I get that the "TP" stands for toilet paper, but what about "TB"? I'm drawing a blank...
Oh wait, it's "Toomer's Bark". Toilet paper Toomer's Bark...got it.
SEC Officiating Still SEC Officiating
- Thread starter 4Q Basket Case
- Start date
Oh wait, it's "Toomer's Bark". Toilet paper Toomer's Bark...got it.
If not for complete and utter incompetence by referee's auburn could be 1-4 or even 0-5.
It's funny how the IB is SO drastically different for both sides. For them, it's absolutely EVRYTHING. Case in point. Bus boy has won a grand total of 2 bowl games since he has been at auburn. 2015 and 2018. Both years where they lost to us. However, look what happened in 2013, 2017, and 2019. All losses in the postseason, one even being on the biggest stage. It's like, if they win the IB, then literally, NOTHING else matters. Wetting themselves in bowl game means nothing to them, so long as they won the IB. They will take an IB win over a national championship any day. With us on the other hand, a win over them is great, but more so to shut them up and not have to hear all the "we have the better program and coach blah blah blah" for a year. And sometimes, with some of those clowns, not even beating them shuts them up. 2018 was a perfect example. The Monday after the game, a barn fan calls in on JOX and says that auburn "exposed" Bama in that game. Got half a hundred plus two hung on them (and could have been more) lost by 31 points, but yet they "exposed" us in that game. 
My BIL is an auburn fan. I have heard him say on more than one occasion that auburn could go 1-11 every year as long as the 1 win was Alabama.It's funny how the IB is SO drastically different for both sides. For them, it's absolutely EVRYTHING. Case in point. Bus boy has won a grand total of 2 bowl games since he has been at auburn. 2015 and 2018. Both years where they lost to us. However, look what happened in 2013, 2017, and 2019. All losses in the postseason, one even being on the biggest stage. It's like, if they win the IB, then literally, NOTHING else matters. Wetting themselves in bowl game means nothing to them, so long as they won the IB. They will take an IB win over a national championship any day. With us on the other hand, a win over them is great, but more so to shut them up and not have to hear all the "we have the better program and coach blah blah blah" for a year. And sometimes, with some of those clowns, not even beating them shuts them up. 2018 was a perfect example. The Monday after the game, a barn fan calls in on JOX and says that auburn "exposed" Bama in that game. Got half a hundred plus two hung on them (and could have been more) lost by 31 points, but yet they "exposed" us in that game.
Lord, that's bad.
You know what I have a problem with regarding that sentiment?
That Auburn fans want to impose that on Alabama fans as a standard for success.
They think we think that way.
"If we lose every game but beat Alabama, we had a good season" is an Auburn lament.
There are AT LEAST 3 myths regarding the Iron Bowl that need to be set aside (for the umpteenth time):
1) Throw out the records (not true, the only GENUINE upset in my lifetime was in 1984)
Again, I'll tick off the "but 1972" fans, but Auburn was a 10-1 team that ended the year ranked #5. Just because some Alabama fans think "we were 30 points better than they" doesn't mean that thought is based in reality. YES, I'll agree it was a fluke win, but not some mammoth upset like Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson. And none of the other so-called "upsets" - 1982, 2001, 2002, 2013, 2017 - was really in the ballpark, it was usually teams with similar records.
1984 was the sole exception - THAT was a huge upset. 1997 would have been if only Ed Scissum had not fumbled. (And no, I don't blame him).
2) Coaches have been fired for their failure to win this game
Quick - name one.
AUBURN
Gene Chizik - fired because he went 3-9
Tommy Tuberville - he resigned, he wasn't fired, and they were 5-7 that year
Terry Bowden - fired/resigned well before the Iron Bowl
Pat Dye - resigned due to NCAA investigation
Doug Barfield - okay, you could at least make the argument here, but Auburn was greasing the skids for Barfield because his 1980 team was expected to contend for the SEC coming off probation, and they went 0-6 in the SEC. Auburn was preparing to fire Barfield even before the Iron Bowl was played...because they thought they could get Vince Dooley.
Shug Jordan - no, he retired
Earl Brown - he was 3-22-4 in 3 years, but sure.....it's because he couldn't beat Alabama....
