Twelve months after losing by 55 points, Auburn beat Alabama by one. It remains the clearest demonstration in the series that form counts for very little in this fixture.
The teams that turned up
Auburn arrived at Legion Field on 3 December 1949 with a record of 1-4-3. They had beaten one opponent all season. Alabama were 6-3-1 and were favoured by around three touchdowns. Earl Brown, in his second year at Auburn, would not survive much longer; Harold Drew’s Alabama were on their way to a second consecutive middling season.
Four scores
Johnny Wallis opened the scoring for Auburn by intercepting an Ed Salem pass and running it back for a touchdown. Salem answered before the interval with a 13-yard run, and the sides went in level at 7-7. Early in the fourth quarter George Davis ran in from ten yards to put Auburn ahead 14-7. Alabama came back in the closing minutes, Tom Calvin scoring from three yards out, and everything came down to the conversion.
Salem, who had kicked seven extra points in the 1948 game without difficulty, missed it. Auburn won 14-13.
Tidwell’s version
Travis Tidwell, Auburn’s quarterback, later told the university’s athletic department that he had asked to be sent out for the kick. “Line me up on the outside and I can block it,” he said he told Brown. He did not block it. By his own account he did something more useful: “He saw me come into the game. Right before the ball was snapped, he looked over to see where I was. That broke his concentration, and he missed the kick.”
It is a recollection given decades after the event, and Tidwell was not a neutral witness to his own significance. It is also the only first-hand account of the moment that anyone has recorded.
Afterwards
Auburn finished 2-4-3, which is to say that beating Alabama accounted for half of their season’s victories. Alabama finished 6-4-1. The margin of one point in 1949 has proved more representative of the rivalry than the margin of 55 in 1948.