Why Alabama-Auburn is called the Iron Bowl

The Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl might be the college football’s best, most impactful, and nastiest rivalry game. The two fanbases despise each another, and there’s not a lot of love between the programs themselves, either. This series is a blood feud between Alabamian neighbors.

Former Auburn coach Shug Jordan is credited with coining the nickname in 1964.

“We’ve got our bowl game,” he said. “We have it every year. It’s the Iron Bowl in Birmingham.”

The game used to be played in Birmingham, and Birmingham is close to a bunch of key mineral deposits. Birmingham’s been nicknamed “The Pittsburgh of the South” for its metal production.

These were the raw materials essential for making iron and steel, and at some locations within the district, deposits were only a few miles apart. This lucky geological arrangement resulted in the lowest raw-material assembly costs in the United States and allowed the district to grow as rapidly, in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, as Pittsburgh and Chicago.

Within the industry, the most profitable enterprises were those that controlled all the mines, railroads, blast furnaces, and other facilities required to extract and assemble raw materials and to convert these raw materials into iron or steel.

For most of the series’ history, Alabama and Auburn haven’t played on each other’s campuses. They’ve played in Birmingham, about 50 minutes northeast of Tuscaloosa and two hours northwest of Auburn.

Birmingham was the site of the teams’ first meeting ever, on Feb. 22, 1893. Auburn won, 32-22, at the city’s Lakeview Park. The teams agree on the outcome. But Auburn wanted the game to count toward the teams’ 1893 season records, while Alabama wanted it to count toward 1892’s. (The Tide’s game notes in 2017 even refer to the first Auburn game as taking place on Feb. 22, 1892, though that seems like an innocent error.) Anyway, the schools kept arguing about all sorts of things for years.

After 1907’s game in Birmingham, the teams stopped playing. Encyclopedia of Alabama explains:

Auburn and Alabama stopped playing each other after 1907. Over the years, a myth grew that a huge fight among players and fans had led to the severing of relations between Auburn and Alabama. The truth, however, was decidedly less dramatic. The schools’ officials simply could not agree on contractual details, such as per diem pay rates for the players, and thus there was no game in 1908.

It’s widely believed that Alabama’s state government required the two teams to get back together in the 1940s, when their series resumed. But this explanation suggests otherwise:

Another myth has persisted that the state legislature mandated resumption of the series, but a resolution approved by the legislature on August 15, 1947, merely officially requested that the schools resume the annual contest. In 1948, Auburn president Ralph Draughon and Alabama president John Galalee simply agreed that the schools should play, and the rivalry was renewed in the modern era.

Birmingham had Legion Field, the biggest venue in the state. That’s no longer true, as both Bryant-Denny Stadium and Jordan-Hare Stadium have far surpassed its capacity.

The games then spent a decade switching between Birmingham and Auburn, before Tuscaloosa hosted in 2000. The games have gone back and forth between the two campuses since then.

The game hasn’t been played in Birmingham since 1998, and it might never be again. But the teams built up a lot of animosity during games there, and the rivalry’s Birmingham-inspired nickname will never go away.