• Coach Bill Peterson's Seminoles were decided underdogs after their 33-13 loss at Houston the week before. "We had so much adversity going into the game," Peterson recalled. "We had just been blown out at Houston. We changed quarterbacks, and we changed centers. Ken Hart had started the Houston game at center - a great athlete, but there was some trouble with the snap, and we moved him to guard. We put Ted Mosley in there at center, and he came up with a 103-degree fever. We put him in ice to keep it down. And he played a simply great game."
• 1966 had produced a 6-5 record ending with a 28-20 loss to Wyoming in the Sun Bowl.
• The Tide, on the other hand, had run the table in 1966, 11-0. However, they finished #3 after the infamous Notre Dame-Mich­igan State "Game of the Century" tie.

• FSU jumped to a 14-0 lead on QB Kim Hammond's touchdown pass to WR Ron Sellers and DB Walt Sumner's 75y punt return. "He picked us with his passes like you would pick a chicken," said Bryant about Hammond.
• Sellers recalled: "When we scored the second time to go up 14-0 - surprise, surprise - the scoreboard broke. ... Because of some infractions during the offseason, Bear Bryant had suspended Ken Stabler, his starting quarterback, from playing in the first game. He was dressed out, but they said he was not eligible to play in the game. Well, guess who came into the game on the third series? Ken Stabler, absolutely." 
• Stung, Alabama fought back behind Stabler's touchdown run and 51-yard touchdown pass to WR Dennis Homan to take a 15-14 lead. Joe Kelley had started in place of Kenny because of the latter's off- season rules violations.
• However, the 'Noles kept moving the ball against Bear's vaunted defense, taking leads of 17-15 and then 24-22 at halftime.

Whatever Bryant said to his boys at halftime didn't work because they couldn't put away the Noles.

• FSU extended its lead to 27-22 in the third quarter, during which they held Bama scoreless.
• A Tide touchdown and two-point conversion and another FSU field goal produced a 30-30 tie in the fourth quarter.
• HB Ed Morgan ran 3y for a touchdown set up by Stabler's 55y pass to Homan.
• But Hammond passed FSU 65y on a drive that culminated in an 8y touchdown to HB Bill Moreman.
• Peterson decided to kick the tying point that ended Alabama's 17-game winning streak. He said afterwards: I wasn't going to mess up 60 minutes of great effort by failing on a two-point try.

Hammond's 280y in aerials left Coach Bryant moaning about his pass defense (or lack thereof). The 37 points remain the most ever scored by the Crimson Tide in a tie game.

Both teams had good seasons.

• Bama finished the season 8-2-1 with a loss to Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl, Bear's first defeat at the hands of a former player (Gene Stallings). The Tide didn't give up more than 24 points in any game the rest of the way. They shut out two opponents and held four others to seven or fewer points.
• FSU won its last seven games (including its first ever victory in Gainesville) to finish 7-2-1 and earn a trip to the Gator Bowl, where they tied Penn State 17-17.

Florida State University played its first football game in 1947. The team had been put together hurriedly after President Doak Campbell decide to begin football in May at the end of the school's first year after the Florida State College for Women became a coeducational institution.

• P.E. professor Ed Williamson was given the job of finding a head football coach with a Ph.D. Ed quickly learned that the school had set its sights way too high. Finding no suitable candidates, Williamson became the coach in July with the stipulation that it would be for only one year. His "team" at that point had no players, no stadium, no schedule, and no equipment. The school also gave no athletic scholarships.
• Setting the stage for a bitter rivalry, the University of Florida, directly and through its grads in the legislature, sought to block the school in Tallahassee from becoming coed and then, having lost that battle, tried every ploy possible to stop it from playing football. The Board of Control, which oversaw all colleges in the state, voted 3-2 to approve FSU's football program.

• Williamson had just one assistant coach, Jack Haskin, who was brought in by the new AD, Howard Danford, to start what would become the internationally famous FSU "Flying High" Circus. Haskin would take the backs while Williamson coached the linemen. When Ed asked whether Danford himself could coach football, he was told that his boss's specialties were horseshoes and volleyball.
• Williamson cobbled a schedule in a simple way. He thumbed through an NCAA handbook "to see who had open dates, and I would call them." The first opponent would be Stetson, whose coach, Ben Clemons, had played football at Florida and knew Williamson. Ben offered $300 for FSU to come to Stetson. Ed countered with an offer of $750 to play the game in Tallahassee. Using this approach, he put together a slate of five games with only one on the road.
• Williamson put in a travel request to scout Stetson in its game at Jacksonville. That brought a summons from President Campbell. "Do you mean that you actually want to go over there and spy on this team?" Ed explained that scouting opponents was an accepted part of football.
• With equipment in short supply after the war, the coaches had to go to Tampa, Jacksonville, and Gainesville to get enough. "But we even got garnet and gold uniforms," said Williamson about the colors FSU inherited from the women's college.
• The first practice was held on September 15, 33 days before the opening game. Almost one-fourth of the male enrollment of 500 came out for the team. However, by October 2, attrition had pared the squad to 85, a number that would dwindle even further as the season progressed. Roughly half the squad were military veterans attending college under the GI Bill.
• The team practiced on an old drill field on campus. The field had little grass but lots of sandspurs. A large number of girls lined the field to watch practices. Ken McLean, who had started for Florida in 1944 before entering the military, recalled: "It wasn't uncommon to stop and talk to them while you were doing sprints."
• With no trainers on the staff, student managers tended to injuries as best they could, which usually meant Band-Aids and Mercurochrome.
• 3,000 fans attended the first scrimmage one week before the opener. The team would compete in the game without a nickname since a student vote on the monicker would not take place until a month later.

