AUBURN | I vividly remember the first Iron Bowl that really mattered to me.

I was 17-years old and wrapping up my first quarter (yes, quarter) at Auburn on Nov. 30, 1985. I wasn’t at Legion Field that day but that didn’t change the despair of watching Alabama kicker Van Tiffin nail a 52-yard game-winning field goal as time expired.

A lot went wrong for the Tigers or right for the Tide on that final 57-second drive including a 4th-down conversion and a controversial call when receiver Greg Richardson was able to drag AU defensive back Luvell Bivins out of bounds (it looked like he was down inbounds), which stopped the clock and gave the field goal team time to take the field.

Here’s what AU coach Pat Dye said of that game.

“A game like this, Alabama players will remember the rest of their lives … Auburn players … it’ll eat their guts out the rest of their lives.”

Hugh Freeze could have uttered the exact same words 38 years later after Alabama’s improbable 4th-down, game-winning touchdown pass Saturday night at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Unbridled elation on one side. Utter devastation on the other.

This is the Iron Bowl. It’s college football’s greatest rivalry for a reason. This is what you signed up for when you chose Auburn or that other school.

Whether it came by birth or when you chose a college or by happenstance, it’s a lifetime commitment. You can pretend not to care, but you f-ing care, especially those special ones that just rip your guts out when you come out on the losing end.

And just like Tiffin’s kick nearly four decades ago, that 4th-down heave from Jalen Milroe to Isaiah Bond will live forever in series lore.

But also just like The Kick, the tables will be turned in short order and then they’ll be turned again and again and again.

It didn’t take long for me to experience that same turn. I was at Legion Field in 1986 when Auburn trailed late and went on an improbable game-winning drive, which included a key 4th-down conversion and wild finish.

Dye called for a reverse on 2nd and goal from the 8-yard line, but AU had the wrong personnel on the field. Receiver Lawyer Tillman, who had never run the play in practice, tried to call timeout as the ball was snapped, but ran the play perfectly and dove into the end zone for the touchdown.

Auburn would win four consecutive Iron Bowls capped by the First Time Ever in Jordan-Hare on Dec. 2, 1989. No Iron Bowl will ever top that one for me.

There have been plenty more gut punches for the other side since.

Backup quarterback Pat Nix found his helmet in time to come off the bench and connect with Frank Sanders for a 31-yard touchdown on 4th and 15 in 1993 just yards away from where Bond caught Milroe's pass in the same end zone 30 years later.

Alabama led 24-0 in Bryant-Denny Stadium in 2010, poised to end Auburn’s perfect season and national title dreams. They even mocked quarterback Cam Newton with their pregame music selection.

But the Heisman Trophy winner had other plans. Newton threw for three touchdowns and ran for another as the Tigers stormed back for a 28-27 win in the Camback and went on to win the SEC and National championship.

The Kick Six in 2013 might be the greatest finish in college football history.

Perhaps the next turn will come in Tuscaloosa next year or back at Auburn in 2025. It’s not an if, it’s a when. It will always be a when.

That sick feeling in your stomach? It’s coming for Alabama and then it’s coming back for Auburn again. It’s inevitable. And it will come in the cruelest way possible.

It’s elation and suffering, joy and pain. It’s the Iron Bowl and nothing else compares.

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In today’s musical journey, we go back 31 years to the day one of the all-time greatest songwriters and musical artists topped the Billboard 100 with his first solo single just months after leaving the band he helped form 14 years earlier. On Nov. 27, 1982, Lionel Richie’s “Truly” became the first of four No. 1 solo hits. He previously had two No. 1 hits with the Commodores and another in a duet with Diana Ross. “Truly” was written by Richie and inspired by his grandmother who told him to seek out true love. It won him his first Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Richie nearly skipped the ceremony after coming up short the previous five years. Richie topped the charts with the Commodores with 1978’s “Three Times a Lady” and 1979’s “Still.” Other big hits include 1977’s “Brick House” and “Easy,” and 1979’s “Sail On.” He had three more No. 1’s as a solo artist in 1983’s “All Night Long (All Night)” and “Hello,” and 1986’s “Say You, Say Me.”Richie also wrote and produced Kenny Rogers’ No. 1 hit, “Lady,” in 1980, wrote and recorded the No. 1 duet “Endless Love” with Diana Ross in 1981 and co-wrote with Michael Jackson the charity single, “We Are the World,” in 1985. He was a part of nine albums with the Commodores and 10 more as a solo artist. He has sold approximately 90 million albums across his 54-year career.

Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. was born in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1949. His father was a systems analyst for the U.S. Army and his mother a teacher and principal. He grew up right across the street from Tuskegee Institute in a house that was given to his grandparents by Booker T. Washington. His grandmother was a pianist and Richie played both the piano and saxophone during his childhood. He earned a tennis scholarship to Tuskegee where he was also played in the marching band and earned a degree in economics. While in college, Richie formed a couple of R&B groups including a trio, The Mystics, which merged with another Tuskegee trio, The Jays, in 1968 to form the Commodores. The group started out performing mainly at Tuskegee and small venues in Alabama and surrounding states. They got their big break when they were signed by Motown Records to open for the Jackson Five in 1970. They produced at least one album per year starting in 1974, hitting it big with their self-titled fifth album in 1977. He decided to pursue a solo career after his collaboration with Rogers and Ross. Richie won four Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. He is currently a judge on the T.V. show, American Idol.