How will SEC’s new rivalry mandate affect Alabama, Auburn?
By David Wasson
Published:
The Southeastern Conference’s proclamation last week regarding 9-game football conference schedules moving forward made some news, especially the particular caveat spelling out that each member school will play 3 annual opponents focused on maintaining many traditional rivalries.
For some SEC football programs, that might be a challenge. I mean, who are Kentucky’s 3 traditional conference rivalries? Or Mizzou’s?
For SEC blue bloods like Alabama and Auburn, though, narrowing the annual opponent list could be more of a challenge – as it seems like half the conference could make a case they are rivals with the Crimson Tide and Tigers and are thus deserving of an annual spot on the schedule.
Let’s explore…
Auburn Tigers
Naturally, spot No. 1 is Big Brother in Tuscaloosa – the Crimson Tide. The Iron Bowl may have permanently moved from Birmingham’s Legion Field to the respective campuses in 1999, but it lost precisely none of its luster as arguably the rivalry in all of college football.
That leaves 2 more spots. The Tigers despise Georgia almost as much as they do Alabama, which means the annual date with the Bulldogs is likely No. 2. It’s called the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, with the Tigers and Bulldogs first playing each other in 1892.
The Auburn-Georgia series (or Georgia-Auburn, if your tint is more red and black than orange and blue) is currently the second-most played rivalry among FBS programs, behind only Minnesota–Wisconsin for Paul Bunyan’s Axe and tied with North Carolina–Virginia (deemed the South’s Oldest Rivalry).
Auburn-Georgia has been renewed annually since 1944 for a total of 130 games, counting this season’s Oct. 11 date at Auburn. How rooted is Auburn-Georgia in Auburn lore? The rivalry’s first game, played Feb. 20, 1892, in Piedmont Park in Atlanta, is also where legend has it the “War Eagle” rallying cry was born.
No. 3 for Auburn likely will be a renewal of the “Tiger Bowl” series with LSU. Adding Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC a couple years ago bungled up what felt like a wild annual matchup – with moments that triggered what felt like earthquakes and actual barns burning to the ground.
Born in 1901, Auburn and LSU played 26 times before began facing each other annually starting in 1992 through 2023. The game triggered what a seismograph located in LSU’s Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex gauged as an earthquake in 1988, and was also notable in 1996 when the old Auburn Sports Arena, affectionately called “the Barn,” burned to the ground across the street from Jordan–Hare Stadium during the football game across the street.
Alabama Crimson Tide
This is where it gets a bit trickier… and simpler.
Again, No. 1 is Little Brother on the Plains. Ask an Alabama fan if they’d like to win all their games in a regular season before losing to Auburn, or lose all their regular season games before beating Auburn – and they’ll think hard about it. If there was a physical manifestation of the SEC’s “It Just Means More” mantra, it lives in the Iron Bowl.
But spots 2 and 3 for Alabama are trickier. You figure the annual Third Saturday in October date with Tennessee would be etched into stone. At 40 victories, the Vols have more wins over the Crimson Tide than any other program – and with 59 wins, Alabama owns more victories over Tennessee than any other program.
Alabama began cranking this rivalry up a notch in the mid-50s by sparking up victory cigars in the locker room after beating Tennessee – whether this game was at Bryant-Denny Stadium or at Neyland Stadium. And while it could be among the stupidest of potential NCAA violations (extra benefits and tobacco products), the winner of the Alabama–Tennessee game knowingly violates the NCAA rule and has self-reported the violation in honor of tradition since 2007.
OK, that leaves 1 more rivalry. And as much as the fine folks at Mississippi State (with their equally fine and bustling metropolis in Starkville) may consider this a rivalry and as much as Georgia fans want all the wins back from Nick Saban teaching Kirby Smart tough lessons… this final spot for the Tide has to go to LSU.
Alabama-LSU could almost be called the Saban Bowl, as the Crimson Tide’s 6-time national championship coach cracked the code for the first time for the Tigers back in 2003. The series started in 1895, with a 12–6 win for LSU in Baton Rouge, and has been played in Tuscaloosa, New Orleans, Birmingham, Montgomery and and Mobile.
The Tide and Tigers began playing each other on an annual basis in 1964, and has survived both a couple of rounds of SEC expansion and notable droughts by the respective home teams against the visitors. In recent years, partially because its November positioning on the schedule, Alabama-LSU has also factored significantly into the national championship picture.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. He also hosts Gulfshore Sports with David Wasson, weekdays from 3-5 pm across Southwest Florida and on FoxSportsFM.com. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
