The Iron Bowl Myth: A Great Rivalry Any Team Can Win

selmaborntidefan

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Well it's that time again. (Maybe I should have submitted this as a news article but anyway). For the next six days we're going to hear what a great classic the Iron Bowl has often been (true), appeals to past games with unforgettable names (Punt Bama Punt, 315, The Kick, etc) and the most worthless cliche of the in-state rivalry - 'you throw out the records, either team can win this game.'

I say, "Hogwash." You're gonna hear it a dozen times folks - and it is not true. In point of fact - as far as upsets - this rivalry is pretty much a total dud.

Since 1981, I've only missed three Iron Bowls on TV (well, four if you count me being in the stands in 2012) - 1982 (I lived in Germany and we didn't get it), 1993 (Auburn was on a TV ban), and 2006 (I went to a wedding for my sister-in-law's third marriage, and it lasted 11 months). And I'm well-read on the sport and the game and let me tell you - this game is won by the better team (or at least competitive team that executes well) 99.9% of the time.

The Iron Bowl really began its modern incarnation in 1948, when Alabama drilled 1-8-1 Auburn, 55-0. Not exactly a surprising result from a 5-4-1 Alabama team. Auburn won by a single point in 1949 in what might be called an upset if you set aside the fact that the reason Auburn had only two wins is because they also had three ties. From 1950-58, the team with the better record won every single time save the year 1953, when Alabama (6-3-3) beat Auburn (7-3-1), 10-7, which sounds about like what would be expected rather than some sort of upset.

Even in 1959, Coach Bryant's first win, it was 7-2-2 Alabama over 7-3 Auburn, a pretty even contest record-wise. Even the Tide's loss in 1963 was a two-loss Alabama losing to a two-loss Auburn, hardly a colossal upset at all.

So how many times has the demonstrably inferior team won the Iron Bowl since its renewal in 1947? Five? Eight? Ten? After all, we're told 'either team can win this regardless of the record' in hype form (not in literal form, which is obvious). How many times has a team with 3 more losses than the other team won the game? (I picked the number at random but that sounds reasonable since a 7-3 beating a 10-0 would be quite a level of upset back in the day).

Try never.

Now the modern era fan will insist that several of the games qualify as upsets, so I'm gonna look at those. Those games are from 1972, 1982, 1984, 2001, and 2002.

1972, of course, is the infamous Punt Bama Punt game. There is no need to go over the details as they were well-known by all fans. The popular story is that Alabama knocked Auburn all over the field because the Tigers couldn't move and then they blocked two punts in the waning moments and walked off with a 17-16 win. And to a large degree the story is true. However, what is often forgotten is that Auburn entered that game with an 8-1 record, their only loss to LSU. Alabama was undefeated, true, but a one-loss team beating an unbeaten in the final game can hardly be called an upset. Yes, Alabama outplayed Auburn, but the two teams were evenly matched and the one-loss team prevailed by a point. This hardly makes the case that 'anyone can win this one.'

1982 was Coach Bryant's final game and, in fact, Auburn's first victory in the series since the game covered above. Alabama well outplayed Auburn for the first 51 minutes of the game. In fact, Auburn only had 132 yards of offense entering the fourth quarter. Auburn put it all together and handed Alabama (and Coach Bryant) their third loss in a row to end the 1982 season, 23-22. It was stunning at the time but really should not have been. Auburn's only losses entering the game were to national title contender Nebraska, a two-point loss to 8-4 Florida and a five-point controversial loss to Georgia in Herschel Walker's last SEC game. Alabama, meanwhile, had just lost to Tennessee and LSU for the first time since 1970 and been slapped around brutally by Southern Miss to end an 18-year home winning streak.

The result was a surprise but could hardly be called an upset. A team with narrow losses to highly ranked teams edged a team teetering on the brink of major problems. Not an upset by any stretch.

