Alabama finished the 1966 regular season 10-0, the only undefeated and untied major team in the country, and finished third in the final Associated Press poll. The Iron Bowl was the last game of that regular season and the sixth shutout in it.
The scoring
Neither side scored in the first quarter. Ken Stabler then threw 63 yards to Ray Perkins, Leslie Kelley ran in from a yard out, and Steve Davis kicked a 23-yard field goal: 17-0 at half-time. Kelley scored again from 12 yards in the third quarter and Wayne Trimble threw 41 yards to Donnie Sutton. Auburn did not score at all, for the third time in six years.
Why third
Notre Dame and Michigan State, ranked first and second, had played each other to a 10-10 draw on 19 November and neither went to a bowl game; the AP poll that season closed before the bowls, so the tie was the last evidence the voters had. Alabama beat Nebraska 34-7 in the Sugar Bowl on 2 January and the poll had already been taken.
That is the procedural account. The author Keith Dunnavant has argued that the vote also reflected the political climate — Alabama was still an all-white team, in a state and a decade whose reputation nationally was what it was — and that voters were unwilling to give the school a third consecutive title. The two explanations are not the same claim and neither excludes the other.
The Alabama defence of 1966
Thirty-seven points conceded across eleven games, six shutouts, and a 31-0 win over Auburn to finish the regular season. Auburn finished 4-6 and 1-5 in conference play, Shug Jordan’s worst season since 1952.