Auburn fans never forget.
It’s a classic line for understanding everything about why the Iron Bowl matters every single year even if, like this season’s game, the SEC West championship is already determined and Auburn is unranked. The line is even better, though, considering the source.
Holly Jones, the mother of New England Patriots and former Alabama quarterback Mac Jones, said that to me in a conversation while I was writing “We Want Bama,” my new book about college football in the state of Alabama during the pandemic year of 2020. That year brought so much of the state’s history and culture together around this sport we all love, and it all climaxed this week last year.
Nick Saban of course had COVID-19 and missed the game, Alabama got its revenge after Auburn’s breathtaking victory in 2019 and Mac Jones dialed up a little payback for a classic prank by some of Auburn’s students. Detailed in the book, and first reported by a news outlet here, Alabama’s famous quarterback was the victim of some behind-the-scenes Iron Bowl mischief before the 2019 and 2020 games.
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The Iron Bowl on Saturday will be the first time in three years that Auburn students haven’t had the cell phone number of Alabama’s starting quarterback.
In the build up to Jones’ 2019 start against Auburn, a group of enterprising Auburn students acquired Jones’ cell phone number from a former high school classmate of Alabama’s quarterback. Auburn’s dedicated pranksters were relentless in the days leading into the Iron Bowl. They never stopped calling, texting and leaving messages, and Jones couldn’t turn his cell phone off because that was his direct line of communication with coaches.
It was a problem.
Let’s just say the Auburn students did not leave words of encouragement for Alabama’s inexperienced quarterback. Unspeakable things, Holly Jones said.
Holly was visiting her son that week for Thanksgiving, and brought along the family dog, Chanel. It was a stressful situation for a quarterback who had been elevated to starter after that frightening injury to Tua Tagovailoa against Mississippi State. To make things worse, Chanel’s health was failing and the beloved family pet died after the game.
Making a motherly decision that would later go down in Iron Bowl lore forever, Holly grabbed her son’s phone and buried it in a kitchen pantry so they couldn’t be bothered with it any longer. The next day, Holly went and bought Mac a new cell phone for communicating with his offensive coaches. They nicknamed Mac’s new phone the “bat phone,” which was perfect because Mac’s first nickname when he arrived at Alabama was the “Joker” based on his distinctive laugh and smile.
The next year, with Jones preparing for the 2020 Iron Bowl alone because of COVID-19 restrictions, he called his mom to let her know that the week was going well, and, oh yeah, Auburn’s students were at it again.
“Well, you know what to do,” Holly Jones said.
The Joker switched back to his bat phone and Alabama went on to blowout Auburn 42-13.
“Auburn fans never forget,” Holly Jones said.
Alabama fans never forget either, of course, and so the constant tug and pull of this classic slice of Southern remains fresh in our hearts year after year after year. Alabama is a heavy favorite this year, which only means one thing to Auburn fans — that an unlikely victory here would go down as one of this rivalry’s greatest upsets of all time.
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No one needs reminding that Alabama hasn’t won at Auburn since 2015. That’s so long ago that Alabama has cycled through three different offensive styles, won two national championships and put three quarterbacks in the NFL. Bryce Young looks like a future fourth, but that potential guarantees him nothing at Auburn. Jake Coker is the last Alabama quarterback to win at Jordan-Hare Stadium, but only because on that night Derrick Henry rushed for 271 yards on 46 attempts.
College football’s marquee rivalry game has long been an annual showcase for future stars of pro football, but the Iron Bowl is not about future success in the NFL. This game is about making legends of moments and players and stories, and then calling them up every year like family members during the holidays.
Joseph Goodman is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. He’s on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr. His first book, “We Want Bama: A season of hope and the making of Nick Saban’s ‘ultimate team’,” is available wherever books are sold.
