Yes, it's that time again, boys and girls. It's that game where no matter what has happened all season, this is really the game that counts. Couldn't care less if the Tide lost every game during the season, as long as they beat Auburn. This is how most around these parts feel. It's bigger than the Super Bowl around here, believe it or not. You can't truly understand college football until you attend the Iron Bowl or experience the electrifying sparks flying from one end of the state to the other. Biggest game of the year. Bigger than a bowl game, bigger than the National Championship game, Bigger than the great state of Alabama!

All that being said, the Tigers are favored by 7 according the papers. ah, pish posh. Like I said in my last post, win or loose, as long as LSU gets beat and one of US goes to Atlanta, I don't care. Nah, that's not entirely true. I want the tide to go out there and whip up bad on the Tigers. It's going to be the game where win or loose, both teams have had an outstanding season and have nothing to be ashamed of, but it's bragging rights. Yes, that's it. Bragging rights.

Auburn has ousted us the last three years. Alabama has gone through some rough times with sanctions and coaches, but this year has been our blossoming year, the year we came back out of all the garbage to prove that we are a dominate force in college football. We have done it, but it won't be official until the Tigers go down.

I have been pretty quite this week, just listening to all the trash talk. It's always better not to defend the trash talk, because it's so much better when you have to smile come Sunday morning. I'm hoping for that smile. Roll Tide, right over those Tigers!

Plenty to Play For
written by Christopher Walsh
Tidesports.com

TUSCALOOSA On the evening of Oct. 22, University of Alabama senior quarterback Brodie Croyle couldn’t have been happier.

The Crimson Tide had just won a brutal game against rival Tennessee, 6-3, and Alabama fans everywhere were basking in the victory.

But Croyle had one somewhat disappointing moment that night, when he looked up at a television screen and saw that LSU held on to defeat Auburn 20-17 in overtime.

Croyle wasn’t rooting against LSU, per se. He just wanted to face Auburn with the Western Division title on the line and both teams playing for a spot in the SEC Championship.

He wanted it to be potentially the biggest Iron Bowl ever.

“You can’t be where you totally want to be at Alabama without beating Auburn,” Croyle said. “You can’t say that you had a great season if you don’t beat Auburn. You can go 10-1 and not beat Auburn and everyone can still wonder why you didn’t have a good season.”

Although Sports Illustrated proclaimed “Bama is Back,” more than a month ago following the impressive 31-3 victory against then-No. 5 Florida, the players don’t see it that way — especially the seniors.

“It’s not done yet,” senior linebacker DeMeco Ryans said. “We have to beat Auburn to make it, to put Alabama back where it needs to be.”

At many schools across the country, players will say similar things because that’s what you do when talking about your rival.

The difference is that here they really mean it, and feel it, each and every year.“It’s hard to describe,” coach Mike Shula said. “When I made that statement when I first got here, people were like, ‘You can’t say it like that. You should say it’s like the Super Bowl.’ But it’s not like the Super Bowl because to me it’s more intense than a Super Bowl because it’s a different type of crowd. The closest thing you can get in my experience is the AFC or NFC Championships, when you’re playing at home or you’re playing on the road and everything’s on the line, there’s no tomorrow, those type of things.

“When my high school buddies came up here for the first time, and they’re big college football fans, they had all been to some pretty big universities and they had no clue what this game was all about. My brother coming up here, my dad coming up here, it’s an electrifying atmosphere. Anybody who plays or coaches in it will remember it for the rest of their lives.”

Even though Alabama’s national championship aspirations were dashed by last week’s 16-13 overtime loss to LSU, and Saturday’s winning team will need help to order to play the Eastern Division champion in Atlanta, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot on the line.

For example, bowl invitations are at stake. Alabama (9-1 overall, 5-1, SEC) has an excellent chance to be one of eight teams involved in the Bowl Championship Series, and with a victory might head to the Fiesta Bowl to play Notre Dame.

A loss and the Crimson Tide appears slated for the Cotton Bowl.

Should it win, Auburn (8-2, 5-1) might get an invitation to the Capital One Bowl, where it would face a Big Ten team like Wisconsin, in arguably the biggest non-BCS game.

