Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009

Tide turning in Iron Bowl rivalry

Alabama’s Iron Bowl victory gives rivalry change of pace

By Andy Bitter

abitter@ledger-enquirer.com

AUBURN, Ala. — Only a handful of the Bryant-Denny Stadium crowd of 92,138 left early on a hazy November night in Tuscaloosa last fall, most likely the faction wearing orange and blue.

The boisterous crimson-clad crowd eagerly awaited to erupt as the final seconds ticked off the clock in Alabama’s rousing 36-0 Iron Bowl victory. They bellowed out the lyrics to the “Rammer Jammer Cheer” so enthusiastically that it probably could have been heard 150 miles away in Auburn.

“Hey Auburn. … Hey Auburn. … We … just … beat … the … hell outta you!

“Rammer Jammer, Yellowhammer, give ’em hell, Alabama!”

And on and on it went, five times in all, increasing in volume with every verse, six years worth of frustration and embarrassment collectively exhaled in one cathartic chant.

The tide officially turned in the state’s football rivalry that night, with Alabama ending Auburn’s six-year winning streak in the Iron Bowl, beating the Tigers in Tuscaloosa for the first time ever. But in reality the shift had been in the works for quite some time.

In only a little over two years as head coach, Nick Saban has resurrected Alabama football, erasing a decade of general irrelevance by changing the culture of the Crimson Tide locker room and replenishing the roster with a pair of top-ranked recruiting classes. The result was a perfect regular season in 2008, a No. 1 ranking in the national polls and trips to the SEC championship game, the school’s first since 1999, and Sugar Bowl.

“I’d like to say that when I came here, change was probably inevitable,” Saban said. “But the growth that everybody has had was optional. Everybody had to buy into it.”

Auburn, meanwhile, suffered its worst season since the Terry Bowden era came to a crashing halt over a decade ago. The Tigers stumbled to a 5-7 record, missed a bowl game for the first time since 1999 and overhauled their entire coaching staff, bidding farewell to Tommy Tuberville, the fourth-winningest coach in school history, and moving forward with the controversial hire of Gene Chizik.

So how did things change so drastically? The answer involves a variety of factors, first and foremost being Saban.

Auburn’s sustained periods of success in the rivalry have always coincided with coaching instability on Alabama’s side.

The Tigers won five straight games in the series from 1954-58, the last coming in Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first season in Tuscaloosa. Pat Dye’s run of six Iron Bowl wins in eight years from 1982-89 came during the first few years of the post-Bryant era, with Ray Perkins and Bill Curry struggling to fill the coach’s legendary shoes.

And Tuberville’s seven Iron Bowl victories in eight years occurred while Alabama faced a coaching crisis, through Mike DuBose’s collapse, Dennis Franchione’s short stay, Mike Price’s strip-club saga and Mike Shula’s disappointing tenure.