Ranking Alabama football's 10 most impactful plays over the past 25 years

USA Today

09-07-2025

There are no shortage of big plays that will live forever in Alabama Crimson Tide fans' memories and in college football lore.
When you're inside Bryant-Denny Stadium about 20-30 minutes prior to kickoff and look up at any of the various video boards inside the 100,077-seat college football temple, you get a brief glimpse of Alabama's greatness through the years.
From the grainy footage of Bear Bryant's Alabama teams to signature moments from Gene Stallings' tenure as head coach to the more recent number of euphoric highs experienced during Nick Saban's dynastic run, Alabama highlights are crafted and splashed all across Bryant-Denny to showcase over half a century of the Crimson Tide's excellence.
The last 25 years of Alabama football have certainly helped keep the ones in charge of those pregame hype videos busy with fresh material. Since the 2009 season, Alabama boasts six national championships, nine SEC titles, four Heisman Trophy winners, and an army of players taken in the NFL Draft. That makes for a lot of highlights, and it's why Roll Tide Wire is taking a look back at the 10 most impactful Alabama plays since the year 2000.
The plays on our list aren't necessarily based on individual performance, but ones that had the biggest influence on keeping Alabama's championship hopes alive or its dynasty thriving -- plus one that had nothing to do with a title run but made the list for an entirely different reason.
Here are Alabama's 10 most impactful plays from the past 25 seasons.
10. Roman Harper's forced fumble turns the Tide against Tennessee
The Impact
The tension leading up to the 88th edition of the Third Saturday in October rivalry was as heavy as any in the series' history, and with good reason. Tennessee had won nine of the previous 10 meetings and Vols coach Philip Fulmer was public enemy number one in and around Tuscaloosa. There are simply few rivalry games in Alabama history the Crimson Tide needed as much as this one.
Senior linebacker Roman Harper made sure they got it. With Tennessee driving deep in Alabama territory with around five minutes left, Vols offensive coordinator Randy Sanders dialed up a screen pass to fullback Cory Anderson on third-and-goal from the 15. Anderson rumbled down the sideline and looked as if he was going to score.
Instead, Harper hit Anderson at an angle and used his helmet to jar the ball loose inside the 5-yard line. It carried into the back of the end-zone for a touchback and Alabama took over with 5:09 left. Brodie Croyle hit D.J. Hall on third-and-long for a 44-yard gain to move Alabama to the cusp of field goal range, and Jamie Christensen's 34-yard field goal with 13 seconds to go gave the Tide only their second win over Tennessee in 10 years.
In a rivalry that has always been measured in streaks, Alabama's 6-3 win over Tennessee was the beginning of the end to the Vols' late 90s and early 2000s dominance in the series. Alabama would go on to win 15 straight vs. Tennessee beginning in Nick Saban's first season in 2007, while Fulmer would taste victory only once more against the Crimson Tide (in 2006).
9. Jalen Hurts' Hollywood script in SEC Championship win over Georgia
The Impact
Alabama faced Kirby Smart's Bulldogs for the second time in 11 months, this time with the SEC championship at stake. Almost a year after freshman Tua Tagovailoa had taken over for Hurts in the national title game and carried Alabama to a thrilling come-from-behind overtime win, Tua came into the day with the Heisman Trophy seemingly locked up.
That all changed when Georgia's defense held him to a season-low 29.2 quarterback rating while forcing two interceptions and building a two-touchdown lead. In a stunning one-eighty, it was Hurts who came off the bench to save Alabama. He took over in the fourth quarter and tied the score at 28-all with a 10-yard touchdown to Jerry Jeudy with 5:19 left.
And it was Hurts' breathtaking 15-yard scramble with 1:04 to play that provided the Crimson Tide with the game-winning score. For Alabama, it also was the latest in a series of fourth-quarter escapes against Georgia dating back to Mark Richt's tenure in Athens.
8. 'Gravedigger': Miracle touchdown on 4th and 31 to give Alabama a stunning win over Auburn
The Impact
For starters, it's the Iron Bowl. Enough said. Alabama also doesn't get to the College Football Playoff in Nick Saban's final season without this play. Auburn's puzzling decision to only rush two gave Jalen Milroe an eternity to throw, and Isaiah Bond made arguably the biggest catch in Iron Bowl history as the Tide pulled out a second straight razor-thin victory on the Plains.
