Standing by the hedges among the fans in front of Section F, Ronnie Rogers could be easily missed in the Bryant-Denny Stadium crowd.

It was there, the everyman of all everymen anxiously waited. Tension was rising on the Alabama Crimson Tide sideline a few feet away as Arkansas built a comeback.

For Rogers, the excitement boiled in his gut.

More than 40 years earlier, a drive through rural Tennessee changed his life. He drove his truck down the backwoods of a Tennessee byway that, a few decades later, led him to Tuscaloosa on a sunny homecoming Saturday.

With 10:24 left in the fourth quarter, a long way from Leipers Fork, Rogers heard those familiar chords.

And for the next few minutes, this man saw his greatest creation send a jolt through more than 100,000 strangers. He conducted the crowd like a maestro in a black T-shirt, hammered the air guitar and fiddle as Alabama fans square danced around him in a surreal moment of near anonymity.

Everyone knows the country band Alabama recorded “Dixieland Delight” but practically nobody Saturday in Bryant-Denny knew the songwriter of those legendary lyrics was right there in front of Section F.

A week before this tune from 1983 joins the list of disputes in the Alabama-Tennessee rivalry, Rogers made his first pilgrimage to Tuscaloosa to hear the Crimson Tide game day tradition live. There, with his retired manager Kevin Lamb, Rogers just wanted to hear this full-stadium singalong in person.

So, Lamb wrangled two tickets for last Saturday’s game where they experienced their thread of college football pageantry on the eve of its center-stage moment.

***

Go back 364 days and Dixieland Delight was held in a much different context.

The scene was Neyland Stadium. The turf was flooded by fans and cigar smoke rose as those first acoustic guitar chords echoed through the madness. Tennessee had just slayed their arch-nemesis in the most thrilling way possible — a 40-yard field goal for a 52-49 win that ended a 15-year losing streak to Alabama.

The crowd howled as they mocked their neighbors to the south, shouting each and every line Rogers wrote. It wasn’t necessarily a reclaiming of an anthem clearly written about a scene in the Volunteer State but a social media post nary goes by about the song that a Vols fan doesn’t mention that counterpoint.

A song by a native son of Tennessee played by a band called Alabama is a recipe for a never-ending debate. Alabama lead singer Randy Owen enjoys that discussion.

“Absolutely,” Owen said in an interview with AL.com in May. “I love it. The fact is it’s a great song. I wish I would have written it but I sure got a chance to perform it. It’s an honor to hear the song is played at the stadium. I’m thankful that they play it. I love it.”

A smiling Owen deferred to Rogers while noting he hopes “they keep debating.”

His response?

“The song wasn’t written for a collegiate song,” Rogers said told AL.com. “It was written for Alabama (the band) as a record and they cut such a record on it, I think that’s the reason Alabama (the school) adopted the song.”

Ultimately, does it matter?

Like Auburn mocking Rammer Jammer after an Iron Bowl, these moments are part of the fabric that makes college rivalries so special. And it extends beyond football. Dixieland Delight played in the wake of Tennessee’s softball win over Alabama at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

But no conversation about this song and its place in rivalries can exist without the lyrics added after Rogers penned the original.

***

Released 40 years ago, Dixieland Delight’s timeline intersected with Alabama football from the very beginning. The official release date of Jan. 28, 1983 came two days after legendary coach Paul “Bear” Bryant died and a day before his funeral.

Fans can’t agree on exactly when the song took its place in the Bryant-Denny fourth quarter playlist but there’s evidence of when the song went from a standard singalong to the centerpiece of the spectacle.

The additional call-and-response lyrics could be faintly heard in a 2008 YouTube video recorded at the Mississippi State game. The Iron Bowl addition and LSU, and also Tennessee would come a few years later.

For the uninitiated, the bonus lyrics are added during the chorus (the add-ons in quotes and bolded below).

Spend my dollar, “On beer”

Parked in a holler, ‘Neath the mountain moonlight. “Roll Tide”

Hold her up tight, “Against the wall”

Make a little lovin’, “All night”

A little turtle dovin’ On a Mason-Dixon night. “F- – – Auburn “

Fits my life, “And LSU”

Oh so right, “And Tennessee too”

My Dixieland Delight.

The whole bit about Auburn and the other three of the four letters is what caused the song to be banned from Bryant-Denny Stadium for a few years. Instead of waiting for that moment in the chorus, Alabama students chanted the two-word welcome on every beat at the 2014 Iron Bowl.

Apparently displeased by the echoing f-bomb, Alabama nixed the song from the playlist until a 2018 compromise was reached. A public plea to students from Terry Saban, wife of Nick, was blasted on social media in an attempt to swap the naughty word for “BEAT” to accompany the Auburn reference. The school went so far as to pump a backing track of “BEAT AUBURN” to drown out those who opted for the old way.

