auburn To The East?

It seems like it raises everybody's blood pressure to play every year. Auburn is probably in favor of not playing us as long as Nick Saban is at the helm. They might have a change of heart afterwards. It's also just a change of pace that people may enjoy.


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If it means sacrificing the Iron Bowl, no. I would love to renew our Florida rivalry though.

Grew up with the game, but it really wouldn`t bother me.

I think this would be more earth shattering news if this was the pre-1989 Iron Bowl that was played in Birmingham every year. That was a thing of beauty in that you would have a near 50/50 crowd trying to outdo one another cheering wise. But once again let's be honest - this thing is about money as always (not that there's anything wrong with that). The part I will confess surprises me a tad is that Auburn is not proposing to move to the East AND trying to change things so that the Iron Bowl is still the locked-in game (e.g. Alabama no longer plays Tennessee every year but instead plays Eastern rival Auburn). I'm also assuming that Dye has made the financial calculation that replacing Alabama with annual games against both Tennessee and Florida will more than make up for any financial losses.

Who would Auburn keep as their Western annual rival? I'm guessing they'd prefer LSU if not Alabama merely because of the money.

College football has been going through constant evolution and if this happened it would just be the latest. I recall a time when Oklahoma-Nebraska was one of the biggest rivalries going, bigger even than the Red River Rivalry. But they weren't even annual rivals in the Big 12 much less nowadays. Same with Texas/ATM, and both of those games were always played right around Thanksgiving, sometimes back to back.

I think the days of the Iron Bowl being a big thing have regressed from what they were. How many times has the game carried any NATIONAL significance? 2013 obviously but what other times was this true? It did have some secondary significance (e.g. the unbeaten or one-loss team HAD to win but it didn't really mean much nationally otherwise). The only other time that comes immediately to mind is 1971, when both teams were undefeated, but I was two years old and have no recollection of this. OK, and maybe 1981 because of Coach Bryant's becoming the winningest coach (though this turned out to be a fraud when later research showed Pop Warner actually had won 319 games and so Bryant actually broke the record against Penn State in 1982).

At the state level? Well, I don't think some of the Tide fans have thought this one through. The game is a trap for Alabama - if we win we were supposed to but if we lose we listen to a year of "we beat you." Of course, this could also set up an Auburn national title run that bypasses Alabama merely by the luck of the draw, and don't think Tide fans wouldn't resort to "but you didn't beat us!!" Same in reverse.

I thought the rivalry could have used some cooling off back during the Ramsey and Jelks scandals as well as the twin occurrences of the Cam Newton scandal and the tree killer dude.

Years ago I would have said, "No, we need to keep this." Now? I honestly don't care one way or the other. I DO suspect part of it in Dye's case is looking over the East and realizing, "Ok, if we put together a good team we have four easy wins and if we can go 2-1 at worst against the Big Three and maybe draw Miss State and Arky in the same year, we can win the East - and in one game against hopefully not Alabama, we can win the SEC and maybe play in the playoff, and that's money."

On the flip side......strength goes in cycles. Florida or Tennessee won the East every single year for the first decade of the expanded SEC, and they won the conference title seven of those times. Since then, however, the Vols have yet to win the conference and Florida has only won it twice. Think about that: since 2001, Auburn has won the SEC more times than powerhouse Florida.

The history of how it moved was interesting - and money-driven on both sides - but there's not much of interest now more than any other game save for rare years like 2013.

I'm in favor of it,... And while they're moving, move them to West Georgia too!!

Bill Connelly of SB Nation has a great piece up, offering to run for College Football commissioner. I love this whole piece, but especially love his thoughts on scheduling: https://www.sbnation.com/a/college-football-commissioner/end-divisions

CrimsonTusk said:

I'm in favor of it,... And while they're moving, move them to West Georgia too!!

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This is my thought, though Georgia is still pretty close. How about the Azores?

nah. Doesnt get much better than the Iron Bowl. So many memories from my childhood. Without the Iron Bowl i probably wouldnt be as big a college football fan as i am

Why not take GT back, and ship API off to replace them? Sounds like a better idea, to me.

Let's be honest: the Iron Bowl no longer truly the Iron Bowl. It is another game we play, every year, as the last game. The ag school cultists spend their whole year planning on ruining our season, and there are times they do.* And we get to listen to them, for an entire year. (Or longer, if you run into someone who chants "punt, Bama, punt.")

We already have two other annoying ag school cults we play, every year. Together, they are orders of magnitude less annoying than API. So, ship 'em off.

The move would probably entail putting GT in the East, so they get their annual chance to ruin the Puppy Dawg's season. In turn, moving Missour-ah is the best bet.

* = Mr. Dub: how does it feel to lose 3 games, on your own field, to the worst team in the conference. We did such a number on your baseball team's head that you went on to lose the next 4 games! For maybe the only time in my lifetime, we got the chance to ruin your season, and looks like we did.

Now you know how we feel, being stuck with you, in most years. :biggrin2:

Definitely not in favor of it. The IB is still a huge game every year, regardless of season records.

Alabama doesn't need the Iron Bowl at all. Auburn probably needs it more than they realize. Alabama is Alabama without Auburn, however what is Auburn without Alabama?

Move 'em to the east division of the sun belt.

