Why is former Auburn coach Pat Dye trying to mess with the Iron Bowl?
That's a question SEC fans might be asking after Dye doubled down on his comments on his weekly radio show on ESPN 106.7-FM in Auburn Tuesday. Dye laid out his plan for wanting the Tigers to play in the SEC East, via a report from Gridiron Now's Zac Blackerby. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn also said moving to the SEC East "makes sense."
Dye, who finished 99-39-4 from 1981-92 as head coach for the Tigers, then took the next step.
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"We don't need to let Alabama dictate what we do at Auburn," he said. "We can play them on a rotation, just like everybody else."
All right, then. Does Dye have a point? Or is this just offseason Iron Bowl bluster?
Splitting up won't work
The idea of splitting seems like a novel idea, until it happens and it just doesn't feel right. The Iron Bowl's companion national rivalry – The Game between Ohio State and Michigan – can tell you that first-hand. When the Big Ten split into divisions in 2011, the conference put the Wolverines in the Legends Division and the Buckeyes in the Leaders Division.
The punch-lines wrote themselves on those names, but the theoretical end game was to get the two schools in the Big Ten championship game. That matchup never materialized, but the divisional split put less emphasis on the regular-season matchup. It's not an accident that when the Big Ten re-aligned the divisions again in 2014, the Wolverines and Buckeyes found themselves in the Big Ten East. The results have been much better. Last year even produced one of the rivalry's best game ever.
That's how it's supposed to be.
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Rotation issues
The Iron Bowl should be played in the regular season every year. If you don't play every season, this becomes one of those rivalries where the fans spit back and forth on social media all day with no real resolution. Well, that might happen anyway, but the Iron Bowl would become something in the realm of Texas-Texas A&M, two schools that eventually split conferences and haven't played since 2011.
What's the point of a rivalry if you don't settle it on the field at the regularly-scheduled appointment?
You could also split the divisions and still play it, but that tracks back to the first point. What if Auburn played Alabama in the regular-season finale when both teams were undefeated then had a rematch in the SEC championship? Would you send both teams to the playoffs? Could those two fan-bases handle three games in one season? That's a case where is too much is more than enough.
Appearances matter
What do you think an Alabama fan will say the second Auburn switches divisions and/or goes on a rotation? Tweets, GIFs, Facebook posts, whatever. It would all point to the fact that the Tigers ran away from Nick Saban. Alabama is 7-3 against Auburn under Saban, and that's included wins over the last three SEC championship seasons.
So what? Auburn won seven of the 10 meetings before that. Great rivalries have great swings, and the Iron Bowl is no exception. After all, Saban can't coach forever. Can he?
The best way to address that elephant is to take another swing at it. Then another one. Then another one.
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Best in-state rivalry for a reason
As far as in-state rivalries go, there's nothing better than Auburn-Alabama. Other in-state rivalries such as Florida-Florida State and South Carolina-Clemson have cross-conference appeal, but the Iron Bowl doesn't need that. Alabama-Auburn is a lot like USC-UCLA.
All it needs is two teams in the same division that can't stand each other 365 days a year to play for it, and just watch this year.
There's a good chance Alabama and Auburn will play each other on Nov. 25 with the SEC West on the line. Given the spring hype around the Tigers, it should be the best game since the legendary "Kick Six." There's no reason to split that up or put it on a rotation. Auburn doesn't need Alabama to dictate what they do.
But in this case, they don't need to do anything.
