DALLAS - When the Alabama football team takes the field Thursday for the 80th Cotton Bowl, there will be a program and national-record 29 Crimson Tide players suited up who have already earned their degree, including three that have earned their master’s degree.
The Tide’s 29 graduates breaks the previous national mark of 28 that played for Alabama in the 2014 Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma. This year’s Tide total means that more 20-percent of those wearing the crimson and white of Alabama in the Cotton Bowl have at least one college degree already in hand. The Tide’s Cotton Bowl graduate tally is three ahead of second place Temple and seven ahead of third-place Kansas State.