How a game nearly skipped turned into Louisville's only win over Alabama A game that almost didn't happen became the biggest win in Louisville's history

Jake Lourim | Courier Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption The 1991 Fiesta Bowl marked the first and only time Louisville beat Alabama The upset of Alabama required both a historically good Louisville team and a great deal of fortune. These are a few of the memories from key figures.

Louisville defeated Alabama 34-7 in the 1991 Fiesta Bowl

The victory remains the only one for the Cardinals over the Crimson Tide

The game was overshadowed by Arizona voters rejecting Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.

The Cardinals finished the 1990 season 10-1-1, the first 10-win season in school history.

It was 1990. Howard Schnellenberger was Louisville’s football coach. Browning Nagle was the quarterback. The team played home games at the old Cardinal Stadium, the new version still eight seasons away from opening. The Cardinals were not in a conference. They almost never played on national TV.

As the 2018 Cardinals prepare to open against Alabama on Sept. 1, that 1990 team still holds the school’s only victory against the storied Crimson Tide. Louisville’s 34-7 rout in Tempe, Arizona, is a window into a different time. One afternoon, arguably the biggest win in school history at that time, laid the foundation for many more.

The upset of Alabama required both a historically good Louisville team and a great deal of fortune. Racial controversy, an upstart underdog and an emotionally charged day produced a surreal Fiesta Bowl that would loom large as the program developed.

These are the memories of those who made, watched and covered it.

‘Dream Lives On’

From the beginning, the 1991 Fiesta Bowl was contentious. On Nov. 6, 1990, Arizona voters rejected a ballot proposal to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a paid holiday for state workers, thrusting the state into a furious debate.

Civil rights groups were outraged. According to a report from The New York Times, Fiesta Bowl officials considered moving the game. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue advocated against granting the 1993 Super Bowl to Tempe.

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Meanwhile, some fans wished sports and politics could be separated. Today, the discourse from almost 30 years ago in many ways resembles recent debates such as those about racial injustice protests during the national anthem.

As the regular season ended, Notre Dame and Virginia made strong statements. They declined invitations to play in the Fiesta Bowl, forcing the game to scramble for two contestants. Louisville ended up receiving an opportunity and would play its first New Year’s Day bowl game since 1958.

Louisville coach Howard Schnellenberger: The university originally didn’t want to go to that game. It took a whole lot of persuasion to get our president and our board of trustees to allow us to go. We sold it as an opportunity to do something wonderful for our nation and for the black community, and to join forces with them and have a great day for the event.

Louisville quarterback Browning Nagle: Coach Schnellenberger had a meeting with us, he asked the senior leaders to discuss it, but he basically said, “I want to go to this game, I think it’d be a great (opportunity).” And nobody even thought twice.

Louisville quarterback Jeff Brohm: We got in the game, and we had people marching on our field, protesting that we were in the game while we were practicing, the entire couple weeks we were practicing. So it was a conversation. It was talked about. It was discussed. But our coaches, our administration decided to play in it, and for us, it worked out.

Tom Hammond, on NBC broadcast: The decision to play or not play in this game was most personal for the members of each squad. For Louisville, it was a special case. Given the opportunity to play in the school’s first-ever New Year’s Day bowl, on national television for the first time, the players thought it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Louisville wide receiver Anthony Cummings: Leading up to the game, we thought that because we probably weren’t going to make it into a New Year’s Day bowl, we thought that it would be a great opportunity to go in the first place and to think about, what would Dr. King do? We thought he would go, he would face adversity and he would try to change things. We talked about that.

Hammond, on broadcast: More than one Cardinal said to me, “Dr. King had a dream, but we had a dream too.” They meant no disrespect. In fact, during the game today, that “Dream Lives On” theme will carry over to the jersey for this special patch. They’ll have patches on their helmets as well.

Nagle: In no more of a setting do you find a more cohesive, diverse group of people than in a football locker room. There was no controversy within our team. We were just thankful that we had an opportunity — unfortunately based on sensitive circumstances, but we were appreciative that this is our shot.

Hammond, on broadcast: For Alabama, it was a different sort of decision. This is a school that goes to a bowl game virtually every year and makes its 43rd appearance. Big games are nothing new for Bama players, so perhaps it was a more difficult decision.

Alabama running back Siran Stacy, in NBC interview: We just said among each other, and we talked about it, and we’re a team, so we decided to stick together on the whole situation. We were very sensitive to the Martin Luther King issue, and we felt like we showed our feelings about it. … Today you’ll see a lot of players dressed in black with the MLK sign. We feel like we’ve done all we can, and we represent our university well.

Schnellenberger: We improved as we went along that year, and thank God it was Martin Luther King’s birthday down there, or we would never have had a chance to go. Thank God for small favors. Or large favors.

‘S-E-C! S-E-C!’

After going 2-9, 3-8, 3-7-1, 8-3 and 6-5 in Schnellenberger’s first five seasons, Louisville broke through in 1990 with the most wins in school history.

Playing an improved schedule that featured the likes of Boston College and Pittsburgh, Schnellenberger’s team won its last six games of the regular season and ended up in the national polls.