ALABAMA
Mike Shula - I suspect losing to MSU had more to do with it, but my understanding is his goose wasn't really cooked until he had nothing to offer Mal Moore to improve things in 2007
Mike Price - no comment
Dennis Franchione - left on his own and wouldn't have been fired even as bad as the 2002 IB looked
Mike DuBose - was actually 2-1 against Auburn when he announced his resignation after the UCF debacle
Gene Stallings - of course not
Bill Curry - left on his own; sure his 0-3 record didn't help but...
Ray Perkins - left for the NFL
Paul Bryant - retired on his own accord
Ears Whitworth - he was 4-24-2, but sure....it was because of Auburn....and he died in 1960
Red Drew - someone will have to help me with this one. I somehow doubt if he'd have beaten Auburn in 1954 that he'd have been back; the team scored 14 points in the last 6 games of the season
3) If we lose all our other games but win the Iron Bowl, we had a great season
Combined Alabama and Auburn coaches who ever won ONLY the Iron Bowl in a season and lost all the other games and called it a great season? Zero.
Never in the entire history of college football did Alabama or Auburn WIN ONLY ONE GAME that year and, oh yeah, it was the Iron Bowl.
So why do people say these things?
I suspect if Gene Chizik had beaten Alabama in 2012, he still would have been fired since Gus Malzahn was available. Barfield would have been fired in 1980 (remember, Alabama entered that game with 2 losses already), and Tuberville, well, I've always thought he wanted out of town anyway.
I WANT to agree with you, and in general I do, but Saban was snake bit by Auburn even when he was at LSU. It's one of the weirdest things you'll ever see.
2000 - his first year - Saban lost by 17 points in JHS to Auburn, who won the West because of that game. Granted, those were DiNardo's players, and it was his first SEC game but still.
2001 - it's the makeup game postponed due to the 9/11 attacks. In all honesty, if that game is played on Sept 15, I think Auburn actually beats LSU. They were rolling along with LSU was playing poorly against UF and Tennessee after the break. But this was Saban's first SEC title, too.
2002 - back in JHS, Auburn blows him out again, 31-7.
2003 - en route to his first national title, Saban rolls Auburn, 31-7, but it was an overrated Auburn team that began the year at number six.
2004 - this is a really weird one. Auburn beats LSU, 10-9, on their way to an unbeaten season and SEC title. LSU scored five minutes into the game and missed the PAT. They led all the way until there was only 1:14 left to play. Auburn hits the tying TD (9-9) and MISSES the PAT. But a penalty on LSU means they get second chance - and they make it. Saban loses against in JHS. The kick was wide left, but a personal foul gave Auburn another chance.
Sure, we can say the 2000 game was his first year, but he lost the year after an SEC title and the year after a national title - both times in JHS. Saban's overall record in JHS is 3-7. And look at the games he's won:
2009 - Alabama trails the entire game until the final minute against a mediocre 8-5 team.
2011 - Alabama did pull away, but Auburn scored a TD when AJ fumbled by his own end zone for Auburn's only TD. At the time, the score was only 14-7.
2015 - remember that insane TD catch - flip flip bobble catch run?
How can one particular great coach have that level of trouble even in the games he wins in one particular venue? Even the "well this is a good period for Auburn" doesn't really work for 2009.
Some guy that worked with me in the military asked me how much I hated Auburn after that crap ESPN 30 for 30. I said “nowhere near as much as I do Tennessee”. I told him that the Alabama- Auburn game is a game that Auburn has to win and Alabama can’t afford to lose. An Alabama fans enjoyment is a good nights rest with the knowledge that they won’t have to see a stupid T shirt on an Auburn fan 5 years from now reminding them of the game.
Weird stuff happens. But it isn't about Saban. There is a difference between correlation and causation.
That’s a good way to look at it: Auburn “has” to win while Alabama can’t afford to lose it.
How the fans feel ≠ how the athletic department operates.
It's that simple. When we talk about how Aubrun feels about beating Bama, it regurgitating what the fans have said.
That said, if I had any interest in doing so I'd argue all day that the only reason Malzahn is still there is due to his relative success vs Bama.
That's a fair point given the data we have, and I actually agree with you.
But let's say Malzahn had Saban's record and had won five national titles but had Saban's record against Auburn as his own against us.
