This is an opinion column.

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Kick Six was 10 years ago, and that caught everyone here at Jordan-Hare Stadium by surprise. This time, the place was ready to party.

Another shocking Iron Bowl upset was moments away. Students were lining up to storm the field. A dream season for Alabama was in shambles all over again. For Auburn, a dreadful loss to New Mexico State just one week earlier was about to be a nothing blip amid a wildly successful first season for new coach Hugh Freeze.

Welcome to the Iron Bowl, Hugh. You’re a part of history now.

One play is all Auburn and its new coach needed to crush Nick Saban’s Alabama, and even the stadium’s security detail was in position around the perimeter of the grass. Like a human daisy chain, the guards dressed in royal blue tops and black pants wanted to at least create the illusion that they tried their best to prevent fans from rushing the field.

I’d say I was shocked by what happened next, but in this game even the unbelievable endings are just another chapter in the story.

They’ll call this one “Fourth & 31,” of course, and we’ll be talking about Alabama’s 27-24 victory on Saturday in the same breath as “Punt-Bama-Punt,” “Wrong Way Bo,” “Kick Six” and all the rest. For me, it’s not just that quarterback Jalen Milroe completed the desperation touchdown, it’s that he made his heave seem so easy and effortless.

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For Alabama, it was doom to destiny in the flick of a wrist and if Milroe isn’t the most outstanding player in college football this season then he is certainly the most electrifying. Win or lose, he’s a heart attack waiting to happen.

In the matter of a few plays he went from Iron Bowl bust to one of this game’s all-time greats. Some will call that being blessed. Some will call it luck. I’ll go with Milroe simply being divinely talented and a superstar in the making.

Can Alabama’s Brett Farve take down Georgia next week in the SEC championship game? Whatever happens, I can safely predict that it will give someone nightmares for years to come.

And never forget that the chaos of “Fourth & 31″ didn’t actually begin with Alabama facing first and goal at the 7, but actually several plays earlier when Auburn backup kick returner Koy Moore muffed an Alabama punt. The confusion of why Moore was in the game for that play instead of first-string return man Keionte Scott might never be resolved.

Long after the disaster, Auburn’s coach was still under the impression that Scott was in the game instead of Moore. When Freeze was corrected during his postgame news conference, he speculated that Scott “must have taken himself out of the game.”

Scott might have been momentarily hurt in those critical seconds, but he was back on the field to finish the game. He was one of eight players in coverage on Milroe’s winning throw.

“Fourth and whatever it was there,” Freeze said.

If Freeze needs help remembering the yardage on the play, then I’m sure a few Alabama fans are up for the job.

“Fourth & 31″ was Alabama’s answer to Kick Six, and if the Crimson Tide goes on to win the national championship this season then Milroe’s miracle to receiver Isaiah Bond will go down as one of the greatest plays in college football history.

So much had to go wrong before the beauty of that throw, though, and that sequence will forever be cemented in state folklore.

First Milroe had the unthinkable fumble with 90 seconds remaining in the game and that put Alabama on the Auburn 26. Then there was the illegal forward pass and that set Alabama back five more yards.

It was all preamble for the Crimson anvil and it shattered hearts into a thousand pieces inside a stadium where so many Alabama dreams have died. He might be the greatest ever, but Saban is now only 5-4 as Alabama’s coach in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“So we’ve been on both sides of the good fortune and the bad fortune,” Saban said, “and I got to admit that we were on the good side, but it still comes down to execution.”

Saban admitted that Alabama got lucky, but he set the record straight on Milroe to Bond not being a fluke. Alabama apparently practices the Hail Mary stuff every Friday during the season. It’s yet another reason why Saban is the best this game has ever known.

“It should be a lesson for everyone in life,” Saban said of Alabama’s unlikely road to an 11-1 regular-season record. “Overcome adversity, man. If you do that, you’ll be able to be successful.”

This season might be Saban’s finest ever, but that will be determined against Georgia next week. The Bulldogs are undefeated and going for their third national championship in a row. If Alabama can spoil another party, then good luck keeping this team of destiny out of the postseason’s promised land.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, wild times and rum.