Auburn’s Kick Six Is Voted the South’s Most Unforgettable College Sports Moment – Garden & Gun

In G&G’s 2023 March Madness–style bracket, we asked readers to choose the most unforgettable moment of the past fifty years of college basketball and football in the South. We thought it a challenging task. After all, that’s a half century of hair-raisers and jaw-droppers from the sacred soil of our beloved sports, including Michael Jordan’s clutch jumper in the 1992 NCAA championship and Appalachian State beating mighty Michigan in 2007.

After three weeks of voting, it came down to a basketball-football finale: Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beater that lifted Duke over Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament versus the hair-raising final play of the 2013 Alabama-Auburn Iron Bowl. The Shot vs. Kick Six. Alas, we can’t say the bracket’s nail-biting theme carried into the championship round. Kick Six won in a rout, garnering 90 percent of the votes.

But perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, given that the Kick Six ranks among the most stunning plays in American sports, period. 

The Alabama-Auburn football rivalry, also known as the Iron Bowl, is serious business in any year. But in 2013 the stakes were exceptionally high: No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Auburn, both harboring national title hopes, appear to be headed to overtime after officials rule that time has run out in a 28-28 game. But wait! What’s this? Bama coach Nick Saban, bitterly complaining that his team was cheated out of a second on the last play, gets vindicated after a lengthy review, and one second is put back on the clock. As the Tide prepares for a long field-goal attempt, Auburn stations Chris Davis, who normally returns punts, in the end zone in case the kick falls short. It does, and Davis returns it 109 yards for a shocking 34-28 victory.

Euphoria reigns on The Plains, and Saban sheds tears in the locker room. The legendary coach had won his argument, but in turn, it cost him the game. Call it the Irony Bowl.

Bracket illustrations by Marco Goran Romano
Game descriptions by Scott Peacocke