Former Auburn athletic director David Housel famously compared the Tigers' first opportunity to host Alabama for an on-campus football game to "the Children of Israel entering the Promised Land." On Wednesday, the Israelites will return to the wilderness -- or in this case, Birmingham.
It has been 17 years since Auburn last played at Birmingham’s Legion Field, home of the annual showdown against Alabama for a half-century, and many Tigers figured that 1998 Iron Bowl would be the last time Auburn would play in the former "Football Capital of the South."
The Tigers will make an unexpected return for Wednesday’s Birmingham Bowl, which has Auburn folks of a certain age looking back fondly on the days when the Tigers regularly played in the historic old building.