With what had to feel like the entire world caving in around him, the peskiest opponent in history swarming everywhere and the legend/goat dichotomy staring him squarely in the face, Ty Simpson looked as calm as could be lining up in the shotgun on 4th down Saturday night.
The Alabama quarterback was in the deepest end of the deepest pool imaginable, and his coach had just shooed off the field-goal team to put the Iron Bowl in his hands. The ball was snapped, Simpson scanned the Jordan-Hare Stadium turf as the play developed and let the ball fly.
The target? Who else… Isaiah Horton.
Touchdown.
Ballgame.
Legend status secured – both for Simpson and Horton, who has become the Crimson Tide’s go-to target in the red zone in a march to the SEC Championship Game and College Football Playoff that seemed so impossible back on Aug. 30.
That’s simply how these things work when Alabama and Auburn get it on every fall, a happening swathed in hate that encompasses an entire state and all 365 days of every year. Who cares that Alabama entered Saturday night as a 6-point favorite? Who cares that Auburn was 5-6 and had fired its 3rd coach in 5 years earlier in the season?
Throwing out the record books and common sense is practically modus operandi when the Tigers and Tide play. It has been that way since 1893, and sure was going to be that way Saturday night in Alabama’s 27-20 victory over Auburn.
Especially at Jordan-Hare, Auburn’s house of horrors. The intensity was dialed up to 11 all Saturday night, with pyrotechnics and blinky-blinky lights and gigantic eagle eyes from the oversized end zone videoboard adding to the insane aura of the matchup that is the on-field definition of the SEC advertising mantra “It just means more.”
Plenty of ink will be spilled, both literal and figurative, about Kalen DeBoer’s decision to eschew a Conor Talty chip shot and instead put Alabama’s entire season in the hands of his quarterback. Testicular fortitude and whatnot.
But for Simpson to have the calm to take it all in and find Horton for a 3rd touchdown of the night?
“It was a play we actually won a game on before, so I thought ‘here we go again,’” Simpson said on the field after the game. “Great job by Isaiah Horton to make that catch.”
Horton has been a prop-bet TD machine all season long for Alabama, operating in the shadows cast by the twin spotlights of teammates Germie Bernard and Ryan Williams. Entering Saturday, he had caught 29 passes for 383 yards and 5 TDs – all while often serving as a decoy in Alabama’s passing game.
Not so against Auburn. Horton, a transfer from Miami, finished with a team-high 5 receptions for 35 yards on a pedestrian passing night and hauled in TD passes of 6 yards in the second quarter and 3 yards in the third quarter.
So when it was 4th-and-2 with the game on the line, DeBoer dialed up Simpson’s preferred red-zone target for a third time.
“I have a lot of confidence in our offense to make that play, and a lot of confidence in our defense that we would get it back,” DeBoer said on the field after the game. “We have been through this a lot this year, and we talked about being built for these moments. We found ways to find these wins at the end of games over and over, and there is a deep belief – not just a belief – that we can get it done and make those plays.”
Alabama has been playing from behind, to one degree or another, all season long. Stumbling out of the gate on the road and losing to Florida State 31-17 in the opener gave the Crimson Tide precious little room to falter again.
And even after Alabama became the first team in college football history to defeat 4-straight ranked teams without a bye week in the ensuing 8-game winning streak, Alabama found itself behind the proverbial 8-ball after Oklahoma strolled into Tuscaloosa and walked out with a 23-21 victory.
But as usually is the case, Alabama’s fortunes all came down to 60 minutes (at least…) against Auburn. The arch-rival is the arch-rival for a reason, and That Team Down The Road was loaded for bear even without Hugh Freeze calling plays. Interim coach DJ Durkin had the Tigers ready for everything Alabama could possibly throw at them, and the black magic that comes part and parcel with the every-other-year trip to Lee County was hanging heavy in the chilly air all night long.
Legends are made on these nights and in moments like 4th-and-2 in a tie game with 87,000-plus in the stands and 11 more on the field making life unbearable.
Kick the field goal and play it safe?
Nah. Not when you’ve got Ty Simpson looking for Isaiah Horton in the end zone.
Ty Simpson-to-Isaiah Horton adds to Alabama’s Iron Bowl lore Saturday Down South.
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