Auburn 34 Bama 28. I sat there head in hands as Bama stopped Auburn on 4th and 1 on the Auburn 35 yard line with ten minutes left in the game and Bama up 28-21. Auburn had come so far, fought so hard and now it looked like this group of Amazins would go out quietly. I was angry, frustrated and down. Good grief, just thirty seconds before it was a tie game with Bama hemmed in at their one foot line. Auburn had come back and now was in a great position to win the game. One pass and horrible defensive play later Auburn is down by a touchdown and the crowd quieted for the first time all night. The momentum had shifted and it was all there for the taking for the #1 team in the nation.
I mean it was not like Auburn's smallish underdog defense was going to stop the big bad Bama juggernaut now. I mean yeah this defense had a few more highlights than last year but were still just not that good. They had bent all season even blowing a 20 point lead in less than ten minutes the game before and would give up almost 500 yards on this night. Good night they had just given up a 99 yard pass play! This team was led by the offense, the defense only shone after the offense put them in position. I mean other than Nick Fairley Auburn has not had any defense since Mike Shula still walked the sidelines in Tuscaloosa. As I sat there staring at the concrete, Bama ground out nineteen yards against the Auburn defense on three straight runs by T.J. Yeldon.
The same T.J. Yeldon that had been committed to Auburn for almost a year and spurned the Tigers hours before the early signing deadline and he was of course running behind monstrous Cyrus Kouandjio who also defected from the Tigers at the last minute. Auburn had played a good game but now it was time for Bama to close it out like they always do. It was 3rd and 1 at the Auburn 13 with under seven minutes left in the game. One yard and Bama would most likely win this game. One yard and Bama was that much closer to a conference championship, a national championship and a Heisman Trophy. One yard and two downs to get it for one of the best power running games in football. One yard against the smaller Auburn defense. One yard.
Yeldon was stopped for no gain. I still did not get up. There is no way the Auburn defense is going to stop big strong Bama from getting one yard two downs in a row in the fourth quarter. No way. The Bama coaches know Auburn cannot stop them so they don't even try a field goal or a pass. This is mostly the same bunch of Tigers who gave up 49 easy points to Bama last season. The handoff goes to Yeldon again... and he is stopped cold by Carl Lawson as Auburn swarmed the line of scrimmage. I hear the first note of one of those stirring comeback scores and stand in awe of a gutty bunch of Auburn Tiger defenders who just will not quit. The glory would go to others this night but some of the biggest steps of this most amazing of comebacks were taken by the much maligned Auburn defense.
Nothing would come easy this night though. Auburn's offense would sputter again and Bama would run the punt back to the Auburn twenty five. They were in back in business again with less than five minutes to go in the game. OK nice stand by Auburn but no way it happens twice. In fact I would say that miracles do not come in twos... and actually I was right. Auburn did not win by miracle this night but simply played and coached a better game. Bama's quarterback would talk of luck in the aftermath but the "luck" if you want to call it that was shared equally by both teams. Bama was "lucky" Auburn fumbled in the first half giving them an easy touchdown. Bama was "lucky" Auburn allowed a 99 yard bomb. Bama was "lucky" that Nick Marshall and Ricardo Louis somehow messed up two plays where Louis was wide open. I could go on but back to the game...
Bama first down and ten at the Auburn 25 with less than five minutes to go. Yeldon, for the third straight time, is stopped for no gain on first down. Bama would then connect on an eight yard pass setting up 3rd and 2. Bama finally got their big run but only because of a blatant jersey tugging hold that was finally called. Gabe Wright then mowed over the Bama quarterback on third and long. However a field goal would get the job done. Surely Bama would make this field goal and put this one away, confidence was still high... till Auburn blocks the field goal. That comeback music started getting louder... Auburn had one more chance to tie this thing up.
However like the Georgia game, there was thirty seconds left and like the Georgia game I would sweat every one of them. Auburn squibbed the kickoff to take some time off the clock and Bama would start just short of their thirty yard line. The Bama quarterback would run for his life on first down and throw it away. Bama then went with two draw plays and was able to get it inside the Auburn 40 yard line with one second to go. They in fact as everyone saw had to challenge the ruling on the field that the game was over to get that one second back.