Schnellenberger: We worked them so hard that first year, we had about 150 players that came to the training camp and about 40 of them quit. That was to be expected, and that’s why you work them so hard. The ones that can’t hack it will leave, and the ones that stay will be (encouraged) by the fact that they stayed and became part of the team.

Though Louisville wasn’t used to playing SEC opponents, years of experience had built a team that believed it could compete with anyone in the country. Meanwhile, Alabama was trudging through a below-average season.

The Crimson Tide lost their first three games of the year, then recovered to win seven of their next eight in coach Gene Stallings’ first season. Stallings and Schnellenberger worked together on coach Bear Bryant’s staff at Alabama from 1961-64.

Schnellenberger: That was another reason why it was so easy to get my team up, because we were playing a team that’s been the best in America for all those years, and they brought in the child of Paul Bryant in Gene Stallings, and he had all the same lessons that I learned under Bryant.

Alabama allowed just 38 points in its last seven games of the regular season, finishing with a 16-7 victory against Auburn that snapped a bitter four-year Iron Bowl losing streak.

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Cecil Hurt, sports editor, Tuscaloosa News: I’m not downplaying the opponent in any way, but I think the Auburn game was kind of emotionally their year. That sort of made the year for them, and it was a little bit hard for them to regroup for a bowl.

New to the big stage, Louisville entered the bowl game as a huge underdog.

Nagle: We lived it here in our city. We were the underdogs at the university. It’s a basketball school, for goodness’ sake.

Cummings: I remember most fans in the commonwealth thinking, hey, that’ll never happen. Louisville will never, ever beat an SEC team.

Nagle: It was hard not to hear it and take it to heart when the NBC commentator, Todd Christensen, was almost tongue-in-cheek looking at us like, “Yeah, you guys have a chance, right?”

Schnellenberger: It was an opportunity to beat a team that was vastly superior to us, that had a tradition going all the way back to Paul Bryant. It was a thrill. We had been prepping for that game for the longest of times.

Playing the best football in school history, the Cardinals gained an unwavering confidence in the weeks leading up to the game. The players credited Schnellenberger’s pregame speech with securing that message and sending them into battle with the right mindset.

Schnellenberger: Do as we’ve been training to do all those years, and don’t worry about it. We’ve got the troops with us. We’ve got the guys that went through boot camp. We had taken that all through the season. We get to play Alabama out of the Southeastern Conference? This was a game made in heaven, the opportunity of a lifetime. This was a time to play better than you’ve ever played. And they did.

Nagle: There’s no better motivating guy in a pregame speech than the man with the pipe. He just had a way.

Cummings: It was the same the whole week: We don’t think they understand what’s about to happen to them. We were kind of at a boiling point where we were fighting for respect. Nobody respected us. Even Alabama, even their coach, Gene Stallings, talked about how they were going to smack us in the mouth and see what happens. That was at the luncheon.

Nagle: They didn’t know what they were about to face.

When the Cardinals left their locker room to head to the field, the vaunted Crimson Tide were waiting for them.

Cummings: There was a long tunnel, and our locker room was at the end, and Alabama’s locker room was in the middle. So we had to pass their locker room to get out of the tunnel. As we came out of our locker room, Alabama was standing on both sides of the hallway, chanting ‘S-E-C! S-E-C!’ Their whole team, they had extended down to our locker room and they were chanting all the way.

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Schnellenberger: It pissed us off. They were shouting at us. Our team rose to the challenge and went right through them, didn’t look back, didn’t give them a finger, just got out on the field and got ready to kick their ass.

‘Unimaginable’

Louisville’s excitement faded early. On the Cardinals’ first offensive possession, Nagle threw a pass that was tipped up by tight end Ken McKay and intercepted by Alabama’s Stacy Harrison.

Nagle: The thing I remember most is coming out with all that emotion, all that buildup and anticipation, and first series, I throw an interception. And I was like, “Oh, my God, they were right.”

But it was all Louisville for the rest of the afternoon. A sack by Mike Flores and a pass breakup by Mark Sander helped force a three-and-out. After the teams traded punts, Nagle found Latrell Ware on a wheel route out of the backfield and hit him for a 70-yard touchdown.

Nagle: Defense holds ’em, we go back out and do what we had prepared to do. And thankfully, it was my senior year, I had seen a lot, been through a lot, so the magnitude of the stage didn’t change or translate into compounding that mistake by adding on other mistakes.

Louisville broke the game open quickly. Alabama fumbled on the second play of its next drive, and Louisville’s Ray Buchanan recovered. With 3:40 left in the first quarter, Ralph Dawkins put the Cardinals up 13-0 with a 5-yard touchdown run.

The next series brought another turnover, as William Blackford picked off Alabama quarterback Gary Hollingsworth. Then, Nagle fired a 37-yard touchdown pass to Cummings on a deep post route. The Cardinals led 19-0. According to the broadcast, Alabama entered the game ranked No. 1 in the country in pass defense, allowing 137.8 yards per game. Nagle threw for 223 yards and two touchdowns in the first quarter.

Nagle: They were great at substituting in defensive backs in passing situations, so in order to take that away from them, when long-yardage situations came into play, we did no-huddle, which is now common.

