By Tom Mattingly
It wasn’t too long ago, in the late 1980s, actually, that Alabama and Auburn were squabbling over the venue of the “Iron Bowl.”
Finally, Auburn drew a line in the sand. Auburn would play its “home games” in Auburn, a seemingly reasonable request in some circles, an unreasonable one in others.
Alabama threatened all kinds of repercussions, including canceling the series or keeping the game at Birmingham’s Legion Field, a venue seemingly ordained by higher powers.
The “Iron Bowl” couldn’t be played anywhere else, could it? That was the spin put out by Alabama and Birmingham civic and community leaders.
The games are now being played on each campus at stadiums much larger than Legion Field, and the rivalry hasn’t suffered one iota. Alabama partisans who had once said “Never” to playing at Auburn, now head to Lee County every other year.
Alabama did get in one last shot at Auburn fans before the 1989 game, raising the specter of a Tide win in the first game between the two rivals at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Their comment, expressed in bumper stickers and other media, was to the point: “Your a– on your grass.”
That didn’t happen. Auburn won, but this was the stuff of which great rivalries are made.
Closer to home, there were those across Big Orange Country who expressed great fear and trepidation relative to trips to Auburn, Ala., Starkville and Oxford, Miss., and even Athens, Ga., instead of Birmingham and Memphis, or in Georgia’s case, not playing the Bulldogs at all between 1938 and 1967.
It took the Vols until 1974 to play in Auburn. They’ve been there to stay since 1980. Tennessee returned to Starkville in 1987 and Oxford in 1988 after a game at each venue in the early 1950s. Tennessee never played in Oxford before 1951 and had played in Starkville only three times (1910, 1920, and 1926).
It always seemed more convenient to go to Memphis to play Mississippi State or Ole Miss instead of Starkville or Oxford. Even the Bulldogs and Rebels thought it was a good idea.
All three teams have strong fan bases in Memphis and West Tennessee, but things always seemed strange about Tennessee being the visiting team against a Mississippi school in Memphis.
Community honchos in the Bluff City tried to get as many games in Crump Stadium as they could over the years, with games featuring Tennessee, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, and Arkansas, among others. There were day-night doubleheaders scheduled – Tennessee versus Ole Miss in the afternoon, Mississippi State versus Arkansas, in the evening, for example. Whatever Memphis city leaders did must have worked.
There was one trip to Starkville that was a comedy of errors. The year was 1950. To begin with, the Vol team plane landed at the wrong airport, one where grass was growing through the cracks in the concrete. Former Vol center Bob Davis remembered that facet of the trip well. Then the Vols lost to State 7-0.
After the game, another Bob, this time General Robert Neyland, reportedly told his players their only friends were the people on the plane with them. The Vols ended up 11-1 that season, playing and defeating Texas in the Cotton Bowl.
The series with Georgia resumed in 1968, and, with the advent of divisional play in the early 1990s, the series between the neighboring states is as hot and heavy as any Tennessee has played in recent years.
The first two games were something to behold. Tennessee stole a 17-17 tie on Sept. 14, 1968. Bubba Wyche tossed a controversial TD pass to Gary Kreis and a two-point conversion pass to Ken DeLong after the clock at the North end of Neyland Stadium had hit double zeroes.
Georgia folks thought they had Tennessee right where they wanted them on a rainy day in Athens on Nov. 1, 1969. However, in the game played between the legendary hedges, the Vols won 17-3. Curt Watson and Don McLeary each gained more than 100 yards rushing.
Vol fans also incessantly worried about having to play Memphis State, known as Memphis, in one of those games perceived by many in the Vol fan base as “nothing to gain, and everything to lose.”
That series began in 1968, after some indelicate political wrangling. The Vols have won 22 of the 23 games played, but the 1996 game, Memphis 21, Tennessee 17, was a classic upset.
The rivalries may be more competitive and intense than ever, if that’s possible.
The inexorable passage of time has a way of defusing nearly any game site controversy. But at the time these controversies arose, they were issues that engendered considerable debate and even rancor.