2001 was overshadowed as were the entire final months of the year by the 9/11 tragedy. Entering the Iron Bowl, Auburn had the inside track, a 7-2 record and leading the SEC West. The two teams squared off on November 17 (rather early for recent Iron Bowls) when Alabama had a 4-5 record and Auburn was the expected favorite. Alabama went out and not only beat Auburn, they sandblasted them, 31-7. It was considered a huge upset at the time and meets the criteria - a team with three more losses beats the favorite.

But was it? It was covered as so but as events unfolded, it really wasn't. As amazing as it may seem, Auburn and Alabama ended 2001 with the exact same record of 7-5. After losing to Alabama, Auburn faced off against LSU in the make-up game scheduled for 9/16 (the games the weekend after 9/11 were all postponed immediately). LSU ripped Auburn, 27-14, and they then got creamed by North Carolina in the bowl game, 21-6. In fact, if you go examine 2001 Auburn closely, you'll find something amazing on their offensive point totals: 27, 24, 16, 23, 17, 24, 7, 14. Those are their point totals for SEC games that year. Their 24 barely beat Vandy (by the same three-point margin as Alabama did that same year), their 16 beat Miss State by two (Tide won by 7), and their 23 somehow beat Florida (probably the main reason they were the IB favorite) and 24 beat Georgia. But when you look at common opponents, you have to seriously question why anyone even thought Auburn would win the game

1) VANDY (Tide by 3, Auburn by 3)
2) Arkansas (Tide by 21, Auburn lost by 25)
3) Ole Miss (Tide lost by 3, Auburn win by 6)

And then after the Iron Bowl was the LSU game, who beat us by 14 and Auburn by 13.

This game is another that was considered an upset at the time but really wasn't. Alabama got going better as the season went along and Auburn got worse. Given that the Iron Bowl is played late in the year.......

2002 - this loss might stick in my craw worse than any other game we've ever played. Alabama went into the game as a huge favorite, so much so that Bo Jackson was called in to stir up the faithful, telling the team that nobody was giving them a chance to beat Alabama in the Iron Bowl. Auburn responded with a 17-7 win that felt more like 47-7. Alabama went through the motions much as we had in 2000 with a much worse team. It featured 7-4 Auburn beating 9-2 Alabama, who had only lost to national contender OU in September (and earned national respect with a great comeback in Norman) and lost on the final play to SEC champions UGA in October.


But here's a better question - why was Alabama such a huge favorite in the first place? Yes, Auburn had four losses. But USC was becoming a dynasty (they went 11-2 with the Heisman winner that year) while it is often forgotten that Auburn lost to UGA by THREE points (the Tide lost by 2). In fact, look at common opponents yet again:

1) Vandy (Auburn by 25, Alabama by 22)
2) Miss St (Auburn by 28, Alabama by 14)
3) Arkansas (Auburn LOST by 21, Alabama WON by 18)
4) LSU (Auburn by 24, Alabama by 31)
5) Ole Miss (Auburn by 7, Alabama by 35)
6) Georgia (Auburn loss by 2, Alabama loss by 3)

So the two teams beat Vandy and LSU about the same, lost to UGA about the same, and each one dominated a different Mississippi team more than the other. Only the Arkansas game suggested Auburn was overmatched by Alabama.

And then there's the other stuff that makes this game a complete outlier anyway. It later came out that Coach Dennis Franchione had spent much of the final six weeks as head coach plotting his exit strategy from Tuscaloosa, and the football team played exactly as if Franchione had not gone over a single game plan. Never before or since have I actually wondered if a game was thrown by one of the teams (oops - OU sure did throw that 2011 Bedlam game like nobody's business).

But even with the feeling at the time, you'd be hard-pressed to 'really 'call this any sort of upset. The common opponents (and they had six of them) suggest that whatever shenanigans Franchione was up to hurt a team that was already going to be in for a tough game anyway, certainly tougher than press coverage suggested. Thus, even if we wish to say 2002 was a real upset, it is tainted with outside distractions that don't apply to any other Iron Bowl in history.