One second. I do not think most on the Auburn side even wanted it but oh how big that one second turned out to be. The supposed best college football coach in the country and who some were calling one of the best of all-time made one of the worst calls in Iron Bowl history. When you look at the stakes riding on the game it might be the worst. Coach Nick $aban decided to have his backup redshirt freshman kicker who had only attempted two field goals all year attempt a 57 yard left-to-right field goal in a tie game in the biggest Iron Bowl ever. The comeback music was reaching its crescendo about now...
In my mind I had two lines of thought. One, I was at the 1985 Iron Bowl, the game previously dubbed the best ever where Bama kicker Van Tiffin beat Auburn with a 52 yard field goal at the buzzer. It is one of my worst football memories and toughest losses. So my first thought was fear of having to go through a Bama win like that again. However my other train of thought as a football guy is how dumb the call seemed. If it was Auburn in that situation there is no way I want Auburn attempting a field goal, especially if the last one had been blocked. I was not thinking about a return but a block. Of course as a coach I think I would have started thinking about a return when Auburn took a timeout and put Chris Davis back there. $aban did not and the rest is college football history.
The kick went up and from my seats I cannot tell accuracy but I can tell length and after a long couple of seconds holding my breath I could tell it was short. I let out a long sigh of relief as I saw Chris Davis catch the ball and head out but did not think much of it. Like everyone else I had overtime on the brain till I saw him cross midfield... and the red sea parted and we were headed to the promise land. I only know one way to describe the feeling of Davis running into that end zone and the feeling I had the rest of the night and frankly still have and it is pure joy.
Pure joy. Auburn just won the biggest Iron Bowl ever. Auburn just beat #1 undefeated untied 11-0 Bama. Auburn just beat maybe the best quarterback in Bama history in his last regular season game. Auburn just ruined all of Bama's title hopes and dreams that included another SEC title, a third national championship in a row and maybe another Heisman Trophy. Auburn gave Nick $aban another gut wrenching loss that will he will never forget. Auburn made Bama's 2011 and 2012 seasons much easier to deal with. In fact if Auburn is fortunate enough to win in Atlanta next week then Auburn will have as many SEC titles, two, as $aban has in this entire great Bama run. One win has turned everything around.
Pure joy. Auburn has risen from rock bottom and the worst season ever to put up maybe their most remarkable season ever. From 3-9 to 11-1, from 0-8 to 7-1, from 63-21 to 45-41, from 38-0 to 43-38, from 49-0 to 34-28. As the students and everyone else mobbed the field I just looked on in amazement thinking of all this. The greatest turnaround in Auburn history and one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history. I mean just think of last year after the 49-0 loss to Bama. It was pure agony and uncertainty. It was excruciating. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would go from that far down to knocking off #1 undefeated and untied Bama and winning the SEC West this season.
My hat is off to the Auburn coaches and players on the most amazing season I have ever seen. It is truly a team effort as you listen to the coaches and players. As I said in my post after the Georgia game this team is the true successor to the 1972 Amazins. I wrote: "This team like that one has one really good unit and one that comes up with just enough to get the win. They are the inverse of each other as the good unit in 1972 was the defense and the just adequate one was the offense but the similarity is still there. The 1972 team also won a lot of close games. The 1972 team also lost an ugly one at night in Baton Rouge. The 1972 team also produced one of the biggest plays in Auburn history... Of course the 1972 team produced their big play in the game after Georgia with "Punt Bama Punt". They also faced an undefeated Bama team that had dominated the rest of the conference."
