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As No. 1 Notre Dame prepares to play 2nd-ranked Alabama, it's not the first time these two schools have played for the national championship in college football.
Turn back the page to December 31, 1973, the #3 Fighting Irish beat the #1 Crimson Tide, 24-23, to win the Sugar Bowl and that year's national title.
The history
This national title matchup will be the seventh ever between the two teams and third in a bowl game. The Irish are 5-1 all-time, including 4-0 against ‘Bama coaching legend Bear Bryant.
In the first meeting, on New Year’s Eve 1973, coach Ara Parseghian won his last national title at ND, when his third-ranked Irish nipped Bryant’s top-ranked Tide, 24-23, in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
The lone Alabama win in the series came in coach Ray Perkins’ final season, a second-ranked Tide team taking down an unranked Irish squad, 28-10 at Birmingham, in 1986. That Irish team would go on to finish 5-6 in its first season under Lou Holtz.
The 1987 matchup, a 37-6 Irish rout of Alabama in South Bend, was the last time the two teams have played.
Video courtesy of YouTube.