Paul William “Bear” Bryant died 23 years ago, but the shadow he cast on college football grows longer each year. Thanks to depictions in such films as “Forrest Gump” and “The Junction Boys,” his trademark houndstooth hat is more familiar to football fans now than when Bryant was alive. Because Bryant’s career touched on so many issues — alleged betting scandals, the integration of college sports, the boom of televised college football — literature about Bryant is becoming a light industry, producing more books than he could have had time to read in his 38 years of coaching at Maryland, Kentucky, Texas A&M, and, of course, Alabama.

Most books on Bryant’s life and career focus on his unmatched record of six national titles at Alabama, but two new books find great stories in years when Bryant’s Crimson Tide didn’t win. Keith Dunnavant’s “The Missing Ring” (Thomas Dunne, 336 pages, $24.95) recalls the legendary 1966 season, when the Tide was gunning for its third straight national championship and failed in perhaps the most controversial finish the college game has ever seen. The story told in Don Yaeger’s “Turning of the Tide” (Center Street, 254 pages, $24.99) is that of the game played four years later between the all white Tide and John McKay’s largely black Trojans in what was the first racially integrated football game in Alabama.

Mr. Dunnavant digs deep into the controversy of the 1966 title. The other contenders that year were Ara Parseghian’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Duffy Daugherty’s Michigan State Spartans. After Notre Dame and MSU played to a 10–10 tie, with Parseghian choosing to have his quarterback run out the clock on the last play rather than chance an interception, the undefeated Alabama team was still ranked third in the AP and UPI polls.Alabama, Mr. Dunnavant thinks, was shafted because the Crimson Tide was still fielding an all-white team.

1966 was a pivotal year in college football history, the year when, in addition to integration, the power of the sport as a TV draw became evident. (Ratings for the late season clash between the number one-ranked Irish and the number two Spartans exceeded those for the first Super Bowl two months later.) There’s a great book to be written on that season, but Mr. Dunnavant instead has chosen to air a grudge.

It can be argued that the Alabama football team was a victim of politics. A vocal minority, led by the Los Angeles Times’ Jim Murray (who regularly accused Bryant and Alabama of playing for the “Magnolia Championship”), made it obvious that no segregated team would get their vote. Mr. Dunnavant’s case for the 1966 Tide, though, is based far more on emotion than reason. “By choosing to let the voters decide rather than risking a loss on the final play against Michigan State,” writes Mr. Dunnavant, “Ara Parseghian deftly exploited the media’s love affair with the Irish and the widespread anti-Southern bias.” What “bias”? All-white teams from the South — including Auburn, LSU, Texas, and Alabama (three times) — had won six of the previous nine championships from 1957 through 1965, and in 1969, Texas, still all-white, won again, a fact of which Mr. Dunnavant seems unaware.

Furthermore, there is no compelling reason why Notre Dame’s 1966 squad shouldn’t have won it all: They played a tougher schedule than either Alabama or Michigan State and won by a wider margin of victory. Even if Parseghian erred in being overly cautious, why should his team have been punished? Further, it is unsettling Spartan tackle Bubba Smith’s explanation for Notre Dame’s finishing number one — “All the sportswriters are Catholic” — goes unchallenged by Mr. Dunnavant.

Myself, I’d have voted for Alabama, but as I grew up there, I’m not objective. But when Mr. Dunnavant, writing at the top of his voice, declares that the vote for Notre Dame was “the greatest misjustice in college football history,” my jaw dropped. The greatest misjustice in college football history is that black players from Alabama and the rest of the South weren’t given a chance to play in their home states. And, frankly, I don’t share Mr. Dunnavant’s optimism as to how much progress the state has made because Condoleezza Rice tossed a coin to open the 2005 Alabama-Tennessee game in Tuscaloosa. “The chill-bump factor,” he writes, “was high.” I’d feel better if I knew for sure there were more blacks in the stands that day than on the field.

Mr. Yeager’s “Turning of the Tide” recounts vividly the game that accelerated the process of integration in Southern football. By the end of the 1960s, Bryant felt he had built up sufficient leverage to defy George Wallace’s segregationist stance, as well as obstructionist sentiments within his own university, and was ready to recruit top black athletes. The problem was that the top black athletes didn’t want to play for Alabama. Looking for a dramatic stage from which to send a message that his team was ready to integrate, Bryant contacted his good friend, USC coach John McKay, and over drinks, shook hands on a deal: USC would open the 1970 season in Birmingham, and ‘Bama would return the favor in 1971 at the L.A. Coliseum.

Mr. Yaeger doesn’t pretend to understand completely the motives of the inscrutable Bryant, who never made clear his reasons for arranging the match. In retrospect, though, it’s clear that Bryant’s intentions were to shake up the boosters and politicians who still resisted integration, and that he also knew his team was no match for the Trojans. It wasn’t: the 42–21 Trojan rout was the game that caught the attention of the entire South.

The Alabama papers, both white and black, made no mention of the game’s significance, but word of mouth made all the difference. Even before the game, Jim Murray understood the result no matter who won: “The point of the game will not be the score, the Bear, the Trojans; the point of the game will be Reason, Democracy, Hope. The real winner will be the South.” Murray was right. I only wish Mr. Yaeger had devoted more space to the next season’s game, when an integrated Alabama team whipped Southern Cal in Los Angeles.

“Turning of the Tide” is that rare sports book that can be read with pride by fans of both the winning and losing teams. To his credit, Mr. Yaeger doesn’t seem to believe the legend that after the 1970 game, Bryant “borrowed” USC fullback Sam “Bam” Cunningham (who had rushed for 135 yards) and brought him to the Tide locker room, where he told his players, “Gentlemen, this what a football player looks like.” It never happened, but I’ll bet that scene shows up when they make the movie.

Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach — A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant” from W.W. Norton, recently published in paperback.