7. John Metchie's forced fumble in 2020 SEC Championship Game
The Impact
Alabama's 13-0 national championship season in 2020 didn't feature many close games. The SEC Championship was quite the exception. Against Dan Mullen's Gators, the Crimson Tide won a shootout as Mac Jones ended the night with 418 passing yards and five touchdowns.
Jones' one mistake came midway through the first quarter. With Alabama at the Florida 22-yard line, Jones' pass to Miller Forristall in tight coverage was wrestled away on a terrific play by Gators safety Trey Dean III for an interception. Dean had a return of 15 yards before Metchie made one of the hardest hits ever leveled by a wide receiver.
Metchie's jarring hit on Dean forced a fumble and gave the ball back to Alabama's offense, which finished the night with 605 total yards. With a new set of downs, Jones hit Heisman winner DeVonta Smith for a 31-yard touchdown and a 14-7 Alabama lead on the next play from scrimmage. There's an argument to be made that Alabama doesn't win this game without Metchie's play.
6. A.J. McCarron's late touchdown to Amari Cooper in a de facto national championship game
The actual national championship game from the 2012 college football season was played in Miami against a Notre Dame team that Alabama simply outmatched in a 42-14 blowout. Make no mistake about it, though: the real title game was this back-and-forth thriller between the Tide and Dawgs a month earlier in Atlanta.
With his team's season on the line, A.J. McCarron stepped up and delivered a perfect 45-yard strike to Amari Cooper with 3:15 left, giving Alabama the game's final points -- barely. Aaron Murray drove Georgia to the Alabama 8-yard line, but with the Bulldogs out of timeouts, a tipped pass to Chris Conley kept the game clock running. Georgia couldn't get another play off, and Alabama escaped after rallying from a 21-10 second-half deficit.
5. 'Rocky Block': Terrence Cody's two blocked field goals vs Tennessee
Alabama's offense was in a midseason rut when upset-minded Tennessee visited Tuscaloosa for the 2009 edition of 'Third Saturday.' Even so, the Crimson Tide seemed in control with a 12-3 lead with under four minutes to play. Then a strange sequence happened. Mark Ingram, that year's Heisman Trophy winner, coughed up a rare fumble with just over three minutes to play. Behind senior quarterback Jonathan Crompton, Tennessee had new life and drove 43 yards for a touchdown to make it a one-score game.
Daniel Lincoln executed an onside kick that Tennessee recovered with a minute left, and the Vols drove to the Alabama 28 for a game-winning 44-yard field goal try. Fortunately, Alabama had a mountain of a man to save its undefeated season. Standing 6-foot-4, 350 pounds, Terrence "Mount" Cody got a hand on Lincoln's kick. It was Cody's second blocked field goal during a wild fourth quarter.
"We did everything wrong in the last three minutes of the game," Nick Saban told CBS' Tracy Wolfson afterwards. He was right, but Alabama remained unbeaten thanks to Cody.
4. T.J. Yeldon's game-winning touchdown at LSU to cap thrilling comeback
There are any number of highlights from Alabama vs. LSU that could go on this list. See our ranking of the five best Alabama wins at Tiger Stadium for more on that, including the Crimson Tide's overtime victory in 2008.
But for this one, we go back to November 2012. Legendary CBS broadcaster Verne Lundquist summed things up perfectly when Alabama took over at its own 28-yard line with 1:34 to play in the fourth quarter and trailing 17-14. "They've… not… done… anything… with the football in this half," he said of Alabama's offense.
A.J. McCarron, Kevin Norwood, and T.J. Yeldon would change all that in a span of 43 seconds. Norwood caught passes of 18, 15, and 11 yards to move Alabama to the LSU 28. Then came the dagger. McCarron hit Yeldon on a perfectly executed screen pass, and the Daphne, Alabama, native weaved his way through traffic for a breathtaking game-winning score with 51 seconds left.
