Auburn Tigers football coach Hugh Freeze and AD John Cohen did something on Saturday in a 31-15 win over the South Alabama Jaguars that Alabama Crimson Tide AD Greg Byrne, Kalen DeBoer, Nick Saban, and every University of Alabama regime before them, dating back to 1944, has refused to do:
Face an in-state foe in a game other than the Iron Bowl.
The Crimson Tide has been stingy about paying out non-conference sums to South, the UAB Blazers, the Jacksonville State Gamecocks, the Alabama State Hornets, the Alabama A&M Bulldogs, and the Samford Bulldogs since that 1944 battle between UAB and UAT.