Imagine enrollment at the University of Alabama at just 4,334 − about one-ninth of its size today − and an academic faculty that numbered under 100.
That’s how small the UA campus was in 1925, when Alabama football defeated Washington, 20-19, in Pasadena, California, for its first football national championship (the game was actually played Jan. 1, 1926). Of course, back then, Paul W. “Bear” Bryant was still decades away from earning his name on the facility, and it wasn’t even called Denny Stadium yet, just Denny Field.
Different times? You bet. Alabama Gov. W.W. Brandon received a wire message of congratulations from Tennessee Gov. Austin Peay, something that certainly wouldn’t happen in 2025.
