Roll Tide/War Eagle Review

I love the recent trend of sports documentaries on either ESPN or HBO. I love them because they talk about sports history and history that I either wasn't alive for yet or was too young to remember. I love learning about sports history and these docs have been very helpful. I've learned something new watching the recent sports documentary.

I bring this up because ESPN aired their last 30 for 30 documentary last night called Roll Tide/War Eagle. The only feeling that I had during this documentary was "meh". Didn't love this doc, didn't hate it. That's because this doc didn't really delve into the history of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry except for the recent history. And that's where this doc falls short in my opinion.

HBO did a wonderful job of telling the complete history of the Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry and the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry. A half hour of each of these documentaries weren't just focused on a specific two year run like 'Roll Tide/War Eagle' was.

Sure 'Roll Tide/War Eagle' focused on a few aspects of the history of the Iron Bowl before the past two years like how neither school played each other for thirty years, Bear Bryant, Bo Jackson turning the rivalry into a fair competition, and the Gene Julks controversy.

The bulk of the documentary though was spent talking about the past two years of the rivalry. So as expected we got a lot of did Cam Newton take money to play at Auburn footage and creepy Harvey "the tree poisoner" Updyke stories.

Maybe it's because these stories just happened, maybe because these are stories that I really didn't want to relive, but this documentary lost me during the last half hour of the program. I didn't learn anything that I didn't already know. Again I watch these documentaries to learn something new. This doc just rehashed what happened in the past two years.

I wanted to learn more about Pat Dye's time at Auburn and his string of success against Alabama. I wanted to learn more about Gene Stallings time at Bama. I wanted to see Tommy Tuberville's string of wins against Bama. Didn't get any of that. 

So in the end 'Roll Tide/War Eagle' left me wanting more. I wanted to know more about the Alabama-Auburn rivalry and I didn't get that. So this doc in the end gave me that "meh" feeling.