After five seasons apart, Alabama and Auburn met again at Riverside Park in Montgomery on 17 November 1900. Auburn won 53-5.
A different scoring system
The game had changed while the schools were not playing each other. In 1898 the value of a touchdown rose from four points to five and the kick after it fell from two to one — which is where the term “extra point” comes from. A field goal was still worth five, more than a touchdown by itself. The scores in the second phase of this series are built out of those numbers, not the earlier ones.
The scoring
Auburn led 24-0 at half-time and finished with 53. Yarborough scored three touchdowns, one of them on a 75-yard run; Noll scored two, including a 55-yard run. Alabama’s five points came after the interval and were their only score of the afternoon.
Both sides had a new head coach: Walter H. Watkins for Auburn, Malcolm Griffin for Alabama. Daniel S. Martin captained Auburn, Earl Drennen Alabama.
The largest margin Auburn have managed
Forty-eight points. It is the same margin as the 48-0 win in Tuscaloosa five years earlier, and the two results remain level as the widest Auburn have ever beaten Alabama by. For comparison, the largest margin in the series as a whole is Alabama’s 55-0 win in 1948, and no game since has come near either figure.
Where the series stood
Auburn now led four wins to one after five meetings, and had begun a run of three consecutive victories that ran through 1902. Alabama would not score more than five points against them until 1903.