The Iron Bowl is one of college football’s most beloved and highly-anticipated events each year. It’s also responsible for one of the wildest endings in the history of the sport. This is why a lot of sports fans were shocked when a question about the annual contest blanked Jeopardy! contestants on Thursday night.
The beloved game show is back for a new season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with a socially distanced set and some new qualifying methods for contestants. But apparently the three on stage on Thursday weren’t very big college football fans, as a fairly simple question about the Iron Bowl completely blanked them. The question came in a category called ”A’ Is For Autumn,’ which means it’s both a question about fall and will start with the letter ‘a’.”
“Each fall Alabama and this SEC Football arch-rival meet in ‘The Iron Bowl,’” the question read.
And though it was filmed in a world where it seemed unlikely college sports would be able to take place, there’s really no excuse for football fans not to come up with “Auburn.” But as the question timer starts, it’s clear no one is frantically pressing their signaling device to answer it. Sameer guessed a team that starts with an A — Arkansas, which honestly isn’t a bad try. But the obvious answer never came. And even Alex Trebek seemed disappointed.
It did not get a great reaction online.
Tonight on @Jeopardy, the answer was, “@AlabamaFTBL plays this @SEC archrival in the Iron Bowl.” No one knew the answer.
What’s happened to this country?
— Ivan Maisel (@Ivan_Maisel) September 24, 2020
Dude on @Jeopardy answered Arkansas for a question asking who plays Bama in the Iron Bowl
— Ryan Phillips (@JournoRyan) September 24, 2020
No one on Jeopardy! tonight knew that it’s Auburn who Alabama plays in the Iron Bowl pic.twitter.com/thq6cF0SxF
— Jessica Taylor (@JessicaTaylor) September 24, 2020
At least this time it was the contestants, not the show’s judges, making fans angry.