#2 Alabama beat Auburn 34-16 at Legion Field on 2 December 1978, in front of 79,218, the biggest crowd recorded at the fixture up to that point in the figures available to us.
What the win settled
Alabama went into the game 5-0 in the conference and came out 6-0, which took the Southeastern Conference title outright. Georgia, who had tied Auburn, finished 5-0-1; had Alabama lost, the championship would have been Georgia’s.
No scoring summary for this game survives in any source we have been able to check. The final score and the crowd are what the record establishes, and that is what appears here.
The season it belonged to
Alabama finished 11-1, their only defeat a 24-14 loss to Southern California in September. On 1 January they beat top-ranked Penn State 14-7 in the Sugar Bowl — a game remembered for a goal-line stand in the fourth quarter — and finished first in the final Associated Press poll.
The 1978 championship is the mirror image of the one in 1973. In 1973 UPI’s coaches voted before the bowls and gave Alabama the title while the Associated Press, voting afterwards, did not. In 1978 every selector gave it to Alabama except UPI, which had gone for Southern California. Alabama’s own records list both seasons as national championships and name the selectors in each case.
Six in a row
Auburn finished 6-4-1 in Barfield’s third season. Joe Cribbs was named All-Southeastern Conference. It was Alabama’s sixth consecutive win in the series, with three more to come.