlanta.

Michigan — led by second-year head coach Lloyd Carr — won its first four games before losing the Northwestern, then got to 7-1 before back-to-back defeats to Purdue and Penn State in November. Just as Alabama did, the Wolverines bounced back to win their rivalry game, beating Ohio State 13-9 in Columbus to end the regular season at 8-3.

Alabama was ranked No. 16 heading into the Outback Bowl, while Michigan was No. 15. The Jan. 1, 1997, game was the second sponsored by Outback Steakhouse and the next-to-last played at Tampa/Houlihan’s Stadium, which would make way for Raymond James Stadium in 1999.

Alabama defensive coordinator Mike DuBose had been named as Stallings’ successor in early December, so the 1997 Outback Bowl would serve as something of a “passing of the torch” between the incoming and outgoing Crimson Tide head coaches. And the first three quarters of the game were a defensive grind befitting of Stallings, DuBose and Carr, who had been the Wolverines’ defensive coordinator under Schembechler and later Moeller before taking over as head coach in 1995.

Alabama’s Jon Brock kicked a 43-yard field goal in the first quarter, then Michigan’s Remy Hamilton booted field goals of 44 and 22 yards to give the Wolverines a 6-3 lead they would carry into the fourth quarter. Michigan drove into the Alabama red zone early in the final period before the Crimson Tide defense made the game’s signature play.

On third-and-5 from the Alabama 11, safety Kelvin Sigler hit Michigan quarterback Brian Griese as he threw, and an errant lob went right into the hands of Dwayne Rudd. The All-America linebacker went untouched for an 88-yard touchdown that gave the Crimson Tide a lead it would never relinquish at 10-6 with 12:13 to play.

Michigan’s next two possessions ended in a missed field goal and a turnover on downs, and Alabama all but put the game away on Shaun Alexander’s 46-yard touchdown run with 2:15 left. The Wolverines pulled within three on Griese’s 9-yard touchdown pass to Russell Shaw and a 2-point run by Chris Floyd with 1:15 remaining, but the Crimson Tide recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock.

The victory was Stallings’ 70th in seven years at Alabama and fifth straight in bowl games. He was carried off the field by his players, never to coach again.

—

Alabama and Michigan have split four meetings since those two previous games in Tampa, two of them in the Orange Bowl, one in the regular season and the most-recent, of course, in last season’s Rose Bowl. They enter the ReliaQuest Bowl tied 3-3 all-time, so one will take the upper hand in the head-to-head on Tuesday.

Alabama vs. Michigan football all-time series