Alabama beat Auburn for the first time on Thanksgiving Day, 29 November 1894, at Riverside Park in Montgomery, and did it without conceding a point.
The third meeting
The first two had gone to Auburn by ten points and then by twenty-four. This one went the other way and was not close: 18-0. Under the scoring of the day — four for a touchdown, two for the kick after — eighteen points represented three converted touchdowns, or some other combination adding to the same total. No complete account of the scoring survives.
Eli Abbott was in his second season as Alabama’s coach, with Samuel Slone as captain.
The only Alabama win of the nineteenth century
Alabama and Auburn played five times in the nineteenth century: twice in 1893, once each in 1894 and 1895, and again in 1900, the century’s final year. Alabama won this one; Auburn took the other four. The 1894 result therefore stands alone in the period.
It also stood for nine years. Alabama did not beat Auburn again until 1903, by which time the series had paused for five seasons and resumed in a different era of the sport.
The pattern that was forming
Three of the first three meetings had been shutout-or-blowout affairs in one direction or the other; none was decided by less than ten points. The close games that came to define the rivalry belong to a much later period. In the 1890s the two programmes were still assembling themselves season by season, hiring a new coach most years, and the results swung accordingly.