There are times that you start to think Nick Saban lies awake at night, afraid to go to sleep and have nightmares about Jordan-Hare Stadium all over again.
With Alabama visiting Auburn on Saturday, the legendary head coach spoke on the voodoo that happens on the Plains when opposing teams come to town. On College GameDay, Saban was asked about which team could play spoiler on Rivalry Saturday.
"Alabama going to the haunted house is scary to me," he said.
Saban has reasons to believe that Jordan-Hare is haunted, even going back to his LSU days. But it was as the head coach of the Crimson Tide that he witnessed the mojo in full effect.
In 2013, the most famous ending in the history of college football happened with the Kick Six, as No. 4 Auburn defeated No. 1 Alabama. In 2017, Jarred Stidham and the No. 6 Tigers dropped the top-ranked Crimson Tide again in Jordan-Hare 26-14.
Flash forward two years, and one of the craziest games in Iron Bowl history saw a 100-yard pick six, a doink heard throughout the state on a missed field goal and trickery by Gus Malzahn late to help Auburn win 45-42.
Even in the games that Saban ended up winning in his last two games at Jordan-Hare, there was magic. Against two overmatched Auburn teams, it took a 99-yard drive in 2021 to send the game to overtime, where the Crimson Tide finally won it in the fourth overtime. Two years later, Jalen Milroe had to find Isaiah Bond on 4th-and-31 to help Alabama escape.
With an interim head coach and an Auburn team fighting for bowl eligibility in front of a packed Jordan-Hare Stadium, there's no reason to believe that the magic and spookiness of it will disappear on Saturday night when the Tigers and No. 10 Crimson Tide take the field.