The rise of Southeastern football in general and Alabama football specifically and all the endless gloating that goes along with it? It's Washington's fault.

That isn't just jealous prattle from fans of Oregon or Washington State, likely the two fan bases most annoyed by the Huskies' sudden rise to the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl opposite the vaunted Crimson Tide. No, it's a perfectly reasonable extrapolation from the words of multiple historians and sportswriters.

On the surface, No. 4 Washington squaring off with No. 1 Alabama on Dec. 31 (3 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App) feels like a collision of unconnected programs and regions with almost nothing in common. In fact, the four-game series between the two programs -- which has been dominated by the Crimson Tide -- is rife with meaning, most notably from their initial meeting in the 1926 Rose Bowl.

"The most significant event in Southern football history," historian Andrew Doyle said in "Roses of Crimson," a documentary about the game.

It's a view seconded by former Birmingham News sportswriter Clyde Bolton: "The 1926 Rose Bowl was without a doubt the most important game before or since in Southern football history."

Why is that?

Well, in college football then, it was the opposite of today's state of affairs. In the early days, college football programs of the South were widely viewed as inferior to those in the big cities of the Northeast or even the universities of the West Coast. That's why the Rose Bowl, the only bowl game at the time, matched the teams judged to be best from East and West.

While Alabama under coach Wallace Wade dominated its schedule on the way to a 9-0 record in 1925, few believed it had a chance against the squad of giants from Washington, which went 10-0-1. None other than affable cowboy actor Will Rogers chided the team from Alabama as "Tusca-losers."

While Alabama was subjected to regional elitism and snobbery, many from the South chose to view the game as a re-enactment of the Civil War, with the team from Seattle representing the Yankees and Northern aggression -- historical and geographical accuracy be damned. Funny thing is, according to most accounts, fans in Pasadena shifted their allegiances in the third quarter as the scrappy Alabama team bounced back from a 12-0 first-half deficit to take a 20-12 lead into the fourth quarter.

Washington, known as the "Purple Tornado," was led by star George Wilson, but he was in and out of the game with injuries, roughed up by Alabama players who took exception to Wilson's tactics while tackling Bama star Johnny Mack Brown.

Washington, which had only 17 yards in the third quarter, rallied in the fourth when Wilson returned and led an 88-yard touchdown drive that cut the lead to one, at 20-19. Alabama grabbed two interceptions to thwart other Washington drives, and Brown ultimately caught and wrestled Wilson to the ground on an apparent breakaway run to ice the victory.

That would be the first of three Rose Bowl appearances with the Tide for Wade, who would leave for Duke after whipping Washington State in the Rose Bowl after the 1930 season.

Who knows if a young man from Arkansas named Paul "Bear" Bryant would have accepted a scholarship to play for Alabama in 1931 if the Tide had lost that first Rose Bowl to Washington?

Bryant, of course, became the Crimson Tide's greatest legend as a coach. He would host the Huskies and their new, fresh-faced coach from Kent State, Don James, in Tuscaloosa in 1975, the teams' first meeting after the Rose Bowl.

The Huskies had gone 7-15 in their final two seasons under Jim Owens, a former Bryant assistant at Kentucky and Texas A&M. Alabama had become a pre-eminent national power under Bryant, while the Huskies hadn't been to a Rose Bowl since the 1963 season. Alabama rolled 52-0.

James and quarterback Warren Moon would lead Washington back to the Rose Bowl after the 1977 season, and the program began 1978 looking like a national contender with a preseason No. 11 ranking and a red-letter return visit from Alabama scheduled for Oct. 7. The Huskies, however, lost two of their first three games to start the season, while the then-No. 1 Crimson Tide were dumped at home by Southern California 24-14 two weeks before heading to Seattle.

The Tide won 20-17 and would go on to share the national title with USC -- the bias against Southern teams obviously no longer an issue -- and the Huskies would continue a climb toward national relevance under James that lasted more than a decade.

Years later, James would tell writer Derek Johnson, "In my entire career, it was probably the best I ever felt after a loss."

That's not what he told assistant coach Dick Baird after the Huskies were drubbed 28-6 in the 1986 Sun Bowl by Alabama and coach Ray Perkins, the teams' last meeting. The Huskies are notoriously said to have have enjoyed the nightlife across the Mexican border from El Paso a wee bit too much, and they had no answer for Tide linebacker Cornelius Bennett.

James, though only two years removed from a final No. 2 ranking after whipping Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, saw that the game was changing from pure power into something more athletic.

"We got faster after that game," Baird said. "Coach James called me in after Bennett kept beating us off the edge, and we talked about how [Alabama] was just a lot faster. We put a big emphasis on going after kids with speed. We immediately started use track times and putting our own clock on kids at camps. That became a point of emphasis."

Speed and power would typify the Huskies unbeaten national championship team of 1991, just as they do the Crimson Tide's dynastic resurgence under Nick Saban.

So the narrative comes full circle in this brief, neglected but eventful series between proud programs, once again featuring one team rising and one established. Where Alabama once traveled West as a massive underdog to prove itself to a skeptical national audience, now the Huskies head South to Atlanta to test themselves against the game's greatest coach, leading perhaps his best team.