The Gus Malzahn/Gene Chizik Iron Bowls have tended to be weird affairs. Rarely do both teams show up on the field at the same time and play as well as they are capable of doing. In the 2014 Iron Bowl, it was the secondaries that decided to take the day off. But, still smarting from a late season loss a year earlier, Blake Sims and Amari Cooper refused to be on the wrong side of the ledger again.
The first half was a back-and-forth affair. Alabama looked to have a decent start to the game, and led 14-6 after one, highlighted by an 11-yard pass from Sims to Cooper and a workmanlike TD run by T.