Death, Taxes, and Iron Bowl Chaos: The Kick Six, Nine Years Later
“Chris Davis is going to drop back into the end zone in single safety. Well, I guess if this thing comes up short he can field it and run it out. Alright, here we go. 56-yarder, it’s got — no, it does not have the leg. And Chris Davis takes it in the back of the end zone. He’ll run it out to the 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 45 — There goes Davis! (“Oh my God! Oh my God!”) Davis is going to run it all the way back! Auburn’s gonna win the football game! AUBURN’S GONNA WIN THE FOOTBALL GAME!”
Ask any fan to describe college football using only one word, and I guarantee one of the first things they say is “chaotic”. And if you asked any fan to describe college football using only one game, most people would turn towards the Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl of 2013. It’s been eight years since the famous (or infamous, if you live in Tuscaloosa) Kick Six occurred, but it’s a moment the sports world will likely never forget.
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Iron Bowls with two highly ranked teams are pretty hard to come by. While the games themselves are usually good, the teams sometimes aren’t. Typically, Alabama is the best team in the country, and Auburn, well, never is. However, this year was different: somehow, both Alabama and Auburn were ranked in the top four prior to this matchup, Before 2013, we hadn’t seen an Iron Bowl when both teams were ranked in the top ten since the 1900s, and we’ve never gotten a matchup as good as #1 vs. #4 (and probably never will).
Although if you think about it, Auburn never really deserved to be here in the first place. They opened the season unranked and didn’t crack the top 25 until Week 7. Hell, they didn’t even get any votes for a whole entire month. Their first ranked matchup came in Death Valley against a bend-but-don’t-break LSU defense, and they didn’t reach the end zone until the second half when the game was already over.
However, things took a turn for the better when they defeated then-ranked #7 Texas A&M on a come-from-behind victory. The Tigers were down double digits in the fourth quarter but won a 45–41 thriller on a go-ahead Tre Mason touchdown with just over a minute on the clock. The Tigers skyrocketed to #11 on the AP Poll the following week, but probably would have dropped back to the 20s if not for “The Prayer at Jordan-Hare”, where on a 4th-and-18 from Auburn territory, QB Nick Marshall threw a pass that deflected off two Georgia defenders and right into the hands of waiting receiver Ricardo Louis. It can’t get luckier than that, right?
Right?
You might be wondering why I haven’t shown Alabama any love. To be quite honest with you, they didn’t need any love. Alabama came into the season ranked #1 and stayed there the entire season. The Alabama teams of the early 2010s were essentially the college equivalent of the Patriots dynasty. Even though Auburn was ranked only three spots below ‘Bama in both the AP and Coaches’ Polls, they opened as two-score favorites (-9.5). The experts on College GameDay picked the Crimson Tide to win unanimously. In other words, we were pretty freakin’ sure Alabama was gonna win.
Nevertheless, Auburn fans showed up in droves. Jordan-Hare was, unsurprisingly, sold out for what seemed like the 200th game in a row. The Crimson Tide took the opening kick, and on the first play of the game gave the ball to star running back TJ Yeldon, who burst through a hole so big I think Moses parted it for a 31-yard gain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD5QnSY3lKY
Momentum flipped in the following minutes following a shanked Cade Foster field goal (more of this to come) and an efficient Auburn drive where QB Nick Marshall just blazes past linebacker Dillon Lee for a 45-yard rushing touchdown. Seriously, how is this guy not a running back? Lee looks like he’s running in a YouTube video that you just set to 0.25 speed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTZek7i8vS4
However, no game is over early when Nick Saban is in attendance. (That is, unless Alabama is the team winning.) AJ McCarron hit Jalston Fowler for a quick play-action touchdown, and two drives later took the lead on a beautifully lofted ball to wide receiver Kevin Norwood. McCarron and the Tide doubled their advantage only a few minutes later after a TJ Yeldon touchdown run that was preceded by a beautiful end-around by Amari Cooper. Jordan-Hare went from an absolute madhouse to quieter than a funeral morgue in a span of seventeen minutes.
However, in true 2013 Auburn football fashion, the Tigers began to fight their way back. Tre Mason punched in a 1-yard score following the second missed Alabama field goal of the half. (Are you sensing a pattern yet?) After the halftime break, Marshall hit future Bengals legend CJ Uzomah for a 13-yard touchdown, tying the game.
By now, night had fallen in Auburn, and we all know the god-given rule that college football can’t have chaos until it’s dark out. So in other words, this game is about to go off the rails.