And that brings us to the only REAL upset in the Iron Bowl since 1948, the shocking 1984 triumph of 4-6 Alabama over Sugar Bowl contender Auburn at Legion Field on December 1 by a score of 17-15. I'm willing to classify this ONE contest as a genuine upset. Auburn began the year at #1 and played a VERY challenging schedule (as did Alabama, whose schedule was even tougher). They narrowly lost to Miami and then to Texas and their Heisman candidate Bo Jackson got hurt and was on the shelf for six games. Without Bo, Auburn's high-octane offense still managed to put up 42 points on Florida State and 48 on Georgia Tech. A look at common opponents shows that Auburn beat UGA by 9 (Tide lost by 10 and game wasn't even really that close), routed Ga Tech by 24 (Tide lost by 10 in another game that wasn't even that close), beat Cincinnati by sixty (Alabama by a 'mere' 22), and the Tide beat MSU by 4 (Auburn by 3). Going into that game, Auburn needed only to win to head back to a second straight Sugar Bowl.

The 1984 Crimson Tide probably played its best game of the year that day - and even that nearly wasn't enough. Leading 17-7 in the fourth, the Crimson faithful gasped when Brent Fullwood rumbled sixty yards for a touchdown and Auburn then punched in the two-point conversion so that a field goal would win the game. In fact, it could be argued that this wasn't an upset so much as it was a complete brain fart on the part of Auburn Coach Pat Dye. After setting up the game-winning field goal, Auburn got a fumble in the Alabama red zone and closed in for the kill. They wound up with a fourth and goal at the one-yard line with about 3:27 or so left, the precise situation Dye had set up by going for two. For reasons that still don't really make much sense, Dye called for a running play to score a touchdown. The choice to play for an unnecessary touchdown was bad enough; the play call was reminiscent of the strange decisions that cost Alabama the 2012 ATM game. Despite having Bo Jackson in the backfield, Dye opted for a toss to Brent Fullwood. Rory Turner 'waxed the dude' and Alabama suddenly had the ball on its own one-yard line with a 17-15 lead.

Despite this, Auburn did get a chance at the end for a game-winning field goal kick, and Robert McGinty sent it only about 25 feet wide of the uprights. The pain of 1984 was over and Auburn was beaten by Alabama.


The 1984 game is the only one in my view that can properly be called an 'upset,' a situation where presumably the substantially superior team wins the loses to the demonstrably inferior opponent. And even in that one case, the upset owed as much to insanely stupid coaching decisions as it did to blocking and tackling. This game is the sole real 'proof' that any team can win this game; the evidence is simply lacking for all the hype you're gonna hear this next week. This is NOT a 'throw out the records' game and never has been.

(Btw - don't anybody write me with the cliched joke about how it's 'always and upset' when Alabama loses because 'I get upset.' I'm addressing the myth of the Iron Bowl.

PREDICTION?

Well, based on past performance (for whatever good that is), here are the common opponents this year:

1) LSU (Tide win by 14, Auburn loss by 24)
2) MSU (Tide win by 25, Auburn loss by 8)
3) Arkansas (Tide win by 13, Auburn loss by 8)
4) Georgia (Tide win by 28, Auburn loss by 7)
5) Texas A/M (Tide win by 18, Auburn win by 16)
6) Ole Miss (Tide loss by 6, Auburn loss by 8)

Four of the opponents are absolutely divergent - Tide kills same opponent that kills Auburn. The only two similarities are the Ole Miss and ATM games, and even those similarities are only in the final score. Ole Miss beat Alabama by six with the aid of five turnovers; they actually LOST the turnover battle to Auburn, 2-1, but still won the game.

5 turnovers and a six-point loss or -1 and an eight-point loss suggests a larger gulf than the final score. ATM is the only game suggesting the two teams might be even minimally even, and it's an outlier since there's turmoil in Aggie-land.

Alabama SHOULD win this game by at least 18 points - based on past trends of the game and similar stat evaluation. That's if we show up to play, which I think we will. In fact, I think the game yesterday was the right game at the right time.

