re: Anyone surprised at how close Alabama-Auburn has been?

Auburn will always be a tough game for Alabama. AU puts everything they've got into the BAMA game, and they always will. If they go 6-5, it's a successful season if they beat Alabama. The game means everything to them as a program, and I don't mean this in an underhanded way either.

There are a few factors at play. The first is that it's been a series of streaks. Both teams have had four runs where they won 4 or more consecutive Iron Bowls. If you 'come of age' as a football fan in one of those runs it feels like one team is the dominant one in the series but over time it evens out.

The second one is that the schools went 40 years without playing (1908-1947). That stretch covered the tenures of Wallace Wade and Frank Thomas at Alabama - two of the guys with statues in front of BDS. Alabama went 260-78-22 (72%) in that time while Auburn went 196-136-23 (55%). Obviously, there's no way to predict the outcome of individual games, but it's pretty reasonable to assume Alabama would have won more than they lost.

Lastly, Auburn is Big-6. They've got 15 SIAA, SoCon, or SEC titles. It isn't like we're comparing the series records of a SEC power with a G5 school. They've been sitting at the big boy table for a very long time.

Who forced them? They signed the contracts.

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Who forced them? They signed the contracts.

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“We had a meeting in the old Capital City Club in Montgomery,” Lowder says. “We set a meeting for like 3 one afternoon. We went over there at 3 o’clock. We had a private room for the meeting, and they were about 30 minutes late. That’s a negotiating tactic. They try to intimidate people by coming late to the meeting. We had already decided that, no matter what they said, we were determined that the game was going to get moved.”

When the Alabama contingent arrived, Blount quickly made his feelings clear. He had no intention of agreeing to Alabama’s football team playing in Auburn.

“The first thing Red Blount said is ‘Let me make one thing understood right here and now. The University of Alabama will never come to Auburn and play a football game.’” Lowder says. “I was trying to be respectful to an older man. Morris and Mike had said I could be the spokesman. I said ‘We appreciate you coming, but we intend for the Auburn-Alabama game to be moved to Auburn. It’s going to be moved. We are going to decide when that is. I’m sure it will be a heck of a game, but if your team doesn’t show up, they are going to forfeit the game.’

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Perkins was still intent on keeping the game in Birmingham, and even worried (some might say threatened) that the rivalry would be canceled again over the move. Alabama president Joab Thomas told the Associated Press the day after Auburn’s trustees voted to move the game, that Birmingham was the “ideal location” for the Iron Bowl and said that the Auburn board resolution “is not something we’ll be acting on in the near future.”

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Auburn’s first major step was to contact the SEC office. The word came back that Auburn was free to play its home games wherever it wanted. Alabama athletics director Steve Sloan, an iconic Alabama quarterback and former assistant coach, wondered aloud why Auburn couldn’t play its home games where it wanted. It eventually cost him his job.

Both sides agreed they had a valid contract through the 1988 season. Alabama claimed to have a contract signed by Bryant, who had died in January of 1983, extending the contract through 1993. Auburn vehemently disputed the validity of that claim. Important people connected to the Alabama program vowed the move would not happen. Alabama president Joab Thomas wrote Martin a letter suggesting the series be canceled altogether.

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bama knew Legion Field was their home field. That is why they fought so hard to keep the game there.

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Anyone surprised at how close Alabama-Auburn has been?

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Only LSU fans. Some sort of projection or something.

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It is why I get sick of hearing Aggies cry on this board about Texas and joining the SEC. Suck it up and start doing something about it. Bama may dominate but Auburn has never rolled over to Bama and been their bitch. No matter how much a Bryant or Saban might try and bully them, they always rise up and punch back. Aggies should look to them as an example.

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Dumb post. You don’t want your rivals to ever have any recruiting advantages. No one is going to “roll over” to texas…whatever that means.

It is surprisingly close but it should start widening for the next 10 years.

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Its not like Auburn was easy to get to or had many amenities in those days to host large crowds. Bama played all its major games in Birmingham in those days for the same reasons

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No, it was all a conspiracy against Auburn. Everything always is.

The only goal of auburns team each year to beat Bama - if they know that losing every game would allow them to beat Bama they would. They work on Bama prep every week of the season. I don’t fault them because if you can beat the best then you are pretty damn good. I do think if the iron bowl would stop being yearly their program would become bottom feeder. But they would never let that happen. It is funny that in Alabama air in gets equal time and attention in the state media - the second you leave the state you never hear a peep about them.