2000 - Week 10

This is just sad. If you've been reading these, you'll note that I didn't put up any stats for LSU or State until the night before the Iron Bowl. It's just too depressing to look at.

• Alabama has never been 3-7 after ten games before.
• When both teams combine for 36 points, Bama is 9-6. The Tide is only 18-29-12 when scoring just 7 points. They've never won when giving up 29 (0-4).
• Bama's record against Mississippi State falls to 67-15-3 overall on the field. However, the Bulldogs and Bama are dead even in the last 8 games of the series, and counting the 1993 game as a forfeit, Bama's 3-5 against the Dogs since then. Alabama has a 12-3 record in Starkville, but those three losses are the last three times Alabama's played there.
• The 29-7 loss is Bama's 6th beating by 22 points. It's the worst loss for Alabama since the 1998 Music City Bowl drubbing by Virginia Tech.
• Bama is now 12-7 on November 11.
• Alabama did not win one game on the road this year (0-5); this is another one of those "since 1955" streaks that snapped this year.

Up Next - Auburn

A final shot at redemption. The only way that we can salvage anything, anything, out of this season is to beat our rivals. The Iron Bowl (now the official name, even) is the best rivalry in the country. Bar none. And both sides should be really pumped to win it. Of course, we know that the game's being played in Tuscaloosa for the first time in 99 years, and the first time ever in Bryant-Denny Stadium. Here are all the facts I can possibly find about this greatest of college football rivalries.

• This will be the 65th matchup between the two rivals, in a series that dates all the way back to February 22, 1893. Auburn is Alabama's oldest continuing rival.
• Alabama's record against Auburn: currently 37-26-1. Alabama holds a two-game winning streak.
• Alabama has scored 1239 points in the series, Auburn 1001, for an average of 19.36-15.64.
• The largest margin of victory for Bama in the game: 55 (1948; 55-0). Auburn: 48 (twice). Bama has won one time by one point (1996: 24-23 in what I still consider the most exciting college football game I've ever attended); Auburn's won by one four times. The game has been decided by two touchdowns or less 35 times, and one touchdown or less 23 times.
• Alabama has played Auburn twice in Tuscaloosa before (1895, 1901), and have never even scored a point against them there, going 0-2 by a combined score of 65-0.
• Bama's only played Auburn once on November 18 before; it came in 1905, a 30-0 Bama win.
• Bama against Auburn in years ending in 0: 4-2. (1900: 5-53; 1950: 34-0; 1960: 3-0; 1970: 28-33; 1980: 34-18; 1990: 16-7)
• Bama has won the last 5 Iron Bowls in which it was designated the home team. The last time Alabama lost a "home" Iron Bowl was 1988.

• It would be win:
  • #746 overall on the field (737 without forfeited 1993 games)
  • #263 in Tuscaloosa
  • #182 in Bryant-Denny Stadium
  • #38 over Auburn.
• We would finish 4-7 for the second time ever (1997).
• Mike DuBose's record against Auburn would be 3-1; the .750 winning percentage would tie for second-best all-time against Auburn by coaches who coached more than one game against the Tigers. Tops on that list, of course, is the Bear, at 19-6 (.760). Jack Leavenworth went 1-0 against Auburn in his one year of coaching in 1905.

• It would be loss:
  • #266 overall on the field (275 when forfeited games are added)
  • #44 in Tuscaloosa
  • #27 in Bryant-Denny Stadium (the 11th since 1990)
  • #27 to Auburn.
• Alabama would finish 3-8, a first; it'd also be the most losses and the worst record in an Alabama season since 1955.
• Mike DuBose would leave with a 2-2 mark against Auburn, making him the third coach to have a .500 record against the Tigers (W.B. Blount, Ray Perkins). He'd have a 24-23 record overall, barely keeping him out of the group of 5 Alabama coaches who left with a .500 record or worse (Guy S. Lowman, E. N. Beaumont, M. Griffin, Eli Abbott, J. B. Whitworth).

2000 UA Football Facts