The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Iron Bowl, Alabama 49, Auburn 27

The final word on the Crimson Tide's regular-season finale, a dominating home win against the rival Tigers at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Author:
Christopher Walsh
Publish date:
Nov 27, 2022 12:00 PM EST

In this story:

Alabama Crimson Tide

There was a Pop Warner youth league reference made by Nick Saban during his postgame press conference Saturday evening at Bryant-Denny Stadium. He was giving credit to Auburn, which successfully executed plays that he and the Alabama Crimson Tide hadn't seen in a long time.

Meanwhile, there was a Pee Wee football reference made by Cadillac Williams during what may have been his final appearance as the Auburn interim coach. After the 49-27 loss, he was talking about what an incredible experience it had been and mentioned the coaches who had inspired him.

This for a game in which the teams combined for 491 rushing yards, and six rushing touchdowns.

Well, as they say, you never know what to expect when these two teams meet in the Iron Bowl rivalry.

Saban's reference does need some context, though, so here's what he said:

"I’ll tell you what, Auburn did a great job with the run game," he said. "They created some edges. Some of the plays they ran – when I was 10 years old, we ran the single-wing. You guys don’t even know what the single-wing is. But that was my first football (offense). I was the quarterback in the single-wing. But the quarterback doesn’t do anything in the single-wing except block. Some of the plays that they were running with the quarterback, I hadn’t seen them since Pop Warner. And they’re good plays, and they’re hard to defend. Their quarterback played an outstanding game from a run standpoint, and they executed.

“It’s like playing against Wildcat when the running back’s in the backfield and somebody’s gotta go cover the quarterback, except he’s a good enough quarterback to run. And then they created some Wildcat situations, as well. So they really attacked us on the edges and did a good job of cracking and blocking us on the edges. We practiced against some of that stuff. We didn’t execute it as well as we’d like at times, but they also created some advantages for themselves.”

Tigers freshman quarterback Robby Ashford had 17 carries for 121 rushing yards and two touchdowns. He was the first Auburn player to rush for two touchdowns in the Iron Bowl since Williams in 2003.

Player of the Game: Quarterback Bryce Young combined for 391 total yards and four touchdowns on the night, including 343 yards on 20-of-30 passing through the air, moving past John Parker Wilson (7,924 yards) into second on Alabama’s career passing yards list with 8,035. Young trails only AJ McCarron, who finished with a record 9,019 career yards passing as a three-year starter.

Play of the Game: Alabama's longest play was the 52-yard deep reception by Jermaine Burton, which set up the Crimson Tide's first touchdown, but the 27-yard touchdown reception off a screen to junior wide receiver Traeshon Holden was nicely executed and called at the right time. He could have gone the length of the field.

Statistic of the Game: The average rushing play resulted in a gain of 6.37 yards. If you don't count the Crimson Tide's four sacks, which count against rushing yards at the collegiate level, it was 7.01.

The Good

Alabama's offensive line didn't give up a sack, and Auburn was credited with just two hurries.
With his sack in the fourth quarter, Will Anderson Jr. has notched 61.0 tackles for loss over his career which moved him past Wallace Gilberry into second all-time in program history. He trails only Derrick Thomas (68.0).
Alabama had twice as many yards after the catch (156), as Auburn had total receiving yards (77).

The Bad

Kool-Aid McKinstry's had an outstanding season returning punts, but his only return against Auburn resulted in a 12-yard loss.
Even though the outcome was no longer in doubt, we're going to list the interception, which was the fifth by Young this season. Alabama still has a negative turnover ratio of minus-two for the season (17-15).
Auburn's second touchdown was a throw into the corner where Ja'Varrius Johnson made an impressive over-the-shoulder catch. The bad part was that there's so little room beyond the end zone that he nearly took out a cameraman and still hit the wall pretty hard.

The Ugly

The Pop Warner references aside, Alabama still gave up 318 rushing yards, with two players topping the 100-yard mark. It was the most rushing yards by the Tigers against the Crimson Tide since 1983 (355 yards). The previous season high was 191 against Ole Miss.

5 Things We Noticed

Young went over 3,00 passing yards for the season (3,339). He's the only quarterback in Alabama history to top the milestone more than once during his career.
Young’s 20 completions were spread to nine different receivers, six of which had at least two catches. Ja’Corey Brooks (four for 76 and one touchdown) and Isaiah Bond (four for 36 yards) topped the Tide with four receptions, while Burton finished with a team-leading 87 yards on three catches.
The touchdown by running back Roydell Williams was on the only play he had a carry. Jahmyr Gibbs and Jase McClellan also ran in touchdowns, as did Young.
Senior Will Reichard had more tackles, one, on the opening kickoff, than field goals. After the senior got up and flexed in excitement from the hit, DJ Dale joked that he started calling him Terminator 2 (Anderson is known as the Terminator on the team).
The same officiating crew from the LSU game in Baton Rouge, where Alabama was flagged nine times, called 21 penalties: 10 on the Tigers for 49 yards, but 11 on the Crimson Tide for 102 yards.