That was two weeks ago when I thought "The Immaculate Deflection" was the biggest play of the season. Now we have the most amazing Iron Bowl win since 1972 that was won on special teams as well. "Kick Bama Kick" will now resound in Auburn history like "Punt Bama Punt". In another interesting similarity the players who scored the winning touchdown in both games, David Langner and Chris Davis, hailed from Woodlawn High in Birmingham. Both also teams finished the season with only one loss at LSU. Hopefully this years Amazins will also be conference champions. The 1972 Amazins do not get credit for winning the SEC but they did. It is amazing to me that Auburn goes out of its way to not claim legitimate titles while Bama goes out of their way to claim anything. In 1972 Auburn went 6-1 in the conference and beat Bama however Bama played one extra conference game and was given credit for it for some reason? They went 7-1 but Auburn won head-to-head and there has to be a standard number of games (I checked, everyone else in the conference played seven games). The 1972 Amazins were the SEC champions. Hopefully the 2013 Amazins will be too.
This weekend might have been my best game experience in over 35 years of watching the Tigers. I got to experience the whole thing with my older son who is old enough now to really enjoy it. I also got to do things I have never done before. We finally did the locker room tour on Friday before the game and that was awesome. We got to stand on the very outer edge of the field during the tour and little did I know I would get to walk the field after the game just a day later. That was the most awesome part of the post game for me. It was one of the coolest things ever to walk the field after the biggest Iron Bowl win ever with thousands of other rejoicing Auburn fans.
It would not be the best game experience ever though without heading to Toomer's Corner and that did not disappoint. Harvey Updyke, you did not accomplish anything at all but make a fool out of yourself. I hope you enjoyed this years game. I stood where the old Toomer's Oaks used to be but saw that all the attacks and terrible things that have happened the last few years just made these moments even sweeter. There were still plenty of trees and other things to roll and new trees will be there to replace the old ones soon enough however I think the new trees were symbolically planted this weekend. Again, two words to describe my hour or so at Toomer's Corner... pure joy.
There is so much I left out talking about this game. Auburn showing they were Bama's equal from the start... Nick Marshall's first quarter dash to end Auburn's run of offensive futility in this game... Tre Mason almost single handedly taking Auburn to their second touchdown... Tre Mason's 164 yards rushing against the best run defense in the nation... Auburn's offensive line showing they were more than equal to the task as they have been all season... Juggernaut Jay Prosch... Auburn starting the second half with a touchdown on a beautiful pass from Marshall to C.J. Uzomah that would tie the game... Auburn still made their share of mistakes on offense and the defense bent as it has done all year but they did not break and both units came through in the end as they have done all year with help from one of the best special team units in the country.
I do not think I have ever had a game stay with me this long. I am still on cloud nine... however I hope the team is not acting like the fans are as the Tigers, actually two sets of Tigers, have another game to play. It is the Auburn Tigers vs. the Missouri Tigers for the SEC Championship. It is shaping up to be a great match up. The conference championship games are again the only real postseason games. The teams make it through an objective system and it is played immediately following the end of the season. I point that out because as always the atmosphere is being polluted by college football's joke of a postseason and the completely biased and subjective way the teams are selected.
The entire debate is manufactured. The facts speak for themselves. Auburn's and Missouri's eleven wins are better than Ohio State's twelve wins or Florida State's for that matter. It is a fact not an opinion. The only debate should be whether Ohio State or Florida State should play either Auburn or Missouri. The whole thing is ridiculous and tired and adding two more teams next year still will not fix it. I won't even start on how ridiculous it is for a sport to make it's post season participants wait almost 40 days before playing a game... Ah I cannot believe I am even wasting time talking about this. Let us enjoy a well earned SEC West title and what should be a great game in Atlanta. The 2010 Auburn Tigers played their best game in Atlanta and I think playing on turf will help this team as well. I expect us to play good. I can't wait to watch it.
November 30, 2013. Jordan Hare Stadium. Pat Dye Field. Auburn 34 Bama 28. I will close with what David Housel wrote after the 1972 Iron Bowl in the book this blog is named after. I think it is also true of this Iron Bowl won by this group of Amazins... "The Auburn fans were still in the stands, hours after the game. It was not a cheer that rose from the darkening stadium shadows. It was a roar, a roar of joy and amazement that would be heard for hours yet to come all over... Wherever two or more Auburn people were gathered together... there was Heaven, with an orange and blue tint, heaven of happiness... Perhaps, just perhaps, this was the greatest of them all."
