A clip from Jordan-Hare Stadium spread across social media again this week, ahead of Saturday’s noon ET kickoff between LSU and Auburn on that same field. The footage comes from Sept. 21, 1996, a night both fan bases still bring up whenever this series comes around.
No. 21 LSU was visiting No. 13 Auburn that night in front of a sellout crowd of 85,214. During the first half, the Auburn Sports Arena next door, the wooden building everyone called the Barn, caught fire and burned to the ground as flames and black smoke rose beside the stadium. The game kept going, and the night has been remembered ever since as the night the Barn burned.
The 2,500-seat arena opened in 1946 and was home to Auburn basketball until the program moved to Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum in 1969. It later housed women’s gymnastics and student activities. The blaze is blamed on a tailgater’s grill left too close to the wooden walls, and Auburn lore has long pinned that grill on LSU fans.
“It looked like a major, major disaster was going on,” Terry Bowden, Auburn’s coach that night, said in 2016.
“We could have had a disaster on our hands,” former Auburn athletic director David Housel said.
One of the craziest moments in sports history https://t.co/QJcaFdZvDG
— Matt Wallace (@MattWallace888) October 23, 2026
How did LSU win a game it was outgained in by 122 yards?
Auburn outgained LSU 363 yards to 241, but it turned the ball over four times and missed three field goals and an extra point. Starting quarterback Dameyune Craig was hurt and missed most of the fourth quarter, so backup Jon Cooley finished the game.
Rusty Williams scored on a 7-yard run with 38 seconds left to pull Auburn within 17-15, and Auburn went for two to tie it. LSU’s Raion Hill intercepted Cooley’s pass and returned it the length of the field for two points of his own, making it 19-15. Hill had already returned a Cooley interception for a touchdown earlier in the night. Auburn recovered the onside kick that followed, and LSU’s Cedric Donaldson intercepted Cooley again to end it.
LSU’s winning points came from its defense, on a play Auburn had called to tie the game, next door to a building that had burned down earlier that night. The fire is what keeps the clip circulating, but the finish was every bit as strange.
“It’s one you never forget for weird reasons,” Bowden said.
A parking deck next to Plainsman Park now stands where the Barn used to be. Thirty years later, Lane Kiffin’s LSU team arrives at Jordan-Hare as a 7-point favorite, and Auburn, 4-2 and 2-2 in the SEC, has already beaten a No. 1-ranked Georgia team this season.
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