Owen said he wasn’t aware of these lyrics or controversy, saying it’s been years since he was last at a game in Bryant-Denny.

“Honestly, when we do the song, all across the country,” he said. “There’s different lyrics.”

Rogers was well aware. He laughs when asked if he’s bothered by anyone punching up his original lyrics.

“Well, they’re going to do what they do and I can’t help that,” he said with a chuckle. “God, I’m not saying anything about that because I’m thrilled to death they’re enjoying it.”

And they do.

The addition of LED lights to Bryant-Denny Stadium’s roofline in 2019 added a visual element to the song that truly launches the crowd to another level for night games.

It’s one of those adrenaline-fueled, volume-pumping moments that’s hard to explain without experiencing in person.

And that’s what drew Rogers from his home in Tennessee to see what all the fuss was about last weekend.

***

The funny thing about this moment of high-energy, full-stadium celebration is the stark contrast to the scene the song describes.

Dixieland Delight has an up-tempo, good-time sound but the lyrics paint the picture of countryside serenity.

Rogers, who hasn’t done many interviews about the song, told AL.com about the inspiration behind it all.

“The song started out in Leipers Fork, a little town outside Franklin, Tennessee,” Rogers said. “And I came to a stop sign at a dead end road and the thought just came “rolling down the backwoods, Tennessee by-way,” which is what I was doing. ‘One arm on the wheel …” and I finished about half of it that day. And the chorus.”

A good start indeed but it took a little push to finish it off. After showing his first verse to a friend, he was told the band Alabama was soon heading to the studio and this sounded like a perfect song for the country powerhouse.

“So, well, I went out in the woods and I didn’t know where I was going,” Rogers said. “So I look around and there was a white-tail buck deer, a red-tail hawk sitting on a limb and a chubby old groundhog was all around me.”

It’s as simple as that.

“So I said ‘God, thank you,’” Rogers remembers. “I wrote it all down and they liked it.”

Turns out a lot of people liked it.

The song shot straight to the top of the country music charts.

“Well, it’s a good time song,” Alabama lead singer Owens said in May. “A fun song. Ronnie Rogers brought the song to me and I took the song in and told Teddy (Gentry) and Jeff (Cook), let’s just do it acoustically and do the vocals as we go down. That’s what we did. They went back and added some vocals and did a little wishy washy in the bridge with the vocals and a little fiddle.”

Magic in a bottle.

And a multi-generational anthem was born.

***

The anticipation was high as the fourth quarter began Saturday in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Rogers, who has been to Neyland Stadium a few times to see the Vols, isn’t about to claim sides in this border feud. He loves the band members in Alabama enough to call them “brothers” as he’d go on to write a few more songs for the group.

Lamb, his longtime manager who retired to Muscle Shoals, is not quite as non-partisan. Decked out in crimson, he beamed as he watched Rogers in his newly acquired script-A hat as he took in the scene.

“It’s unreal,” Rogers said just moments before they cued up his classic. “It just makes me real happy that this song has these people … these people is what the song is written for. Happiness, fun and it fits so well here and I just love seeing people enjoying it.”

For the afternoon, Rogers was just one of those people.

In the most respectful way possible, there’s nothing flashy about Rogers’ appearance. He could be a prototype for the average Crimson Tide fan on game day.

That’s what made his moment special on Saturday. There wasn’t fanfare or a stadium-wide announcement to show Rogers on the video board before the song played.

“No, I don’t cut records and I haven’t been on TV,” Rogers said. “I’m just a songwriter. But I’m OK with that because I’m enjoying myself a lot.”

Not one fan recognized the writer Saturday, but they know his work.

“The biggest thing about this to me is everybody walking by us right now, everybody knows that song,” Rogers said. “And that just blew me away. You can’t pick one out of there where he doesn’t know it.”

A moment later, that familiar guitar lick rang out and the TV timeout party started.

All around him, they danced and sang. A few cursed Auburn but everyone had themselves a time — perhaps none more than Rogers.

He clapped along with the beat and mouthed the lyrics that came to him all those years ago in those Tennessee backwoods.

When it was fiddle time, he played along.

At a few points, he played conductor.

And when the students added their lyrics, Rogers cupped his ears as if to encourage the fun.

The hedge line in front of Bryant-Denny Stadium’s Section F was a long way from Leipers Fork for the practically anonymous author of this Alabama football staple.

Rogers’s reaction to hearing his words echo through the massive seating bowl was as perfectly simple as the song he penned 40-plus years ago.

“Oh,” Rogers said, “it’s just God given.”

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.