One second. I do not think most on the Auburn side even wanted it but oh how big that one second turned out to be. The supposed best college football coach in the country and who some were calling one of the best of all-time made one of the worst calls in Iron Bowl history. When you look at the stakes riding on the game it might be the worst. Coach Nick $aban decided to have his backup redshirt freshman kicker who had only attempted two field goals all year attempt a 57 yard left-to-right field goal in a tie game in the biggest Iron Bowl ever. The comeback music was reaching its crescendo about now...
In my mind I had two lines of thought. One, I was at the 1985 Iron Bowl, the game previously dubbed the best ever where Bama kicker Van Tiffin beat Auburn with a 52 yard field goal at the buzzer. It is one of my worst football memories and toughest losses. So my first thought was fear of having to go through a Bama win like that again. However my other train of thought as a football guy is how dumb the call seemed. If it was Auburn in that situation there is no way I want Auburn attempting a field goal, especially if the last one had been blocked. I was not thinking about a return but a block. Of course as a coach I think I would have started thinking about a return when Auburn took a timeout and put Chris Davis back there. $aban did not and the rest is college football history.
The kick went up and from my seats I cannot tell accuracy but I can tell length and after a long couple of seconds holding my breath I could tell it was short. I let out a long sigh of relief as I saw Chris Davis catch the ball and head out but did not think much of it. Like everyone else I had overtime on the brain till I saw him cross midfield... and the red sea parted and we were headed to the promise land. I only know one way to describe the feeling of Davis running into that end zone and the feeling I had the rest of the night and frankly still have and it is pure joy.
Pure joy. Auburn just won the biggest Iron Bowl ever. Auburn just beat #1 undefeated untied 11-0 Bama. Auburn just beat maybe the best quarterback in Bama history in his last regular season game. Auburn just ruined all of Bama's title hopes and dreams that included another SEC title, a third national championship in a row and maybe another Heisman Trophy. Auburn gave Nick $aban another gut wrenching loss that will he will never forget. Auburn made Bama's 2011 and 2012 seasons much easier to deal with. In fact if Auburn is fortunate enough to win in Atlanta next week then Auburn will have as many SEC titles, two, as $aban has in this entire great Bama run. One win has turned everything around.
Pure joy. Auburn has risen from rock bottom and the worst season ever to put up maybe their most remarkable season ever. From 3-9 to 11-1, from 0-8 to 7-1, from 63-21 to 45-41, from 38-0 to 43-38, from 49-0 to 34-28. As the students and everyone else mobbed the field I just looked on in amazement thinking of all this. The greatest turnaround in Auburn history and one of the greatest turnarounds in college football history. I mean just think of last year after the 49-0 loss to Bama. It was pure agony and uncertainty. It was excruciating. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would go from that far down to knocking off #1 undefeated and untied Bama and winning the SEC West this season.
My hat is off to the Auburn coaches and players on the most amazing season I have ever seen. It is truly a team effort as you listen to the coaches and players. As I said in my post after the Georgia game this team is the true successor to the 1972 Amazins. I wrote: "This team like that one has one really good unit and one that comes up with just enough to get the win. They are the inverse of each other as the good unit in 1972 was the defense and the just adequate one was the offense but the similarity is still there. The 1972 team also won a lot of close games. The 1972 team also lost an ugly one at night in Baton Rouge. The 1972 team also produced one of the biggest plays in Auburn history... Of course the 1972 team produced their big play in the game after Georgia with "Punt Bama Punt". They also faced an undefeated Bama team that had dominated the rest of the conference."
That was two weeks ago when I thought "The Immaculate Deflection" was the biggest play of the season. Now we have the most amazing Iron Bowl win since 1972 that was won on special teams as well. "Kick Bama Kick" will now resound in Auburn history like "Punt Bama Punt". In another interesting similarity the players who scored the winning touchdown in both games, David Langner and Chris Davis, hailed from Woodlawn High in Birmingham. Both also teams finished the season with only one loss at LSU. Hopefully this years Amazins will also be conference champions. The 1972 Amazins do not get credit for winning the SEC but they did. It is amazing to me that Auburn goes out of its way to not claim legitimate titles while Bama goes out of their way to claim anything. In 1972 Auburn went 6-1 in the conference and beat Bama however Bama played one extra conference game and was given credit for it for some reason? They went 7-1 but Auburn won head-to-head and there has to be a standard number of games (I checked, everyone else in the conference played seven games). The 1972 Amazins were the SEC champions. Hopefully the 2013 Amazins will be too.
