Before The Season
After finishing their 2005 campaign with a 13–10 win over Texas Tech in the 2006 Cotton Bowl Classic. In June 2009, the NCAA Committee on Infractions sanctioned Alabama for "major violations" of NCAA policies as a result of athletes who received improper benefits in 16 of 19 NCAA sports, including football. As part of the penalties imposed, the football program was forced to vacate all ten victories from the 2005 season making the official 2005 record 0–2.
The 2006 season also marked the first played in Bryant–Denny Stadium after the completion of the north endzone expansion. The $47 million expansion increased its overall capacity to 92,138 (then the 5th largest on-campus stadium), added several new luxury boxes and saw the completion of the Walk of Champions off University Boulevard. The Walk of Champions, at the time, featured statues of the four national championship Alabama head coaches: Wallace Wade, Frank Thomas, Bear Bryant and Gene Stallings. At that time a fifth space was left vacant for a future statue, and on April 16, 2011, the University unveiled a statue of Nick Saban for winning the 2009 national championship at that location.
Read more about this topic: 2006 Alabama Crimson Tide Football Team
Famous quotes containing the word season:
“Let us have a good many maples and hickories and scarlet oaks, then, I say. Blaze away! Shall that dirty roll of bunting in the gun-house be all the colors a village can display? A village is not complete, unless it have these trees to mark the season in it. They are important, like the town clock. A village that has them not will not be found to work well. It has a screw loose, an essential part is wanting.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)