Good question and post - let's chat.
Ive been thinking about this for awhile, but I decided to wait for a good time to bring it up.
Ive been to 4 out of the last 5 Ironbowls (missing the 2013 thank god), but Ive noticed that the atmosphere isn't the same as it used to be the past 2 years. Used to it seemed that fans were more energetic before the game, but the past 2 years Auburn fans seem like their going to funeral and Bama fans seem like it is a warmup for Atlanta. It seems Auburn only shows up for the first 2 years with new coaches, and then its " I wonder who will be our next coach". Maybe the fact we are outscoring them 33.2 - 18.3 the past 10 years (14.9 points) has something to do with.
But it seems LSU is more consistent in their competition with us and the atmosphere surrounding the game.
I never lived through the CPB era so I don't know if this kinda thing is the norm of how things go in this rivalry. So I ask the question is this becoming just another game?
I think it has on so many levels. I'm going to sound like an old guy (I'm 47 so....) but I think the Iron Bowl died as the Iron Bowl when the game moved to a home and home in 1989. Yes, the 1989 game was electric but that's because of what it as for Auburn fans - what Pat Dye called "the final brick" of building Auburn into a nationally recognized brand (never mind that 90% of people outside of the state really do not know where Auburn is located). In a rare - by which I mean perpetual - moment of his constant disgrace, Dye actually compared the moving of the game to JHS in 1989 with the destruction of the Berlin Wall less than a month earlier. I am NOT making that up btw, it's featured in "The Uncivil War" by Brown and Collier, and the latter is an Auburn grad.
I don't know if you know this or not (so this is not intended as lecturing/condescending) but prior to the 1989 game at Jerking-Hare, the ticket sale was split 50/50 between the schools. One of the Auburn complaints was that this split was unfair because there were about 5,000 bondholders whose tickets didn't count against the total and they were probably 10-1 Alabama fans. Yes, Auburn complaining about something, it's never happened before or since.
When they moved that game out of Legion Field the first time - what it was was in a comatose state and then died. I realize I'm going to get hit with brickbats but let's be honest - REAL honest - the Iron Bowl may in fact be the most overrated rivalry in any sport anywhere. I say this not because of the undisputed level of passion that it has had but because of the fact that: a) the whole 'throw out the records' nonsense is just that (you and I pretty much agree on that from previous posts I've seen) - the team with the better record virtually always wins; b) it's a MUCH bigger game for AUBURN than it is for Alabama; c) the lack of 50-50 ticket sales means that if you have game that is not that close then the crowd passion is completely gone.
I think the ONE time that the Alabama home crowd got into it and really wanted to beat Auburn just for the sake of beating Auburn was the infamous 2010 Cam Newton game - and let's be honest, that venomous crowd was not only fueled by "we don't want to see Auburn win a national title especially right after we did" but also by the NCAA investigation that (in their minds anyway) affirmed what was always suspected.
Another thing that has hurt is the fact that the games haven't been that close (for the most part) in the last decade. The Tide had shutouts in both 2008 and 2012 and the defense actually had a shutout in 2011 (one of their TDs was a defensive TD and the other a special teams play).
Auburn pulled something else back in the day that ensured it would be difficult to ever have a 50-50 crowd. They required fans who wanted tickets to the IB to buy Auburn season tickets just to get the one game. I doubt this works nowadays with online ticket outlets but those were decades in the future when Dye began this economic move. (FTR - I was one of the few Tide fans at the time who had no real problem with Dye wanting the game at Auburn for so-called 'fairness,' but I did wish he'd simply come out and say his REAL motive for it was money since it obviously was).
And another thing that has ruined the rivalry is that Alabama has moved so far beyond Auburn - literally light years ahead of where we were ahead of them for most of the rivalry - that it's incredibly one-sided. In the 1960s, Alabama won three national titles and Auburn none. Same in the 1970s. And right now we have an Alabama team that has won more national titles in the past seven years than Auburn has won in its entire existence. In fact, there are very few schools who have ever won four titles in their 120-year plus histories much less what amounts to less than a decade.
What made the rivalry was that it began to be telecast nationally every year starting in 1981 and was on the big networks every single year through 1990 (back then it was considered a second-rate game if it wound up on ESPN - as happened in 1991). It became synonymous with the Thanksgiving weekend (along with OU-Nebraska and Texas/ATM). And that rivalry was punctuated by a series of close games that came down to the last play...you know, kind of like several LSU games since 2005.
I think the rivalry is a shell of itself and it's never coming back, either. Another issue driving it is the fact that now both schools (but us in particular) are bringing in students from all over the country. There is no longer a game between two teams where at least 80% of the fans of BOTH teams have that in-state connection and grew up with it. If you're from California, 18 years old, and only got turned on to Alabama football in the last decade and opt to go to school there...you only remember games maybe from back around 2007 at most. Can anyone really say that the games since then were phenomenal? Four of them - 09/10/13/14 have been rather competitive and the two Tide losses rank among the most exciting games ever played (though not for us). Compare that with the sequence of games from 81-86 (the last five were one possession games and the 82/84/85 games were all determined on the very last competitive snap).
The sole exception is the 2013 game - and that was Auburn's perfect storm. In all sincerity...if Georgia doesn't tip that pass to Ricardo Louis, the 2013 Iron Bowl does not show up on anyone's radar even if the exact same game gets played because Alabama already has the West in hand and it's not a 'winner take all' West showdown. In fact, if that happens then the postgame is REALLY about "if Alabama beats Missouri and Michigan State beats Ohio State, does the Tide get the BCS berth"? That one play leading into the IB made it a national game (a friend of mine who was on "60 Minutes" with me watched it in a bar in Boston and said the reactions were utterly stunning).
So my short answer after the long missive is that you're right. The IB is no longer the rivalry it was - and it's never coming back. Those days for better or worse are gone. It will always be bigger to Auburn than to us because many times we just have to run over them as a speed bump on the way to bigger things; the bulk of their fanbase would go 1-11 every year and take it just so long as they could crow at Tide fans all year long about how they beat us. It probably kills some of them to hear it but this is what makes them no different than Ole Miss - notice how Ole Miss was more obsessed with being 'the state of Alabama champions' than winning anything of importance.
