Saturdays to Remember... 1989

 

Alabama finally comes to Auburn.  They said it would never happen.  When Bear Bryant was ruling the state it sure looked like it would never happen.  However on December 2, 1989 it happened.  Younger Auburn people who did not grow up under the Bear Bryant regime or did not have parents that did just do not understand what it was like.  Take the current reign of Nick $aban and multiply it by ten and that might be scratching the surface.  Imagine Nick $aban basically able to sign as many players as he wants for most of his career.  My parents grew up under the Bear Bryant regime (1958-1982) and except for 1958, 1963, 1969 through 1972 and 1982 it was a dark period.  Auburn was always treated like a second class citizen.  Birmingham was a Bama power base and Auburn had to play them in Legion Field ever year.  Even as Auburn slowly started moving all their other games to Jordan Hare Stadium they had to continue to play Bama in Legion Field.

As I have stated in previous posts, whenever you hear someone wax nostalgic about how great the Iron Bowl was at Legion Field and the "50/50 split", remember that it was never like that.  It was always more like a "65/35" split to Bama.  Basically Auburn and Bama would get a third of the tickets and the city of Birmingham would get the other third and Birmingham has been and always will be more Bama.  Also, Bama still played several games at Legion Field while Auburn did not.  Legion Field was also turf and while Bryant-Denny was turf for a long time, Jordan-Hare Stadium has always been grass.  Finally the stadium and the neighborhood around it deteriorated every year. 

It was completely ridiculous to continue playing our home games in Legion Field (as Bama would even have to admit as it would move their Iron Bowl home games a decade later).  However someone had to step up and fight the fight and take the hits.  That someone was Coach Pat Dye.  Though it would cost him, Coach Dye got it done.  It is one of his biggest accomplishments and one most Auburn people now take for granted.  Dye was able to get it done and get Bama there in 1989 though Auburn would have to throw the city of Birmingham a bone and return to that hell hole one more time for a home game in 1991 (yes that will be a Saturday to Forget, one of the biggest for me).

What made this game even more special was its intersection with a very special team, the 1989 Auburn Tigers.  Auburn people tend to have special places in their hearts for certain teams.  These teams are usually ones that were always the underdog or had to fight through some adversity or as Pat Dye would say it... "wrestle with them angels".  The 1989 Auburn Tigers like the 1963, 1972 and 1982 Auburn football teams were one of those special teams.  While still very talented Auburn had lost a ton of great football players and more importantly team leaders from the dominant 1988 squad.  The 1989 Auburn Tigers seemed to be missing some of that leadership and that chemistry that had been there the last three seasons.  Wrestling with them angels...  That is why for this team you have to start with a...

A Saturday to Forget
Auburn opened the season eviscerating poor Pacific 55-0.  Alexander "Ace" Wright set the Auburn record that still stands today for receiving yards in a game with 263 yards that day.  After working though what used to be the annual tough game with Southern Miss 24-3, Auburn headed to Knoxville to find out where this team really was.  They were not where anybody thought they were.  Auburn was physically manhandled by the Vols and they lost 21-14.  The game was certainly not as close as the score indicated.  Coach Johnny Majors had the Vols ready to play after being whipped two out of the previous three games.  I believe this game was also played in the rain.  I definitely remember it was a rainy day in Auburn where I watched it in my apartment. 

Tennesse running back Reggie Cobb gained revenge for the hit he took the year before.  Along side his battery mate Chuck Webb they pounded the Auburn defense into submission.  Cobb rushed for over 200 yards, the most ever against a Pat Dye defense.  The play from this game that I have never forgotten is Cobb or Webb running up the middle and literally running over Auburn linebacker Darrell Crawford.  I mean literally stepping on Crawford's helmet as he was running over him.  That pretty much summed up the game.  The loss put Auburn's hopes for a third SEC title in jeopardy and left everyone wondering about this team.  The defense was younger and not as big and strong and the offense outside of playing Pacific just was not right.  Auburn would then slog through Kentucky before returning home to play their nemisis from the year before, the LSU Tigers.

The game was eerily similar to the year before except Auburn got that one touchdown and won 10-6.  While the game was similar, after losing to Tennessee it lacked drama.  I remember it being one the most boring big games I have ever sat through.  On a personal note, I have never been one to drink at football games.  They have always been serious stuff to me and never a party.  However this was the one game in college that I might have had a little too much to drink before the game.  It taught me a lesson though as I was ready to lay down and take a nap in the third quarter.  Drinking and Auburn football games usually don't mix for me but drinking and a REALLY boring game definitely do not mix for me (-:

Auburn was back on a winning streak but there was still something just not right with this team.  That fact was proven the next week when Auburn went to Tallahassee and lost 22-14 to the Seminoles.  It would be Florida State's third win in a row in as many years over the Auburn Tigers.  I will say it again, I have accused a lot of teams and programs of being overrated but I can never say that about Bobby Bowden and Florida State.  They beat three SEC Champion Auburn teams in a row.  This latest loss like the one to Tennessee was probably not as close as the score indicated.  Wrestling with them angels...

Auburn returned home with their second loss in their first six games.  That had not happened since 1984.  The team had a young improving defense but no personality on offense.  At this point the season looked like it would end in disappointment and the 1989 Auburn Tigers would just be another mediocre team that would not be remembered.  Coach Dye though was not going to go down without a fight and embarked on one of the finest coaching jobs of his storied career that would end in maybe Auburn's greatest...