Still favor no divisions, 10 teams everybody plays everybody, winner takes it all. Other than that I have no opinion for auburn either way.

There's a reason why, when they have the day of programming for each school on the SEC Network, Alabama's day might show one Iron Bowl while the Barn's day will show at least three or four: all other things being equal, that game defines their season.

The Iron Bowl is simply a much bigger deal to the Barn than it is to Alabama.

Also, the Iron Bowl was a much bigger deal, I believe, for most Bama fans when it was truly the Iron Bowl - played in Birmingham with a 50:50 ticket split. Plus, while most of us are too young to remember it, historically they aren't our traditional rival; the Iron Bowl came about as a sort of a gimmick, forcing us to play the cow college just because they happen to be located in our State.

While Tennessee hasn't been great for several years, now, they are - historically - one of the SEC elite (the second tier, as the first tier is a group of one: Alabama, the king of the SEC).

After all, the Barn has only a 54.4% winning percentage in SEC play, compared to Alabama's 67.2% and even Tennessee's 58.4%. In fact, half of the 10 charter SEC members still in the league have a higher SEC winning percentage than the Barn. As for the ultimate conference goal - Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, and even Florida have won more SEC Championships on the field.

The Iron Bowl, for me at least, lost most of its allure when it stopped actually being the Iron Bowl. Now they're just a little bit more than another team on the schedule. A very annoying team on the schedule. They're a rival, yes, and an in-state rival but the Alabama-Tennessee and Alabama-LSU rivalries mean much more, historically.

It wouldn't hurt my feelings one whit if we were to only play the cow college twice, outside of Atlanta, every decade.

CaliforniaTide said:

Bill Connelly of SB Nation has a great piece up, offering to run for College Football commissioner. I love this whole piece, but especially love his thoughts on scheduling: https://www.sbnation.com/a/college-football-commissioner/end-divisions

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This could work and probably should be the direction we go. The only thing is we need to balance the rpi average of the 3 guaranteed rivals. Alabama's slate including LSU, Aub, and UT is disproportionate to every other team's 3 game rival slate in the conference. Really need to see the whole conference schedule to see how it balances out. You could readjust every 6 years to keep things on par.

I don't think we will ever see in my lifetime UT resurging to its more former status just think recruiting has become too concentrated in other areas. UF and UGA can definitely stage a major comeback.

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Look, I agree with the assessments of those saying (rightly) that the IB is a bigger deal NOW to Auburn than it is to Alabama. Coach Bryant certainly did not feel that way about it - but I'll concede it was a different time. Auburn is thrilled to win the IB, Alabama is more afraid of losing it than anything. Auburn beats Alabama and gets public respect - Alabama beats Auburn and: a) it's just another game on the schedule that; b) that in this case prevents hearing a year of "War Eagle!"

On the flip side, with whom do we replace them? That's part of the problem with the scheduling. I don't know how many of you know this but in 1987, Joab Thomas petitioned the SEC to change the IB to a ROTATING basis rather than an annual basis. The problem - if you remember the 1980s - is that Auburn was a pretty damned good team back then, the SEC only played six conference games per year in a ten-team conference, and nobody wanted to give up a game or two with a weak sister in the SEC and replace that team with Alabama, Auburn, or both. At the time, Alabama athletics was deep in a money pit so this was a bizarre request from Thomas, given that the Iron Bowl would make him more money than any other single game (these were the glory days of the Iron Bowl - I think it pretty much went into a coma after the 1996 game and died from what it was by 2000, when the game was moved to T-Town). In fact, this debt is part of what led to the Tide Pride way of doing ticket sales.

And that's still a problem today. Even assuming the IB was changed, don't you think the other schools in the other divisions figure they can substantially weaken Auburn by forcing them to keep the Alabama game as part of any agreement? Indeed, this could end the Tennessee-Alabama rivalry if it happened. ANY change is going to have other changes along with it - and while Auburn may not be Alabama, they're NOT a "bad" team historically, particularly since 1982. If you're Kentucky or Vandy, do you really want to give up your annual game with Mizzou and replace it with Auburn?

And who in the East wants Alabama as a replacement for Auburn in the rotation?

I think most of the Alabama fan reluctance stems not so much from fear of losing the IB as it does from the related fact there's nothing really "in it" for the Tide fans. If we win, we were supposed to win - if we lose, it's a year (or longer) of hearing "we beat y'all."

It's an interesting scenario, and I'd never say "never." Indeed, it probably WILL become a reality if the SEC expands to the West.

I actually think Jacobs so far has the more astute take on it than does Dye.

Wouldn't bother me at all - UT is done as consistent power so Auburn could join the East as part of a new Big Three.


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The relegation thing will never happen. There's no way you're going to get Vandy, who would be relegated the first year never to return, to sign off NOT getting SEC money for their school. I LOVE that idea with my UK soccer background, but it will never happen for that reason.

The rest is thoughtful. Hell, Clay Travis has been saying for years to eliminate divisions.

Can you imagine the hype and emotion that would have surrounded the inevitable Iron Bowl rematch in 2013? "But we don't like rematches!!!"

Of course, I'm assuming it plays out the same since there wouldn't have been divisions. But if there weren't then I seriously doubt Mizzou is a one-loss team, too.