Does anyone REALLY believe deep down he'd get fired for winning 5 national championships just because he had a little more trouble against his arch rival?
Of course not.
Your first line says it all, though.
I will grant that on the day of the game, it SEEMED like a huge upset. Auburn entered the game at 7-2 and had the inside track for a repeat division title. We entered that game at 4-5 and needing to win both our last 2 games just to get a third tier bowl trip.
On the other hand, one of those losses was a 42-17 absolute massacre to the same Arkansas team Alabama's pedestrian offense had beaten by 21 points, too. While using the "common opponents" argument is dicey and not always correct, we had a 3-point loss vs their 6-point win over Ole Miss, we beat MSU by more points, and we brutalized the same Arky team that manhandled them. Note also the home team won each time in the Alabama/Auburn/Ole Miss analysis.
And then Auburn imploded and lost to LSU as well as UNC.
I agree that on the day the game was played, it seemed and felt like an upset; given how the year turned out, however, it's hard to argue Auburn was even a better team than we were. Both were 7-5, and both had 3-game losing streaks. The only difference was that theirs was at the end of the season while ours was in the middle.
The same is also true up to a point of the 2002 game. IT SEEMED like a huge upset the day the game was played, but we now know Fran all but threw it anyway.
2002 still makes me sick. I could tell from the opening kickoff that the Bama players just didn't want to be there and I knew that that meant trouble. Up until late in that game, we had never even scored a single point against auburn in Tuscaloosa. Granted, in 2002, we had not played many Iron Bowls in Tuscaloosa. 2002 was the 4th one all time, at that point. But, that was still an embarrassing stat hanging over us, nonetheless. This was our own campus against our biggest rival. Had we been able to get out of having to have our IB home games in Birmingham sooner, say around 1996 or 1998, we'd have had at least a win or two against them in T Town and that stat wouldn't have been hanging over us. We only scored in the 2002 game because of an ill advised pass thrown by Jason Campbell in the 4th quarter. Plus, with knowing that some dark times were ahead for the program, I had a bad bad feeling that we were going to be losing to the cow college for the foreseeable future so 2002 felt like our last chance to get in some licks. Add to that wingnut's "100 years to score" comment, and it was a crappy, awful, VERY strange day in Bama football history.
So, the thing that has always made his "100 years" comment SO stupid, other than the fact that it came from the mouth of a VERY stupid man is, we didn't even play auburn in Tuscaloosa from 1901 until 2000! In fact, the games played there in 1895 and 1901 were played on the Quad for crying out loud, because there was no Bryant Denny Stadium! Paul Bear Bryant didn't even exist yet! Even some auburn fans thought that that comment was stupid. Thankfully, we have since righted that ship and we now have considerably more points in IBs played in Tuscaloosa than auburn does.
An interesting stat to note, the only coaches since Bryant to lose consecutive games to auburn were Bill Curry and Mike Shula, and neither of them ever beat auburn anyway. Any coach we have had from Perkins onward, who has beaten auburn, has never dropped consecutive games to them. It's funny that there are so many myths surrounding this game and @selmaborntidefan debunked them all! I had never thought about how it's perceived that coaches on both sides have either left or been fired due to not beating the in state rival, yet, the loss of this game has never actually caused a coach departure.
So, the thing that has always made his "100 years" comment SO stupid, other than the fact that it came from the mouth of a VERY stupid man is, we didn't even play auburn in Tuscaloosa from 1901 until 2000! In fact, the games played there in 1895 and 1901 were played on the Quad for crying out loud, because there was no Bryant Denny Stadium! Paul Bear Bryant didn't even exist yet! Even some auburn fans thought that that comment was stupid. Thankfully, we have since righted that ship and we now have considerably more points in IBs played in Tuscaloosa than auburn does.
An interesting stat to note, the only coaches since Bryant to lose consecutive games to auburn were Bill Curry and Mike Shula, and neither of them ever beat auburn anyway. Any coach we have had from Perkins onward, who has beaten auburn, has never dropped consecutive games to them. It's funny that there are so many myths surrounding this game and @selmaborntidefan debunked them all! I had never thought about how it's perceived that coaches on both sides have either left or been fired due to not beating the in state rival, yet, the loss of this game has never actually caused a coach departure.
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