‘I want to cry’: Auburn fans try to make sense of incomprehensible Iron Bowl loss

AUBURN, Ala. — They were ready. Ready to stream down the concrete aisles and over the aluminum benches of Jordan-Hare Stadium, ready to leap over — and, for some, fall into — the four-foot-wide hedges encircling the field. Auburn — unranked, unheralded Auburn — was 43 seconds away from knocking off mighty Alabama, and that always demands a celebration.

But this game is one of the most cursed and chaotic in college football, one where no team can feel comfortable for very long. Earlier in the evening, Auburn had celebrated the Kick Six, the most famous play in college football history, a miraculous victory yanked out of the ether on this very field, 10 years ago almost to the day. This would be a perfect capstone to that victory, and all Auburn had to do was stop Alabama on fourth-and-31. Orange lights flashed, “Zombie Nation” thundered across the stadium, and Auburn fans prepared to celebrate in a way they hadn’t in a decade.

But in their delirium, they forgot the essential truth of the Iron Bowl: Until the clock reads 0:00, don’t ever get comfortable.

Alabama's Jalen Milroe found Isaiah Bond in the corner of the end zone — mere yards from where Auburn’s Chris Davis had raced into history 109 yards 10 years before — and Alabama turned a humiliating defeat into one of the most memorable victories in Iron Bowl history. Auburn had one more possession, but the miracles were over.

Tens of thousands of stunned Tiger fans filed out of Jordan-Hare Stadium, thousand-yard stares on their faces. A few Alabama fans in the crowd grinned and “Roll Tide”ed one another, but quietly, like they were telling jokes under their breath at a funeral. A few tried to make sense of what had just happened, but most were still wrestling with the enormity of the boulder that had just landed on them.

“I want to cry, that’s what I feel,” said a fan sporting a black cowboy hat and teary eyes, who identified herself only as “Brooke from Atlanta.” Asked how she was dealing with the loss, she shrugged and said, “Walking out.”

Being an Auburn fan in the state of Alabama means accepting a certain measure of humility just by the nature of the state. From politics to business, grocery store lines to carpool lines, the University of Alabama claims a larger footprint and — Auburn fans would say — a much more inflated self-image. When you’re an Auburn fan, you get used to disappointment. You just don’t expect it to fly out of the sky like this.

“I’ve been an Auburn fan my whole life,” said Cindy Johnson of Anniston, Alabama. “I hate to say it, but this is typical Auburn-Alabama.”

“That’s Auburn football, Alabama football,” said Ryan Lynch of Augusta, Georgia. “You never know what to expect, from the beginning to the end.”

“Auburn football,” said Shane Kelly, Auburn class of 2025, “is going to cause me to have gray hair when I graduate.”

Fans waiting to meet friends or children leaned against walls near closed concession stands, staring at their phones or staring off into the distance. Most had already advanced past the denial and anger stages of grief, and were bargaining or accepting their fate. Some were already starting to break down the coaching decisions on the critical play — which put them in the odd and frustrating position of having to criticize a coach whom they’d admired all game.

"From a sane standpoint, I think Hugh Freeze outcoached Nick Saban in that game," Austin Smith of Boca Raton, Florida. "As a biased Auburn fan, I thought the last play was an offensive push-off. But that could be me."

“I’m impressed, but not impressed,” Lynch said. “On that [fourth-and-31] play call, that could have been a prevent instead of man-to-man.”

Out in the stadium bowl, someone had turned off the scoreboard just moments after the game had ended. Down in the east corner of the stadium, just below where the Alabama band had played, a few dozen Alabama fans gathered, exchanged Roll Tides and posed for selfies. They shouted and applauded when Saban jogged out of the locker room to do some on-field interviews, and the cheers echoed off the far walls of the almost-empty stadium.

“I said the Iron Bowl two years ago [when Alabama rallied from a late deficit to win in four overtimes] was the worst and best game I’ve ever been to,” said the mask-clad, hammer-wielding Alabama superfan who goes by the name “Nacho Alabamo.” “This one … oh, my goodness. I’m sure Daniel Moore is already sharpening his pencils,” he added, referencing a Birmingham artist who has immortalized so many Alabama victories on canvas.

The sun would come up on Sunday morning, the same way it has after every one of the 50 Alabama victories in 88 Iron Bowls. And by this point, Auburn fans know what they’re in for.

“I’ve got to deal with friends on Facebook,” sighed Johnson.

“You’re ready for the trash talk when you get back to work," said Michael Trowse of Anniston, Alabama.

For 364 more days, Auburn fans will have to deal with the pain of Saturday night. But they threw a deep scare into Alabama, and for now, that will have to be enough.

"Auburn does this a lot. They tease you, they lead you on, then right at the end, something happens. Every time," Smith said. "But I love 'em. Wouldn't change 'em for the world."