7,165 showed up for the first football game, a 14-6 loss.

Continued below ...

• The name would be picked by a vote of the student body.
• A week after the Stetson game, the list of nominations had been narrowed to six: "Golden Falcons," "Statesmen," "Crackers," "Senators," "Indians," and "Seminoles." These survived an intense competition with other suggestions such as "Sandpipers," "Fleas," "Gold Diggers," "Tallywhackers," "Pinheads," and "Tarpons."
• In the final balloting, "Seminoles" won by 110 votes over "Statesmen." One of the football players, Bill Bentz, recalled 40 years later: "I watched every damn ballot that went through, and a whole lot of 'em that didn't have 'Seminoles' on them, I threw away." The team wanted a strong name that no other school could boast.

For the second game, the team made its only road trip of the season, to Lebanon TN to play Cumberland College.

• Coach Williamson picked the first 22 to make the trip. The rest drew straws to fill the remaining 11 travel spots. Williamson recalled: "We got $600 for going up there, and they put us up in this boiler room. ... We slept on cots."
• Rain fell the entire contest. "I remember Bo Manuel kicked a punt, and it hit a pool of water, and just spun around down there in the water," said Williamson. "The field lights ... were not protected, and in the rain they just kept popping out. We had officials that were honest, but not knowledgeable. We had three touchdowns called back." The ball had to be placed carefully after each down to keep it from floating away. Some players claimed that the "crowd" numbered less than a dozen.
• FSU lost five of its 11 fumbles. Cumberland completed just one pass, but it went for the only score of the night: 6-0.

After two competitive games, the fledgling Seminoles returned home to face Tennessee Tech.

• The Golden Eagles, who had defeated Cumberland 42-6, prevailed 27-6 on a muddy field before 5,436.
• FSU gained only five yards rushing.

Troy State came to Tallahassee for a Thanksgiving Day matchup.

• Only 2,942 turned out to watch the Trojans romp 36-6.
• Leonard Melton, a Tallahassean, scored the Seminoles' touchdown on a one-yd plunge following a Jack McMillan INT on the 25.

The season finale took place December 6 against Jacksonville State.

• The 3,700 spectators feared a blowout at the hands of the 8-0 Gamecocks from Alabama.
• Instead, the Hometown Heroes gave up a quick touchdown, then shut down the visitors. The Seminoles drove to the enemy 1, then later to the 6 only to be turned away.
• Jacksonville's undefeated season survived, 7-0.

FSU gained only 687 yards for the season, 400 of which came on 32-of-87 passing. Coaches Williamson and Haskin retired, as agreed upon before the season began. They had planted seeds that would sprout into winning seasons the next four years.

• One of Bowden's opposing coaches was asked, "How good is the legendary FSU coach?"
• The "former college coach, now in the NFL," said: "Our team cheated against Florida State, and we still couldn't beat him. We cheated badly, and that bastard still won."

FSU was "killing teams. They were winning by huge margins and running all kinds of trick plays. They were very intimidating. So we did some things I regret to this day."

• The unnamed coach sent a spy to the Seminole practices. As a result, he learned what FSU planned to run against him, including the trick plays.
• The coach even put microphones in the visitors' locker room. "We heard just about everything before the game and at halftime [that] Florida State was planning. ... We knew probably 30 or 40 percent of what they were going to do ..."
• Yet, the host team still lost. "We had some pretty good players on our team ... Our coaches were cutthroat f***ers with no conscience, but we were good ... We did all that, and he still beat us. I thought after that, 'This is the greatest coach I've ever seen.' Nothing has happened since then to change my mind. No one was better than Bobby, and no one ever will be. ... People don't give Bobby enough credit for being very smart and a great tactical coach."
• And the coach's final word: "I always thought Bobby knew what we did. He probably laughed at us. He probably said to himself, 'Nice dadgum try.'"

It is tempting to try to guess the identity of the anonymous coach who offered the story. In my mind, the culprit is not Steve Spurrier – as much as Seminole fans love to hate him – even though Steve did depart Florida for the NFL.

• First of all, I don't think Steve, the son of a Baptist minister, would use the language quoted by Freeman even in a private conversation.
• And, secondly, the Old Ball Coach had enough talent that he didn't need to cheat. To my recollection, the Gators never incurred NCAA penalties while Spurrier reigned in Gainesville.

Instead, the reference to cutthroat coaches "with no conscience" immediately makes one think of Miami. Of the Hurricane coaches who opposed Bowden, three in a row went to the NFL.

• Jimmy Johnson (1984-88): Jimmy's first game against FSU was a 38-3 loss in the Orange Bowl. J. J. then beat Bobby four years in a row before departing for the Dallas Cowboys.
• Dennis Erickson (1989-94): Like Johnson, Erickson lost his first contest against FSU but in Tallahassee, the only blemish on an 11-1 season. Dennis then won three in a row in the rivalry before falling 28-10 in '93, again in Tallahassee. His final season at Miami produced a 34-20 win. So Erickson had no home losses to Bowden.
• Butch Davis (1995-2000): Suffering from NCAA penalties from the Erickson regime, Davis lost his first five encounters with Bowden before winning the 2000 game 27-24 in the Orange Bowl. Two of the losses were at home, 34-16 in '96 and 26-14 in '98.

So eliminate Erickson and focus on Johnson and Davis.

• Jimmy's only loss to Bowden fits the scenario, but would a team that knew so much of what the opponent was doing lose by 35 points at home?
• So the more likely candidates for the cheating game are Davis's two home losses, one by 18 and one by 12. Trying to rebuild a program on probation might make a coach skirt the rules.