If you didn’t know, Auburn has an identity crisis. The team known as the WEPT (War Eagles, Plainsmen, or Tigers, depending on the day) can’t seem to decide if it ever wants to win a national championship in the modern era. Auburn has had three title-contending teams in the past 20 years, and each year some insane set of circumstances befalls the team to keep them from the glory that so many of its hated rivals have experienced.
In 1993, Auburn was on probation for breaking those pesky little rules of the NCAA. As punishment, they were banned from postseason play and from TV. Of course under this set of circumstances, the team became the anti-USC and rallied to post an unblemished, 11-0 record (remember, in 1993 there were only 11 regular season games, and Auburn could not participate in the SEC title game).
The team who went on to win the national championship following the 1993 regular season was the former powerhouse Florida State Seminoles, led by the Heisman-winning (and future New York Knick) Charlie Ward. Florida State finished with a 12-1 record that year, holding one more loss than the Auburn WEPT. Had Auburn been eligible to participate, its Sugar Bowl opponent was West Virginia (who did have a team before Rich Rodriguez), which was a likely win. Due to the fact that Auburn was not allowed on TV for the season, it only achieved a #4 ranking in the final AP poll. One season lost to cheating, and one likely national championship down the drain.
In 2004, there was no outside force keeping the Auburn WEPT from the title game. After finishing the regular season 12-0, a disappointing performance in the SEC Title game solidified the voters’ minds to keep Oklahoma #2, behind the reigning AP champ USC. Auburn followed this with an uninspired win against the Virginia Tech Hokies in the Sugar Bowl. Another undefeated season, another national championship left dangling outside the grasp of the program.
Now we come to the present. With allegations of the program paying its superstar (and college football’s best current player), Cameron Newton, Auburn has set itself in the crosshairs of yet another monstrous fall. Mississippi State coaches have turned Cameron Newton in for alleged required payments to secure his services. On top of this, ESPN is now reporting that there may be recorded audio conversation of both Cameron Newton and his father discussing money paid for him. The Auburn Athletic Department has to resemble something similar to the French command at the Maginot line as I type these words. For those who don’t know, if a college player is paid while in college, he is ineligible. A team who uses an ineligible player must forfeit/vacate the wins upon discovery. A program who discovers, or at the least should know, that a player is ineligible, is bound to correct the problem or the program itself faces possible NCAA sanctions (ask USC how failing to do this worked out for them).
Where does Auburn go from here? This weekend’s matchup against the Georgia Bulldogs presents an interesting matchup problem with UGA’s pro-style passing attack and the second best player in college football, who just so happens to play opposite Auburn’s biggest weakness (the secondary). Auburn will likely have to play score-for-score with Georgia to win this game, and they can only accomplish this with Newton running the offense. A deeper risk is the team losing confidence in itself like Metropolis when Superman disappears. Sitting Cam may risk the season, and Auburn can gamble that the NCAA won’t find anything concrete. However with all of the issues raised, Auburn is risking its future when/if the NCAA rules Newton ineligible.
I will not lie and say that I didn’t smile when these allegations arose. No program, and no fan base deserves this more than Auburn. However, I will also say that if Auburn falters as a result of these allegations, and LSU rolls its way to an SEC title, the success will feel cheap to me. We had our shot at Auburn and came up short (closer than most, however). If Auburn fell to Georgia and then its rival Alabama, and we slid into the SEC title game, I’d feel fine, but only if it were due to Auburn’s play on the field.
Deep down all fans of a college team know that in some way or another, their program is dirty. Auburn just happens to really, truly suck at cheating. It is as if Auburn really wishes to become the modern-day Sisyphus, constantly trying to roll its program up the hill of college football, only to have it all come crashing down. If the fan base itself wasn’t such an insufferable group of “little brothers,” projecting their constant and overriding feelings of insecurity upon the SEC like the vomit of a sorority girl on Saturday night, I may feel a tad bit bad for them. As an LSU fan and an avid hater of Auburn, I have experienced two national championships in the past decade, while watching Auburn experience a pain that I can only imagine is that of a person who attempts suicide and fails. This must explain why they celebrate big wins by rolling their own campus shrines.
However, I remember the 2004 LSU-Auburn game, where Auburn avoided OT on another horrible call from the refs. And I just remembered the 2006 LSU-Auburn game, and how we were screwed out of a chance to win that game by home cooking. That was only the best LSU team of my lifetime, who was prevented from playing for a rematch from Florida (and a shot at the national title) due to Auburn winning cheaply. So you know what I say? Fuck Auburn. If they can’t even cheat right, they don’t deserve anyone’s sympathy.