RTR
 
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DzynKingRTR

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what about games that were closer than they should have been? I am not trying to argue with you. I am genuinely curious because I do not have a super power like you. My memory sucks.
 

Redwood Forrest

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Since 1960 the team with the best record going into the Iron Bowl has won 79% of the games. When there has been a more than three game difference (this year 10-1 vs 6-5) the team with the best record has won 92% of the games.

ROLL TIDE
 

bamafan_bdb

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what about games that were closer than they should have been? I am not trying to argue with you. I am genuinely curious because I do not have a super power like you. My memory sucks.
Just a few in the last 25 years that were much closer than you would have thought:

1) 1997 - An inferior Alabama team had Auburn beaten and then threw it away. Literally. Moving on...

2) 2004 - Undefeated Auburn goes down 6-0 at the half but comes back to win 21-13. Alabama finishes the year 6-6.

3) 2009 - Undefeated Alabama finally grabs the lead from 7-4 Auburn with less than 2 minutes to go.
 

CrimsonEyeshade

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Bill and all ... Re: pulling on Superman's cape.

There are facts and then there is the context in which those facts take on greater meaning.

Everything you say is true.

Except ... the '72, '82, '86 and 2013 games remain among the weirdest football experiences of my lifetime. In each of them, despite what the records say then or now, we beat Auburn up and down the field and still inexplicably lost.

In '72, Auburn got 80 yards total offense and won. Thinks about that for a minute. One-loss Auburn got less yardage than Charleston Southern and won.

Ten years later, Bo went over the top only after we out gained them almost 3 to 1. And yet AU got every bounce, every call, then mustered one drive.

'86: Humphrey gains 200 yards in the FIRST half. Then an inexplicable change in fortune covers the game like a fog -- including a clip 15 yards behind what would have been Humphrey's clinching run and the only big miss in Van Tiffin's career, which leads to Tillman's end around when he's trying to call timeout. Just like they drew it up.

2013: weirdest of all. Sure they were good, but we were 2 touchdowns better ... Except we mishandled any of six moments in the fourth quarter alone that would have sealed it.

Notice: we didn't mention 2010. One question: Has any of us to this day ever seen a fumble roll that straight for that long?

Small sample? Sure, and I'm not going to debate your protocols on records and point spreads, which are objectively sound.

Yet each of those games mentioned proves that weirdness played a significant role in winning or losing some of the signature games of this series. And I'm sure when Aubs gather around camp fires, they warm themselves with the conspiracy theories about the Run in the Rain, '84, '85, the phanthom spot in '94 and so on.

I can't help myself. Whenever Auburn week comes around, I see David Langner running alone, borne aloft by the shrieks of the mongrel hordes. It has scarred me. It is not rational or factually based.

But what's rational about those two blocked punts?

Let's put 60 on them.
 
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selmaborntidefan

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I concur that 1984 was, in fact, an upset. It was the only BONA FIDE upset in the entire history of the Iron Bowl (well, post-1948). 2002 might in one sense qualify but you have all that garbage that got in the way of the game that we found out about maybe ten days later.

What is wrong, however, is the smug assumption that 2002 Alabama was substantially better than Auburn. We weren't. That game would have been more difficult than most here want to admit even if Fran's head had been in the right place.
 

selmaborntidefan

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what about games that were closer than they should have been? I am not trying to argue with you. I am genuinely curious because I do not have a super power like you. My memory sucks.
This is a valid point that I can cover but note that the OP had already run awhile. Make no mistake, I figured this objection would come up because it has a certain level of merit.

There are a few games that immediately come to mind here. The most notable is probably the tragedy of 1997, when the game was all but won before the inexplicable play call and Ed Scissum fumble that put Auburn in their first-ever SECCG.

It can be argued that certain breaks went a certain way and that contributed to the outcome. However, teams still make their own luck for the most part. We can bring up the fumble down the sidelines in 2010 - the most mind-boggling play I've ever sen in an Iron Bowl. That play played a part, but it wasn't the entirety of the game.


