Alabama and Auburn drew 6-6 at the Birmingham Fairgrounds on 16 November 1907. It is the only tie in the ninety games the two schools have played, and it was the last time they met until December 1948.
The game
Auburn were reported as three-to-one favourites. The scoreline resolves simply under the rules of the day — a touchdown was five points and the kick after it one, so 6-6 is one converted touchdown each. Alabama had a chance to win it with a short field goal late and missed.
J. W. H. Pollard coached Alabama, with Emile Hannon as captain. Auburn were coached that season by Willis Kienholz, standing in during Mike Donahue’s year away, with D. E. Wilkinson as captain. Auburn finished 6-2-1.
What actually caused the break
The story most often told is that a fight ended the rivalry. It did not. Alabama’s athletic department, Auburn’s, and the Encyclopedia of Alabama all say the same thing: the schools failed to agree contractual terms for the 1908 game, and the fight story grew up afterwards because it made a better explanation than the real one.
Three issues recur in accounts of the failed negotiations: the expense money paid to players for the trip, the number of players each school could bring, and who would choose the officials. Auburn, having objected to Pollard’s shifting formations, wanted a referee brought in from outside the South, and Alabama would not agree. Sources disagree on the proposed payments and squad limits, and no single issue is established as the decisive cause. The schools did not arrange a 1908 game.
Forty-one years
Both schools kept playing football. They kept not playing each other. In 1947 the Alabama House of Representatives passed a resolution asking them to resume; it carried no force, but the two presidents — Ralph B. Draughon at Auburn and John M. Gallalee at Alabama — agreed shortly afterwards that the schools should play.
They met again at Legion Field on 4 December 1948. Alabama won 55-0. The series has not been interrupted since.