Schnellenberger: We passed a lot, passed on first down, passed on third and short, and we ran the ball well, too. We just did what we always did, and we were wired so tight, we were up so high, that we were playing extraordinarily well.

Cummings: We watched film on Alabama. They had, of course, great athletes. But again, they had faced running teams, and Coach Schnellenberger’s offense was so versatile. We threw the ball to tight ends, running backs, receivers, anybody that had a chance that could touch the ball, they touched it in that offense.

Louisville would pile on with a blocked punt just 53 seconds later. Buchanan recovered in the end zone for the Cardinals’ fourth touchdown, making it 25-0 with one second left in the first quarter and removing all doubt.

Nagle: That really crystallized a lot of things, when we were able to hold them, and then we got back on the field, next thing I know, we’re up 25-0 after the first quarter. Everything that we had worked so hard in preparation, not only for that game but really the whole body of work that Coach Schnellenberger had put into our group of guys, it all came together.

Hurt: That Alabama team wasn’t built to come back on anybody. They had a rudimentary passing offense, to put it mildly. So the game was over. When it’s 25-0, Alabama’s not going to come back.

Schnellenberger inserted Brohm at quarterback to start the second quarter. The former Trinity star threw an interception, which Alabama’s Charles Gardner returned 49 yards for a touchdown. But the Tide never scored again.

Bob Costas, on NBC broadcast at halftime: With the controversy surrounding the Martin Luther King holiday in Arizona, the biggest news today was the lack of any of the expected pregame protests or demonstrations outside the stadium, only the more positive petition effort aimed at getting the proposition back on a future ballot in a different and more understandable form.

Jaime Diaz, New York Times story: Outside the stadium gates before the game, a group of 11 demonstrators representing the Maricopa County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People protested the playing of the game. Tempe police assigned one plainclothes officer to the demonstration, which was free of incident. The demonstrators stood silently holding placards, one of which said: “Alabama and Louisville, Hang Your Head in Shame.”

The Fiesta Bowl honored Martin Luther King with a halftime presentation called “Celebrate America” and featuring video clips of speeches by King, John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln and Patrick Henry.

The second half was so drama-free that NBC switched to the Orange Bowl pregame with a few minutes left. Nagle hit Cummings for another touchdown pass with in the third quarter, and Louisville wrapped up the scoring with a safety in the fourth. Nagle finished 20-for-33 passing for 451 yards and three touchdowns.

Nagle, in the Courier Journal, Jan. 2, 1991: Unimaginable. I had a lot of dreams about this game and this season, but none of them were as beautiful as this turned out.

‘Tradition fell to the ground’

With the victory, Louisville won 10 games for the first time and finished the season 10-1-1.

Schnellenberger, in the Courier Journal: I don’t ever remember being prouder of a football team than I was today. To have performed as well as we did on national television makes me very proud of my players and staff. People ask me if this rivals the 1984 Orange Bowl win over Nebraska (for the 1983 national championship). While the feeling is obviously different, the emotions for me are the same. This program has worked tremendously hard to get to the position we are in today.

Alabama linebacker John Sullins, in the Courier Journal: I’m in complete shock. We’ve played against a lot of great offensive teams this year, and nobody moved the ball against us like that. I don’t know what to say. I’m at a loss for words.

It was Louisville’s first-ever win against an SEC opponent, not counting two games against Mississippi State in the 1970s in which the Bulldogs had their wins vacated.

Schnellenberger, in his book: Now everything was different. We had changed the perception of Louisville football forever. We could talk openly about a land swap to enlarge the campus and switch over from a commuter school to a residential campus. We could dream out loud about a 50,000-seat on-campus stadium. … We could finally shame Kentucky into facing us on the gridiron. The idea of Louisville playing Kentucky in football had been as dead as a dinosaur since 1924.

Sure enough, the Louisville-Kentucky football series restarted in 1994 and a new stadium opened in 1998, largely because of the respectability Louisville gained in the Fiesta Bowl. Until then, the schools had played just six times between 1912-24, and Kentucky had won all six by a combined score of 220-0. The rivalry has continued since 1994, and it’s now even at 15 games apiece.

Nagle: I drive by the old Cardinal Stadium now, and it touches me because that’s where it started. I know the Louisville faithful, they realize that too. It does nothing but make all of us proud as to where the football program is now, because we feel like we had a very instrumental part in creating that or being a part of the creation of that.

Brohm: It was a dominating performance by our team, and it was a big win. It definitely put us on the national scene a little more and Coach Schnellenberger and his ability to develop teams and get us to play at a high level.

Schnellenberger, in his book: I can rest easy knowing I brought major college football to my hometown. And knowing we did it without a single NCAA infraction.

Buchanan, in the Courier Journal: (Alabama) talked a lot of junk. But those who laugh first never laugh again, and we got the last laugh. Winning that big against Alabama feels really good. Usually we do that against Little League teams, but Alabama is a big-league team. I guess tradition fell to the ground today.

Gentry Estes contributed to this story.

Jake Lourim: 502-582-4168; jlourim@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jakelourim. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/jakel.