One that a lot of fans might forget but was huge at the time was that Alabama did not play particularly well for the first three quarters of the 1981 game. My own theory is that the hoopla surrounding Coach Bryant breaking the record may well have affected the mindset of the team. Because the 1981 LSU game was moved from 11/21 to September to get a prime-time telecast (seriously - that was a huge treat back then), the press had two full weeks to talk about Bryant breaking the record and Auburn was viewed almost as someone who had been invited to their own hanging. In all honesty, Auburn should have led about 24-7 at halftime. It was only superior talent on the Tide team that prevented that. Poor Joey Jones had a day to forget with a punt muff that defied everything (it ranks right up there with the punt flip toward Marquis Maze in the 2011 LSU game). Auburn kept it close for three quarters.

1986 was a surprising turn of events but when you consider that Auburn went 10-2 to our 10-3, its hardly an upset. We showed up and played a half and they showed up and played a half and prevailed by four.

Auburn was on the precipice of number one on November 3, 1990 - and got blown out by Florida. They were expected to beat us for the fifth time in a row but they collapsed coming down the stretch and we went from 0-3 and 3-4 to 7-4 and the Fiesta Bowl.

Another game that sticks out is 2009, where Auburn basically led for all of the first 59 minutes.


But that sort of substantiates my point - even though the underdogs keep it CLOSE.......there's not an upset. Three and eight Auburn in 2012 was expected to get clobbered and did.


Based on history (which again does not rule us, its just a guide) - this weekend's game should be a Tide win with relative ease. If it isn't, we did not show up to play.
 

rgw

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Auburn can win the game this Saturday. We've gotta go in there and remove the will to live from them.


The question is whether this will be a 2009 or 2011/2012 type result...I hope for the latter.
 

Mamacalled

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I made a post about a month ago talking about close games. Since 1965 Alabama has won by ten points or more, if I recall correctly, 18 times while auburn has only won by ten or more points five times.
 

BamaInBham

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I made a post about a month ago talking about close games. Since 1965 Alabama has won by ten points or more, if I recall correctly, 18 times while auburn has only won by ten or more points five times.
Since Coach Bryant returned in 1958 Bama is 34-23, has beaten AU by more than 10 20 times and has lost by more than 10 one time. That was 1969 when Bama was driving for the tying score with 7 1/2 min left and threw an int. The bottom fell out and Bama lost 49-26. Connie Frederick executed a fake punt for AU's last score, IIRC. That was the only time Bama has lost by more than 10, including even the wretched probation years.
 

BamaInBham

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Though I agree completely that the better team rarely loses, 1972 was a huge upset. Even though the records were close 10-0 vs 9-1, the teams were not. AU had lost to LSU 35-7, IIRC, and had many close calls (e.g., they beat Chatt by 7). Bama had blasted almost everyone they played. Bama was a huge 16 point favorite. I remember, I was at the game, when AU kicked a FG with less than 10 min left we were upset because that ruined the point spread - Bama had missed an extra point. We felt that Shug was just trying to avoid a shutout because AU could not move the ball at all (maybe 3 first downs the entire game besides the FG drive).

That was a huge upset, records not withstanding. Bama was 3 TDs better.
 
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CrimsonEyeshade

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Though I agree completely that the better team rarely loses, 1972 was a huge upset. Even though the records were close 10-0 vs 9-1, the teams were not. AU had lost to LSU 35-7, IIRC, and had many close calls (e.g., they beat Chatt by 7). Bama had blasted almost everyone they played. Bama was a huge 16 point favorite. I remember, I was at the game, when AU kicked a FG with less than 10 min left we were upset because that ruined the point spread - Bama had missed an extra point. We felt that Shug was just trying to avoid a shutout because AU could not move the ball at all (maybe 3 first downs the entire game besides the FG drive).

That was a huge upset, records not withstanding. Bama was 3 TDs better.
A mismatch. Except.
 

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