Alabama completed a 10-0 regular season on Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 1964, and were voted national champions by both wire services — the polls closed before the bowls that year, and Alabama’s subsequent Orange Bowl defeat to Texas did not alter the result.
Four touchdowns, none of them ordinary
Steve Bowman recovered an Auburn fumbled punt and ran it back 39 yards for the opening score. Tucker Frederickson put Auburn ahead with a three-yard run, and Auburn led 7-6 at half-time. Ray Ogden then took the second-half kickoff the length of the field for a touchdown. In the fourth quarter Joe Namath threw 23 yards to Ray Perkins, and Auburn’s Tom Bryan replied with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Jimmy Sidle. Neither team scored an ordinary offensive touchdown from scrimmage until the fourth quarter.
Namath’s last one
This was Namath’s third and final Iron Bowl, and he played it on a knee that had been injured the previous week. He was not the reason Alabama won — the fumble return and the kickoff return were worth more than his touchdown pass — but the 23-yard throw to Perkins put Alabama ahead for the last time.
Namath was the first player taken in the 1965 American Football League draft, by the New York Jets, and signed for a sum that made national news. The 1964 Iron Bowl was the last competitive game of his college career except the Orange Bowl.
The seasons
Alabama finished 10-1 after losing to Texas 21-17 on 1 January. Auburn came in 6-3 and finished 6-4 in Shug Jordan’s fourteenth season. Alabama had now won the series three times in four years and would win the next two as well.