Bear Bryantâs first Iron Bowl was a defeat, and it was the closest game the fixture had produced in five years.
Two touchdowns and a two-point try
Auburn scored first, Dick Wood throwing three yards to Jim Pettus to finish a 53-yard drive in the opening quarter. Jim Reynolds later ran in from a yard out for 14-0. Alabama got a touchdown back on a rushing score and converted the two-point attempt, Gary OâSteen catching the pass, and the game finished 14-8.
Auburnâs defence â Jackie Burkett, Zeke Smith â made the stops it needed at the end. It was the same group that had conceded 28 points in the whole of the previous season, and Auburn went through 1958 unbeaten at 9-0-1, ranked fourth in the final Associated Press poll.
Six points that changed the reading
The previous four meetings had ended 28-0, 26-0, 34-7 and 40-0: Auburn 128, Alabama 7. That Alabama lost this one by six, with a squad Bryant had been coaching for four months, told the state more than the result did. Alabama finished 5-4-1, their first winning season since 1953. They turned down an invitation to the Bluegrass Bowl, which made 1958 the only one of Bryantâs 25 seasons at Alabama without a bowl game at the end of it.
The turn
Auburnâs winning run in the series ended here in the sense that it did not get any longer. Bryantâs Alabama won the next four meetings, and over the following decade the rivalry belonged to the other sideline. The 14-8 scoreline in 1958 is the last Iron Bowl of the Shug Jordan ascendancy and the first of the Bryant era, and it is the only one that is both.