Picture this.
The setting: Jordan Hare Stadium, Nov. 25, 2023. Auburn holds a four-point lead against Alabama football with 43 seconds left. After an errant snap and an illegal forward pass penalty, the Crimson Tide’s hopes lie in a fourth-and-goal play from the Tigers’ 31-yard line.
The characters: The visiting Alabama Crimson Tide, a team that had rebounded from an early-season loss to Texas, a team that was on the cusp of every goal it had set; the home Auburn Tigers, a team that was collapsing, one that had narrowly reached bowl eligibility, one that had just been blasted by New Mexico State the week before.
The context: Absolutely anything can happen in the Iron Bowl, something Alabama football fans know all too well, having left Jordan Hare Stadium stunned 10 years prior as Chris Davis’ 100-plus yard return of a field-goal miss for a touchdown sparked pandemonium.
Ahead of fourth-and-31, the tagline was clear: 10 years after heartbreak, Alabama is in need of its own Iron Bowl miracle.
Roll it.
Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe takes the snap from center Seth McLaughlin. Facing a two-man rush, Milroe bounces around the pocket with his eyes downfield. Milroe fires, finding wide receiver Isaiah Bond one-on-one in the back left corner of the end zone flanked by Auburn cornerback D.J. James.
The outcome? Stunned silence. History. Revenge.
Alabama 27, Auburn 24.
The improbable touchdown set Alabama up for an SEC championship win against Georgia and a College Football Playoff berth that would eventually end in heartbreak.
But one year later, as Alabama prepares for its first Iron Bowl of the Kalen DeBoer era – one that has a completely different setting and cast of characters – fourth-and-31 remains at the forefront, a play the Crimson Tide is in no rush to forget.
The quarterback
Milroe's mission was clear heading into his first Iron Bowl as Alabama's starting quarterback: Get a win.
It didn't matter the challenges, the hardships or the plays he wanted back against Auburn. Milroe's eyes remained forward. How can Alabama beat Auburn at Jordan Hare Stadium?
When it came to the last few plays, those final few seconds where Auburn seemingly backed the Crimson Tide into a corner, a reality hit Milroe.
"At the end of the day, there's going to be a winner, there's going to be a loser and (the clock is) going to hit zero-zero," Milroe said.
But Alabama was prepared for fourth-and-31. He knew exactly the play to run: "Gravedigger," one that had been interspersed throughout practice all season, one where he needed to trust his assignment, trust his eye discipline and trust his teammates.
It's a throw, a moment Milroe said Alabama "needed."
It's not the memorable moment at the top of the Alabama quarterback's list. He's saving that for a potential national championship.
But it's a mission Milroe will look back upon fondly.
"It's definitely a moment I'll always remember and (acknowledge) that it means a lot to a lot of people in Alabama," Milroe said.
The athletics director
Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne didn't want to be on the field late in the fourth quarter. He can't see anything that way.
But Byrne had a job to do at the end of Alabama vs. Auburn. With the Tigers holding a lead late, Byrne was talking with Alabama football equipment and football operations staff preparing to face a Jordan Hare Stadium field-storm.
"I'm trying to make sure we got our arms around (them), trying to keep our people safe," Byrne said.
Byrne's mind was fixated on the safety of the Alabama football team. But his heart still held out hope for the miraculous to happen.
Once Milroe made the throw to Bond, Byrne's mindset immediately turned from safety to celebration.
"When it was converted, I was like, 'Wow, how about that?'" Byrne said.
The color analyst
Tyler Watts knows what his job description entails for moments like Alabama’s fourth-and-31 play.
As the Crimson Tide Sports Network color analyst for Alabama football, Watts, a former Crimson Tide quarterback, is supposed to “keep (his) mouth shut” and let the play-by-play announcer describe everything.
Watts watched the fourth-and-31 play through binoculars in sheer amazement, in utter disbelief.
“He caught it.”
“There’s certain times where self-control just kind of flies out the window and you lose it,” Watts said.
It was the culmination of the highs of a muffed-punt fumble recovery by Jihaad Campbell and the relative ease of the drive to inside the Auburn 10-yard line before the lows of an errant snap and the illegal forward pass flag.
It’s a game where Watts watched Alabama fans arrive extremely confident. A game the Crimson Tide was supposed to win.
“You’re about to be sick to your stomach,” Watts said. “And all of a sudden, you’re jumping for joy.”
The spotter
Butch Owens sat next to Watts “about as far away” as he could be from Alabama’s fourth-and-31 play.
Owens, in his 37th season as the football spotter for UA's radio crew, had a job to do: stay in front and predict the information both Eli Gold and Watts would need on a given play.
And once he saw Milroe look left, Owens turned his binoculars and fixated on Bond. But once Bond caught the pass, Owens gave himself a moment to be a Crimson Tide fan.
“As soon as I saw that Isaiah Bond had caught it, I focused on the frowns of the Auburn fans,” Owens said. “Just like they focused on our faces when they had that ridiculous field-goal return play.”
