This week, Alabama will be heading into a major game when the second-ranked team in the country, Georgia, comes to town, and it will be missing the biggest piece of this rivalry over the last few years.
The former Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban is no longer on the sidelines and is now on the College Game Day set that will be live from Tuscaloosa on Saturday morning.
Saban had many little rivals while he was the coach at Alabama, like the one with Georgia, but the biggest one he ever coached in was the Iron Bowl.
Nick Saban Killed The Iron Bowl
Saban is the best college football coach of this era and has won seven national championships, but one of the biggest things he ever did was kill the Iron Bowl.
Paul Finebaum, who covered Saban at Alabama and knows the SEC inside and out, has been saying for a while now that Saban killed the Alabama vs. Auburn rivalry since he kept beating the Tigers almost every season.
Saban finished his career at Alabama, going 12-5 against Auburn. The Tigers have only been able to play for two national championships, winning one since Saban took over at Alabama in 2007.
Alabama participated in nine national championships and won six under Saban, which shows how dominant they were during that period.
Auburn vs. Alabama used to be one of the biggest rivalries in college football, but it has been watered down a little since Saban destroyed the Tigers in most of their matchups.
The younger generation only remembers the Crimson Tide beating up on the Tigers, and now that Saban is gone, there is a chance the rivalry can return to being great like it was once.
Ohio State and Michigan, another great rivalry, also went down the same path that Alabama vs. Auburn did. Ohio State beat up Michigan for almost two decades, but the tables turned in the last three years, and now it’s back to being the best rivalry in college football.
Hopefully, over the next handful of seasons, we will see the Iron Bowl return to being the best rivalry in college football, and that means the Tigers will need to start winning games for that to happen.