Going for it on fourth down has become extremely popular in today’s version of the NFL. So much so that if you punt when you shouldn’t have (gasp!), you get hundreds of Twitter troll accounts calling you out, which is enough to make anyone question their sanity. I’m sure Gus Malzahn’s mentions were absolutely flooded after punting the ball away on a 4th and 4 from the opposing 47. That is, until senior punter Steven Clarke sent away a perfect ball that was touched down at the one.
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Let’s play a game. Want to guess what happens next? If you don’t, feel free to skip ahead two paragraphs. Here, I’ll give you four options.
- McCarron gets sacked in the end zone and Auburn takes a 2-point lead
- Defensive back Jermaine Whitehead (not to be confused with Jermaine White, a professional boxer) comes up with a huge interception
- Amari Cooper catches a deep ball for a presumptive touchdown, but channels his inner DeSean Jackson and drops the ball at the one-yard line
- Amari Cooper goes 99 yards in one play for a go-ahead touchdown
If you guessed D, correct! You officially have more college football knowledge than my self-proclaimed “expert” cousin. (Or maybe not. Results may vary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K5PwKi6HH4
Let’s break down this play for a second. From first glance, it sure looks like Alabama is about to run this ball. They’ve only got one wide receiver out wide, and everybody else is tucked inside. Malzahn sees this and calls for a Cover 1, leaving only one deep safety. Most of the Tiger linebackers fall for the play-action, leaving Cooper in man coverage against senior Jonathon Mincy.
Now, I’m sure Mincy is a great defensive player, but let me tell you, Amari Cooper is a hell of a lot better. It takes him less than two seconds to get around his defender and McCarron puts a beautiful ball into his lap. One missed tackle by- you guessed it, Jermaine Whitehead- later, and Cooper has nothing but grass ahead of him and coasts into the end zone.
Of course, no game is over until it’s over, and in the Iron Bowl, all the rules are thrown out the window. Auburn gets the ball back and promptly runs the ball on three straight plays, setting up a 4th-and-1. Instead of punting, Malzahn elected to go for it, even though a failed play would put Alabama in an excellent position to win the football game.
To convert a fourth down against the best defensive team in the nation, you need a pretty damn good play call, and the Tigers simply didn’t have that. Malzahn called for a read option that nobody on the face of the planet fell for. Alabama ball.
Only a few minutes after the turnover, Alabama gets their own 4th-and-1, this time from the Auburn 12-yard-line. A field goal gives them a two-possession lead with just five minutes left, but their kicking woes today have cost them nine points. So Nick Saban (understandably) decides to go for it, and they fail because of a ridiculous open-field tackle by freshman defensive end Carl Lawson. Jordan-Hare absolutely erupts. They probably won’t win this game without Lawson. (This one goes out to you, Carl).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aahY5-oSHM8
Well, Auburn takes over at the 14 with just a handful of minutes on the clock. We all know what happens at the end of this game, so they’ve got to score somehow, right? Fast forward five minutes and one seconds and we’ve got Nick Marshall and Sammie Coates pulling off the second-greatest trick play (can I call it a trick play?) of the 21st century. (The first, of course, is the Colts’ fake punt against the Patriots). Tie game.
28–28, and Jordan-Hare is alive once again. McCarron and Alabama get the ball back for one last chance, and instead of kneeling out and playing for overtime, Saban decides to try and get the Crimson Tide into field goal range for a chance to win the game. In hindsight, this is a terrible decision, but as they say, you can’t predict the unpredictable.
With a 3rd-and-1 from their own 38, and only seven seconds left on the clock, Saban elects to go for a draw play and gives the ball to TJ Yeldon. Since Auburn is playing in a deep cover 4, trying to stop the offense from moving into field goal range, they’re willing to give Yeldon some space to run, which makes sense. However, he gets a little too much space as Yeldon breaks two tackles and gets out of bounds at the Auburn 40.
It seems like time has expired and this game is going to overtime, but Saban challenges the play, claiming there was still time left on the clock. And he was right — upon further review, the Crimson Tide manage to get one more second, and they send out freshman backup kicker Adam Griffith, since senior Cade Foster is a very unflattering 0 for 3 on the day. The stage is set: a tie game in one of the greatest rivalries in all of sports, and all that stands between an Alabama victory is 56 yards of space.
We all know what comes next, right? It took less than twenty seconds of real time for Chris Davis to send hundreds of thousands of Auburn fans across the world into a frenzy. Twenty seconds for the Tigers to secure a spot in the National Championship, and knock out their greatest rivals in the process. Since that fateful day in ‘13, the Crimson Tide have had their number, winning 6 out of the 8 matchups (including an absolute heartbreaker in 2021). But there’s no changing history, and the Kick Six will live on forever.
