While college football is popular across America, its most fervent followers are in the South, most especially of the teams in the mighty Southeastern Conference. Not surprisingly, therefore, fans of the SEC cling to the memories of the many great games that date back to 1910, when Vanderbilt traveled to New Haven, Conn., and managed to play defending national champion Yale to a 0-0 tie. And this isn’t the only distant memory that author Alex Martin Smith brings back to life in “SEC Football’s Greatest Games.” He recounts Alabama’s 20-19 upset of the University of Washington in the 1926 Rose Bowl as “the game that changed the South,” essentially making football the region’s calling card. There have been numerous protagonists along the way (Joe Namath, Bo Jackson, Bear Bryant, and Tim Tebow, to name just a few) and this review is their story, too.
