#18 Alabama beat Auburn 38-7 at Legion Field on 27 November 1976, and the game turned in twelve minutes after half-time.
Twenty-one unanswered
It was only 14-0 at the interval, on short runs by Rick Watson and Tony Nathan. Then Jeff Rutledge threw 42 yards to Ozzie Newsome, Nathan ran in his second from fourteen yards, and Rutledge scored himself from eleven: 35-0, and the third quarter was not over. Bucky Berrey added a 47-yard field goal in the fourth. Foster Christy’s one-yard run gave Auburn their only points, by which time the scoreboard read 38.
Rutledge threw for one touchdown and ran for another. Nathan scored twice. Newsome, a junior who went on to the Hall of Fame as a tight end, caught the longest score of the day.
Neither team was much good that year
Alabama had fallen out of the rankings entirely in early October before climbing back to eighteenth by late November; they finished 9-3 and beat UCLA 36-6 in the Liberty Bowl. Auburn went 4-7 in Doug Barfield’s first season after Jordan.
The crowd was 70,303. It was Alabama’s fourth consecutive win in the series. Only the 35-0 of 1973 had been wider.