re: SEC legend, former Alabama QB Steve Sloan has passed away at the age of 79

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But Legion Field was all that to both teams for many decades. I don't see that the time frames involved is much of an issue. Both teams did what they wanted

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This is definitely TL/DR, but will truthfully explain how long Auburn has tried to move the Iron Bowl. It definitely was NOT as mutual as you seem to imply.

You don’t seem to be as knowledgeable on the subject as I thought.

My Dad was a QB at Auburn from 1956-59. He played on the 1957 NC team. Vince Dooley was his QB coach which was great because Dad had grown up in Mobile down the street from Vince and Bill Dooley. He knew them well.

Dad was also close to Auburn’s AD Lee Hayley (1972-81). Because of his relationship with Auburn football, he was well-versed in the history of Auburn football.

His senior year (1959), Auburn and Georgia played in Athens for the first time (the next year they played in Auburn for the first time). That game had been played in Columbus, Ga for decades prior.

After Auburn people saw how great it was to play one of our major rivals in Auburn, they wanted to move all of our rival games (uat, Georgia, Tennessee and Georgia Tech) to Auburn.

The problem was that Auburn’s stadium (Cliff Hare Stadium) was too small to get the other three rivals to agree to play in Auburn.

Georgia Tech first played in Auburn in 1972 after we enclosed our open end zone.

When Auburn committed to the second stadium expansion (first upper deck) Tennessee agreed to come to Auburn in 1974 and would play there every other year starting in 1980 (when the expansion was completed).

uat was the last remaining holdout. They continued to argue that it should always be played in Birmingham since they had the largest stadium (and the largest concentration of uat alums/fans).

Auburn knew the only way to get the game moved was to expand Jordan-Hare to be larger than Legion Field, which was accomplished is the late 80’s (the second upper deck). Auburn had to wait until the existing contract expired (1988) to move the game.

uat fought tooth and nail to prevent the move, even threatened to drop Auburn from the schedule. That was when the SEC stepped in and told uat that they could only drop Auburn from the schedule if they left the SEC (which EVERYONE knew was unrealistic).

Then Sloan came forward with his comments about Auburn hosting the Iron Bowl. That is when they turned on him, which led to his resignation.

That was when uat finally realized they had no choice.

To try to appease the bammer base, Auburn threw them a bone by agreeing to play one final Auburn home Iron Bowl game in Birmingham in 1991. Although we lost, many bammers lost their mind when Auburn had the AU logo painted at midfield.

People burying their heads in the sand does not make my NOVEL untrue.