Bear Bryant’s second season at Alabama ended with the first win over Auburn in six years, and it was achieved without conceding a point.
Two scores, both in the middle of the game
Neither side scored in the first quarter. Tommy Brooker kicked a 27-yard field goal in the second for a 3-0 half-time lead, and in the third Bobby Skelton threw 39 yards to Marlin Dyess for the only touchdown of the afternoon. Auburn did not score in the fourth, or in any other quarter. It was a 10-0 game decided by two plays.
Ending the run
Auburn had won the five previous meetings, from 1954 through 1958, and had shut Alabama out in three of them. No side had put together a longer run in the series to that point. Alabama had not beaten Auburn since 1953, the year they last won the conference.
That both teams came into this game ranked — #19 Alabama, #11 Auburn — was itself a change. It was the first time since the series resumed in 1948 that the Iron Bowl had two ranked sides in it.
What each season became
Alabama finished 7-2-2 and took a place in the first Liberty Bowl, losing 7-0 to Penn State in Philadelphia on 19 December. Auburn finished 7-3 under Shug Jordan, two years on from the national championship and without a bowl invitation.
Bryant had inherited a team that had won four games in three seasons. In two years he had a ranked side that had beaten Auburn. The decade that followed was built on the squad that played this game.