This weekend might have been my best game experience in over 35 years of watching the Tigers. I got to experience the whole thing with my older son who is old enough now to really enjoy it. I also got to do things I have never done before. We finally did the locker room tour on Friday before the game and that was awesome. We got to stand on the very outer edge of the field during the tour and little did I know I would get to walk the field after the game just a day later. That was the most awesome part of the post game for me. It was one of the coolest things ever to walk the field after the biggest Iron Bowl win ever with thousands of other rejoicing Auburn fans.
It would not be the best game experience ever though without heading to Toomer's Corner and that did not disappoint. Harvey Updyke, you did not accomplish anything at all but make a fool out of yourself. I hope you enjoyed this years game. I stood where the old Toomer's Oaks used to be but saw that all the attacks and terrible things that have happened the last few years just made these moments even sweeter. There were still plenty of trees and other things to roll and new trees will be there to replace the old ones soon enough however I think the new trees were symbolically planted this weekend. Again, two words to describe my hour or so at Toomer's Corner... pure joy.
There is so much I left out talking about this game. Auburn showing they were Bama's equal from the start... Nick Marshall's first quarter dash to end Auburn's run of offensive futility in this game... Tre Mason almost single handedly taking Auburn to their second touchdown... Tre Mason's 164 yards rushing against the best run defense in the nation... Auburn's offensive line showing they were more than equal to the task as they have been all season... Juggernaut Jay Prosch... Auburn starting the second half with a touchdown on a beautiful pass from Marshall to C.J. Uzomah that would tie the game... Auburn still made their share of mistakes on offense and the defense bent as it has done all year but they did not break and both units came through in the end as they have done all year with help from one of the best special team units in the country.
I do not think I have ever had a game stay with me this long. I am still on cloud nine... however I hope the team is not acting like the fans are as the Tigers, actually two sets of Tigers, have another game to play. It is the Auburn Tigers vs. the Missouri Tigers for the SEC Championship. It is shaping up to be a great match up. The conference championship games are again the only real postseason games. The teams make it through an objective system and it is played immediately following the end of the season. I point that out because as always the atmosphere is being polluted by college football's joke of a postseason and the completely biased and subjective way the teams are selected.
The entire debate is manufactured. The facts speak for themselves. Auburn's and Missouri's eleven wins are better than Ohio State's twelve wins or Florida State's for that matter. It is a fact not an opinion. The only debate should be whether Ohio State or Florida State should play either Auburn or Missouri. The whole thing is ridiculous and tired and adding two more teams next year still will not fix it. I won't even start on how ridiculous it is for a sport to make it's post season participants wait almost 40 days before playing a game... Ah I cannot believe I am even wasting time talking about this. Let us enjoy a well earned SEC West title and what should be a great game in Atlanta. The 2010 Auburn Tigers played their best game in Atlanta and I think playing on turf will help this team as well. I expect us to play good. I can't wait to watch it.
November 30, 2013. Jordan Hare Stadium. Pat Dye Field. Auburn 34 Bama 28. I will close with what David Housel wrote after the 1972 Iron Bowl in the book this blog is named after. I think it is also true of this Iron Bowl won by this group of Amazins... "The Auburn fans were still in the stands, hours after the game. It was not a cheer that rose from the darkening stadium shadows. It was a roar, a roar of joy and amazement that would be heard for hours yet to come all over... Wherever two or more Auburn people were gathered together... there was Heaven, with an orange and blue tint, heaven of happiness... Perhaps, just perhaps, this was the greatest of them all."
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteGreat article. I am also still on cloud nine and probably won't come down if we win the SEC championship. I honestly believe we will go to the BCS game if we win. Sunshine all season. Pure joy!!!
Kenny Mitchell