A loss might make Auburn bound for the Peach Bowl or Outback Bowl, depending on how other things play out.

Additionally, a win guarantees either team no worse than being co-division champions.

For Auburn, it would be the fifth division title in six years. Alabama’s hasn’t been atop the standings since 1999, the longest stretch since the SEC introduced divisions in 1992, and in Tuscaloosa the equivalent to an eternity.

But in many respects those tangible results are about as important to the players and fans as the Foy Trophy, the symbol of sportsmanship that is awarded to the winning team.

What’s really at stake in the Iron Bowl can’t be put down on paper, or understood by those who have never, in one form or another, lived it.

“The whole state shuts down,” Croyle said. “This is for bragging rights for the rest of the year. This is THE game. This is what everyone looks forward to all year. “At either school, if you go 1-10 and beat Auburn, you’re all right with everyone. Forget the other 10 losses, you beat Auburn and that’s all that matters.”

Specific to this year’s game, though, are the legacies of those who stuck things out through probation, coaching changes and other turmoil.

Even though Croyle is already Alabama’s all-time leading passer, he’s 0-1 against Auburn as a starter. Should he end up on the losing end again, one has to wonder how he’ll be perceived years from now — as merely beloved by Tide fans or considered one of the all-time greats like Joe Namath and Kenny Stabler.

Same goes for the rest of the senior class. Can Ryans be mentioned in the same breath as Derrick Thomas if he doesn’t get a win against Auburn?

“They want more than being known as seniors who laid the foundation from here on out,” Shula said. “They want to go out on a winning note. It’s tough when you lose and you don’t play as well as you want to, especially when you lay everything on the line, and that’s what these guys have done more so than any other time I’ve been here. These guys have fought all year.”

As an Alabama quarterback, Shula won against Auburn his junior year, thanks to Van Tiffin’s 52-yard field goal, but lost as a senior. He has yet to beat Auburn as a coach.

“It’s about finishing strong and we want to finish the season strong,” he said. “We want to finish games in a winning-type manner, which we thought we had done except for last week. The seniors want to finish their careers strong, and obviously this would be a great way to do that, to win this week. We know what kind of challenge it’s going to be.”

Auburn fans claim the 1989 victory against No. 2, the first on the Plains, as one of the program’s biggest wins. They relish in 1972’s “Punt, Bama, Punt,” and are still upset about Stabler’s 1967 run in the mud.

Of course, it works both ways. While Alabama is 3-4 all-time against teams with Heisman Trophy winners, two of those wins came against the Tigers.

Quarterback Pat Sullivan lost to Alabama 31-7 in 1971, and while running back Bo Jackson is revered for, among other things, his fourth-and-1 lunge over the top to secure a 23-22 victory in 1982, he was on the losing side in 1985, 25-23.

“It’s the Iron Bowl,” sophomore defensive end Wallace Gilberry said. “We don’t want that bad taste in our mouths like last season.”

A year ago, Alabama was down to its third-string quarterback, running back, fullback and tight end, yet still went out and dominated the first half.

“It wasn’t anything other than players playing hard,” defensive coordinator Joe Kines said. “It was the Alabama-Auburn game.”

It wasn’t until into the second half that Auburn, which was tied with Oklahoma for second in the Associated Press poll, reached the end zone and pulled out a 21-13 victory at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

However, the Tigers subsequently dropped to No. 3 in the polls and any chance they had of playing for the national championship was gone.

“Every one that I have been in, you all think that is the game of the year,” Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville said. “Everyone has big games like that. This is a big game this year for us and there is a lot on the line.”

The last time the two teams combined for 19 victories coming in was 1994, when they were 19-0-1. They were 19-0 in 1971, and both ranked in the top six of the Associated Press poll.

But no one will be mentioning records or rankings before this game.

“We don’t have to do anything,” offensive coordinator Dave Rader said. “All we have to say is, ‘Look who we’re playing.’”

So what’s at stake? Nothing, everything, and all the things in between. That’s what an Iron Bowl is all about.

“You don’t want to have any regrets when it comes to this game,” Shula said.

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Win or loose, I have no regrets, and the Tide shouldn't either. Roll Tide!