Saturday to Remember
Auburn's next game was at home against Mississippi State.  In the days prior to the game Coach Dye declared that Auburn was going to run the football, no matter what.  He was going to give this team a personality.  He really didn't care if Mississippi State knew it or not.  Coach Dye was as good as his word and Auburn threw less than ten passes  for only 37 yards and pounded the ball at State over and over again.  In the end it was Auburn winning 14-0 and rushing for 241 yards.  James Joseph, one of Auburn's most underrated running backs and who coach Dye called "a man in every sense of the word" has 172 of those rushing yards.   All of Auburn's problems were not solved but Coach Dye had started something and this team was changing.  They just needed that one moment to bring it all together...

While the Iron Bowl this year was one of Auburn's greatest games ever, the Florida game produced one of the greatest plays ever.  I was in the student section for it and I do not think I will ever forget it.  The Florida Gators came to Auburn with a mad on after getting whipped by the Tigers the last two years.  The Gators were led by future NFL Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith in his final college season.  Smith had never beaten Auburn and had in fact missed the game the year before due to injury. 

Auburn came right back like it did against State pounding the Gators with the run.  Florida came right back pounding with Smith.  It was an old fashioned slobber knocker but Florida scored late to make it 7-3 and Auburn who had showed little on offense against the bigger teams this season.  It came down to the final seconds, it was Auburn near midfield with fouth and eleven and no timeouts.  It looked over.  Everyone thought it was over.  Not just the game but the hunt for a third SEC title and the hope this season could be turned around...  wrestling with them angels...  Reggie Slack drops back...  and finds Shayne Wasden somehow someway open in the end zone for the touchdown...  Absolute utter pandemonium. 

I have been fortunate enough to be a part of many great Auburn celebrations but I have never seen a crowd explode quite like this one did after Slack hit Wasden.  I was in the student section and people were literally falling down the stands all around me going absolutely crazy.  It was a sight to behold.  The end of the 1997 Iron Bowl was close but this one stands apart.  I have also never seen one play, just one play, completely change a team.  The 1989 Auburn Tigers were never the same after this play and would go on to beat Georgia, Bama and Ohio State. 

Auburn would warm up before the Bama game beating Georgia in one of the few years that the Georgia game was completely eclipsed by the Iron Bowl.  Darrell "Lectron" Williams would lead the way and have maybe his best game as an Auburn Tiger rushing for 128 yards and a touchdown in the win.  The stage was set and the build up began.  It would last for two weeks and I can tell you it was unbelievable living in Auburn, Alabama for those two weeks.  Classes were insignificant even with finals coming up.  The feeling in the air was just unbelievable.  The RVs and everyone else started pouring in about a week before the game started.  Still today, there are big games and then there is the 1989 Iron Bowl, "The First Time Ever".  The students including all of my friends and I started lining up at the gate 8 hours before game time.  I remember when the gates finally opened.  It was a mad dash for the best seats as the students poured in.  After another two and a half hours in the stadium it was finally mercifully game time...

Auburn came out firing.  Slack hit Ace Wright with a "Sullivan-to-Beasley" type bomb.  James Joseph would then be immortalized going over the top for Auburn's first touchdown against Bama at Jordan Hare Stadium.  WAR DAMN EAGLE.  Auburn 7-0.  Auburn actually bogged down after that and Bama would hold a slim lead at 10-7 at the half.  Pat Dye would say he knew we were the stronger team and that we would win at halftime.  I think all of us felt the same way.  Auburn would score on their first series of the second half and would never trail again.  Darrell "Lectron" Williams would score a TD and Win Lyle would add two more field goals.  Auburn 30 Bama 20.

"Sure I would like to be 11-0 but I would not swap this team for any I have coached at Auburn... I have watched you struggle...  I watched you wrestle with them angels...  but I watched you grow up and become men...  I watched you become men."  That is what Pat Dye and Auburn football is all about.

The Players
Award Winners...
We had six players make All-SEC this season. They were: Ed King OG, John Hudson C, Craig Ogletree OLB, Quentin Riggins ILB, David Rocker DT and John Wiley DB.

Ed King and Craig Ogletree would also be All-Americans.  Ogletree surpassed his more famous predecessor Aundray Bruce and become a better outside linebacker in my opinion.

Departures...Dominko Anderson S, Eltin Billingslea LB,  Fernando Horn DT, John Hudson C, Brad Johnson OG,  Win Lyle K, Craig Ogletree LB, Quentin Riggins LB, Mark Rose DE, Reggie Slack QB, Alex Strong FB and Alexander Wright WR.

The thing that strikes me about this group is all of them are unsung heroes.  They always seemed to be in the shadows of the more famous group that departed in 1988.  It is sort of like the 1972 team after the Sullivan and Beasley class left.  They played important roles in earlier years but saved their best for last.  They are defined by the team leaders on offense and defense, quarterback Reggie Slack and middle linebacker Quentin Riggins.  Slack and Riggins replaced two fiery leaders in Jeff Burger and Kurt Crain and surpassed them leading two football teams to championships.  They will always be two of my favorites.   

Arrivals...
Herbert Casey WR, Pedro Cherry WR, Tim Cromartie DT, Chris Gray OT,  Victor Hall TE, Chuckie Johnson DT, Corey Lewis QB, Clarence Morton S, Richie Nell P, Alex Smith RB, Ricky Sutton DE, Walter Tate DT, Jim Von Wyl K and Darrell "Lectron" Williams RB.