It’s off -season and I thought we could take a deep dive into what really has been somewhat of a head-scratcher during these past 10-11 years of glory and that is Saban’s rather unstellar record against the barn when compared against his overall record. 9-7 is his all-time record if I am correct, which is ONE game over .500. Numerous reasons have been put forth and I have my thoughts on the matter, but I’m interested in reading what a broad cross section of our fellow posters think. Has it just been sheer luck or good fortune for the barn, or is it something else? I look forward to hearing what all of y’all think.
My cynicism will show, no doubt.
I think WAY TOO MUCH is made of this stuff. WAY too much.
Tidefans: "Tennessee is our real rival, NOT Auburn, I wish Auburn played in the East and we didn't play them every year."
Same Tidefans: "Why can't Saban beat our arch rival Auburn when they've got a good team?"
I've written on this board ad nauseous about the whole thing, but first let's dispel a few myths:
1) There is hardly ever a real "upset" in the Iron Bowl.
The myth that "any team can win," while 'literally' true, is a misnomer. Virtually every single time this game is played, the better team wins. Even in those cases where we can say the better team didn't win - 1972, 2001, 2002, 2010, 2013, 2017 - the gap between the perceived better team and the perceived underdog wasn't really all that far. Auburn's 1972 team was a 10-1 team ranked #5 that smoked #13 Colorado in the Gator Bowl. The 2001 Auburn team that lost to Alabama, 31-7, wound up with the exact same 7-5 record as the Tide - so how is that an upset? 2002 upsets fans because it was pretty obvious the team didn't even show up to play, but a 10-3 team losing to a 9-4 team isn't really an upset no matter how you try to slice it. Keep in mind this same 2002 Auburn team beat LSU, 31-7, three weeks before Alabama beat the same Saban-coached LSU team, 31-0. They also beat Miss St by a larger margin and lost to UGA by the same 3-point margin Alabama did. In other words.....using common opponents one can argue the teams were virtually even (Arkansas appears to be a substantial outlier - both teams beat Ole Miss.....Alabama substantially but keep in mind the Tide had an off week before playing Eli at home while Auburn played them in Oxford one week after beating LSU, the defending SEC champ.
2010? Well, it's unpopular to say here but fans need to just accept the fact Auburn was a better team that year than we were. We can pile the excuses as high as we want, but they simply were. Yes, the Ingram fumble was the kind of thing that makes you shake your head. But on the flip side "but Mark Barron was injured" not only sounds to me a lot like "if Colt hadn't got hurt," but Auburn had two players (Goggans and Blanc) who missed the first half. I mean, who's to say that didn't help us (to a point) getting the 24-point lead in the first place?
2013? Well, it was winner-take-all so Auburn wasn't BAD by any stretch of the imagination. And last year, Auburn had just thumped #1 Georgia pretty handily.
The only real genuine upset during my lifetime was the 1984 game, and even that only happened because Pat Dye outsmarted himself. He goes for two to set up the field goal for the win......and then decides to bypass the field goal and NOT give the ball to Bo Jackson.
2) Coaches are NOT fired "because they lost the Iron Bowl."
OK caveat. HEAD coaches are not fired because they don't win the IB.
Quick - name one.
Curry? He wasn't fired, he left for UK on his own (and his job at the time was not in danger)
Dye? He left because sanctions he oversaw were coming
Bowden? He was 3-2 and had beaten Alabama the last time they played
DuBose? He was 2-2 and had already resigned when he lost the last one.
Fran? He left on his own.
Tubs? Aside from nobody really knowing whether he quit or was fired, Auburn had been in a bad marriage with the guy since 2003. Oh btw....he'd won 3 of 4 IBs at the time Jetgate happened
Chizik? He was gone anyway (though I will admit if his 2012 team had beaten us, it would have been a MASSIVE upset).
Shula? He wasn't fired because he lost to Auburn, he was fired for a litany of reasons that INCLUDED "has not beaten Auburn," but he was gone anyway.
OK,
maybe Doug Barfield. But he had had 3 losing seasons in five years and if you took away his one bright year in 1979, his overall record was 21-22-1.
3) You can't use Saban's record at LSU to say he has trouble with a team.
Saban is 1-1 against ULM at Alabama. Does anyone even care?
Mike DuBose once beat Steve Spurrier TWICE in the span of about nine weeks, including a blowout.
Does ANYBODY - nobody how drunk you are - actually think Dubious is in the same galaxy as Spurrier as a head coach?
Mike Shula beat Urban Meyer, 31-3, in the latter's first season in the SEC.
It's played with a weird shaped ball and stuff happens.
Almost nobody outside of LSU remembers that Saban lost to UAB. Ok, both UAB fans remember it, but I digress.
But okay, let's look at it.
2000 - lost to the SEC Western Division champions; keep in mind this was Saban's FIRST SEC game and on the road
2001 - beat Auburn with the #7 final ranked SEC champions
2002 - lost to Auburn - also routed by Va Tech (who nearly beat #1 Miami), Alabama (best team in SEC West), lost to West champ Arky and needed a miracle to beat 7-5 Kentucky
2003 - beat Auburn with the national champions
2004 - lost 10-9.......
but how many of you saw that last game? LSU took the opening kickoff and scored a TD and missed the PAT five minutes into the game. Auburn tied the game with two minutes to go. Auburn then missed the PAT but got a disputed reprieve from the officials and made the second kick to win, 10-9.
So he was 2-3 and lost all three road games......
but every single time Auburn was the better team.
2007 - wasn't even really his team, crippled by Textbookgate......lost by 7....on the road.
2008 - won in a rout. Yes, Auburn was 5-7, but they were close enough to win all their losses but us and WVA
2009 - "but the final score was too close, we almost lost!"
And yet Auburn had a week off to prep, we had a short week (the game was on Friday), we had ALL the pressure on us.......and we won like we should have.
We didn't have the depth then we would during the prime run of 2011-13.
2010 - we lost to the better team, no question.
2011 - we blow them out
2012 - we blow them out
2013 - we DID lose, but how you not give Auburn credit?
We missed three field goals before, you know.
Auburn was a one dimensional running team, and we still couldn't stop them (nearly 300 yards rushing; 39 of their 97 yards passing came on the tying
toss to Coates)
In the final 7 minutes of the game, we had the ball in the Auburn red zone twice.......and got no points.
And let's be honest and admit Auburn out-Sabaned Saban on the return.
Was Alabama the more talented team? Absolutely
But we didn't play better on that day, and Auburn wasn't a "bad" team by any stretch.
2014 - "Alabama has never beaten a nine-win Auburn team"
yeah, because they lost in overtime to Wisconsin........whom they should have beaten.......
2015 - we won, hooray!
2016 - we won again
2017 - yeah we lost, but a lot of us who were at the LSU game or observant with the MSU game should have seen this one coming.
Saban is 7-4 at Alabama vs Auburn. Bryant - at the same mark - was 9-2.
Of course, Bryant didn't play Auburn in Jordan-Hare, ever, either.
He also didn't play them when he was at Kentucky.
And Bryant didn't have scholarship limitations.
Or face (or have) black players.
While losses to Auburn frustrate us to no end, they aren't REALLY any different than almost any other loss. It matters to you folks who live in Alabama on a daily basis, but that's a smaller portion of who actually goes to school at both places than it's ever been. This isn't the old rural days of radio and one appearance per year on TV.
If the three-peat would have ended on the same type of play with a loss to, say, FSU in the national title game or even Missouri in the SEC title game......would it really hurt that much less?
I just don't think so.