Owens was already on to the next play, attempting to identify Alabama’s kickoff approach with less than a minute left in a stadium that went from hysteria to “what just happened” in a second.
The shock lingered at Jordan Hare Stadium as Owens and the radio team walked out of the stadium through Auburn’s recruiting room more than an hour after the game had ended.
“There was just a hushed silence,” Owens said. “There wasn’t any people jumping up and down, acting crazy. They were just like, ‘Oh crap, we just blew one.’
"Alabama fans were just the other way. ‘Oh my gosh, we won one the hard way.’”
The mayor
Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox was sweating near the end of the 2023 Iron Bowl.
Not only was he watching Alabama lose to Auburn at home with his 11-year-old son Eli, who was cheering for the Tigers "to be a contrarian," Maddox had a $100 bet on the line with Auburn Mayor Ron Anders Jr., something Maddox's wife Stephanie reminded him right before the fourth-and-31 play.
"I just said, and I really, truly felt this way, 'We still have one more play,'" Maddox said. "And I'll be damned."
As soon as Milroe completed the 31-yard touchdown pass to Bond, Maddox immediately jumped up and started yelling, securing a $100 donation to the Tuscaloosa Pre-K Initiative he called "damn sweet."
As for Eli, who was not so excited by Alabama's comeback win, the Tuscaloosa Mayor said his son has now seen the light.
"Here's the good news," Maddox said. "I think he's been saved."
The bar owner
Tripp Rogers was at Innisfree Irish Pub at 11 a.m. for Auburn vs. Alabama. The bar was full by 12:30 p.m., with a line out the door and down the patio wall with fans hoping for anyone to leave prior to the 2:30 kickoff.
The Iron Bowl is a game talked about in his bar year-round, Rogers said, combining two of the three "basic things" that separate the state of Alabama: Crimson Tide football, Tigers football and "what's left of Talladega and NASCAR."
As Alabama vs. Auburn played out, Rogers' thoughts turned to the big picture, how this one game at Jordan Hare Stadium would keep the Crimson Tide out of the SEC championship, how it would ruin Alabama's College Football Playoff hopes.
Until it didn't.
As Milroe dropped back, looking "as confident" as he's ever been, making "one of the best throws" of his career to Bond, Innisfree erupted.
"Our cups were flying in the air," Rogers said. "I mean, it was like a giant rain shower. People were jumping on tables, we were jumping on each other. It was insane.
"The rest of the night was a complete blur."
The cleanup was not.
In the aftermath of fourth-and-31, Rogers was left with one broken table and "stuff everywhere." But after a victory like the one Alabama just had, after the throw Milroe made to Bond, Rogers had to let it go.
"We might not ever have a play like that again," Rogers said.
The band members
Standing at the top of the Million Dollar Band ahead of the fourth-and-31 play with the tuba section, Josiah Cooperwood was lost for words.
It was a hopeless situation, he said, one where he had his hands on his head, resting on the fact that Alabama had come back before and hoping the Crimson Tide would do it again.
“Like when they describe the air as electrifying, they’re not exaggerating,” Cooperwood said. “It’s heavy. It’s dense. You feel almost like you are in this dome that like nothing else in the universe exists except for that field.”
While the rest of the stadium was in a frenzy, Cooperwood held his breath, one he released when Bond caught the touchdown pass from Milroe.
Ansley Boles went through the stages of grief in the opposite direction.
“Denial, happened,” Boles, who played mellophone, said. “Disbelief happened. Bargaining happened. I thought for sure that it wasn't true. They were going to take it back.”
Once the call was confirmed, joy overtook Cooperwood, Boles and the rest of the band, which quickly composed itself and revved up “Rammer Jammer.”
“It was the loudest that you’ve ever heard the band play,” Cooperwood said.
The cheerleader
Caroline Hudson was not sure which team her dad would cheer for, Alabama or Auburn.
The Alabama cheerleader said her father, Daniel, grew up a "ride-or-die Auburn fan," an allegiance she said switched when Caroline became a cheerleader for the Crimson Tide.
At the 2023 Iron Bowl, Daniel Hudson, Caroline said, showed up in an Alabama shirt.
"It was just so cool to me because he literally changed everything for me," Carolina Hudson said. "So I was like, ‘They have to win now.’"
On the sideline of her first road game as an Alabama cheerleader, Hudson froze, holding on to another cheerleader as Alabama lined up for fourth-and-31.
Her heart was sunk, she said. She couldn't speak. And as Milroe threw, she remembers silence.
"I swear, everything is in slow motion," Hudson said.
As soon as Milroe connected with Bond, a celebration began that Hudson will never forget: a moment where her Auburn fan father was in the stands with an Alabama shirt on.
"It was surreal," she said. "It was almost like a movie."
Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@gannett.com or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Perspectives of Alabama football fourth-and-31 play vs Auburn