True championship teams often have to learn how to win games when the odds are stacked against them to find out what exactly they're made of. Alabama's 2012 national championship team did that on this night, and it served them well a month later in a frantic SEC Championship against Georgia when panic could have taken over.
3. Kenyan Drake's kick return TD in wild fourth quarter to help Alabama edge Clemson for title
There are countless plays in the fourth quarter of this back-and-forth bonanza that could go here. One is Adam Griffith's onside kick with 10:30 to play at a time when Alabama desperately needed to seize momentum. That decision to kick onside led to a 51-yard Jake Coker touchdown pass to tight end O.J. Howard for a 31-24 Alabama lead.
Howard later caught a short pass for a 63-yard gain with under four minutes to play on Alabama's game-clinching drive, which also included a clutch scramble from Coker on third-and-goal for a first down. Derrick Henry's one-yard touchdown run -- his third of the night -- capped the Alabama scoring for a 45-33 lead with 1:04 to play.
But before all that, there was Kenyan Drake's explosive 95-yard kick return touchdown midway through the fourth quarter after Clemson had just scored to get to within four points. Drake's touchdown was the one that gave Alabama the special teams spark it ultimately needed to survive Dabo Swinney's upstart program.
2. '2nd and 26' to give fifth Alabama national championship in eight years
Nick Saban had never been more desperate than he was at halftime of the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship in Atlanta. His choice was to stick with a quarterback in Jalen Hurts that had gone 26-2 as a starter, or turn to a promising but untested true freshman in Tua Tagovailoa who had never even started a game in college.
Down 13-0, Saban had to at least give Tagovailoa a chance. Tua started the second half and began to lead the Alabama comeback by finding Henry Ruggs for a six-yard touchdown and the Crimson Tide's first points. Later, he tied the game on a fourth-down play from the 7-yard line with a touchdown pass Calvin Ridley with 3:49 left in regulation.
Alabama missed a field goal that would have won the game in regulation, and Tagovailoa looked to have doomed the Tide's chances after taking a brutal sack on Alabama's first offensive snap in overtime for an 11-yard loss. Then the magic happened. Tagovailoa hit fellow freshman DeVonta Smith for a walk-off 41-yard dagger to crush the Bulldogs. Tua and the "Slim Reaper" have been Alabama icons ever since.
1. Eryk Anders' forced fumble to help Alabama launch a college football dynasty
The Impact
Here's a question I've sometimes pondered: what if Alabama linebacker Eryk Anders doesn't make this hit on Texas quarterback Garrett Gilbert to force a late fumble in the 2010 BCS title game? Do the Longhorns drive the remaining 83 yards to take the lead and leave Alabama without enough time to answer?
And if so, what becomes of Alabama in the immediate aftermath? Do the Crimson Tide return hungrier than ever and win the 2010 national title? Does Alabama simply finish with one fewer championship trophy under Nick Saban? Or maybe the Alabama dynasty never really takes off quite the same way as it did on that January night in Pasadena?
Because of Anders, we'll never have to find out.
With Texas having new life after falling behind 24-6 with star quarterback Colt McCoy out of the game, Gilbert held the ball deep in his own territory and trailing by just three points. Anders came at Gilbert on a blindside blitz, and Courtney Upshaw recovered the fumble at the 3-yard line. Mark Ingram finished off the drive with a one-yard touchdown to give the Crimson Tide some breathing room and a 31-21 lead. When it was over, the Crimson Tide had their first national championship in 17 years.
It would be easy to rank '2nd and 26' as Alabama's most impactful play of the past 25 years. After all, it won the Crimson Tide the national championship in the most thrilling way possible -- against an SEC rival no less. It is the highlight that closes those aforementioned pregame hype videos inside Bryant-Denny Stadium on fall Saturdays.
But Tagovailoa's walk-off touchdown to Smith wasn't what launched the greatest college football dynasty of the modern era. That was Alabama 37, Texas 21, some eight years earlier when Anders hit Gilbert with Texas' hopes at a comeback very much alive and well.
Nick Saban famously said after Alabama's win over Texas: "This is not the end. This is the beginning." Truer words were never spoken.
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