2008 season
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Main article: 2008 Auburn Tigers football team
In 2008, Auburn will face non-conference opponents the UL - Monroe Warhawks, the Southern Miss Golden Eagles, the West Virginia Mountaineers, and the UT-Martin Skyhawks. All will be home games, except for the West Virginia game.
Auburn’s 2008 SEC schedule includes their permanent schedule (the five other SEC west teams and the Georgia Bulldogs) as well as two other SEC East teams that rotate onto the schedule every few years. In 2008, those teams will be Vanderbilt Commodores, who will be rotating off Auburn’s schedule after this season, and the Tennessee Volunteers, who are rotating back onto Auburn’s schedule through the 2009 season.
Auburn has replaced both coordinators since the 2007 season. Tony Franklin was hired to transition the offense to the spread, and Paul Rhoads replaces former defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, who left to become the defensive coordinator for the Texas Longhorns.
[edit] 2007 season
Main article: 2007 Auburn Tigers football team
Auburn entered the 2007 season as the number 14 team according to the Coaches Poll and number 18 according to the AP Poll. The Tigers ended the regular season with an 8–4 record (5–3 in the SEC, finishing 2nd in the West), and accepted a bid to play Clemson in the 40th annual Chick-fil-A Bowl, whom they defeated 23-20 in overtime to finish the season 9–4. Auburn finished #14 in the final poll, the team’s fourth consecutive finish ranked in the top 15.
[edit] Rivals
[edit] Iron Bowl
Main article: Iron Bowl
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Auburn’s rivalry with Alabama is termed the “Iron Bowl.” The first meeting came in 1893, but the teams only played 15 times before the series was suspended in 1907. In 1948, the two schools finally agreed to renew the series, with the games to be played at the neutral Legion Field in Birmingham, where the game was played every year from 1948 through 1988. In 1989, Auburn hosted the first on-campus meeting, after which the series became a “home and home,” with Auburn’s home games being played in Auburn (with the exception of the 1991 game, which was played at Legion Field), and Alabama’s home games being played at Legion Field until 2000, when Alabama moved their home games to Tuscaloosa.
Alabama holds the all-time edge at 38–33–1.
[edit] Georgia
Main article: Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry
Georgia and Auburn compete in “The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry”, dating back to 1892. The game was played in Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia until 1903. It was played in Columbus, Georgia, from 1916 to 1958, except in 1929 and 1949, when the game was played in Athens, Georgia. In 1959, the series became an on-campus series.
The series is extremely close: Auburn holds a 53–50–8 lead in the series, but Georgia has outscored Auburn 1730-1685, a difference of only 45 points. Georgia has won the last two meetings by a combined margin of victory of 47 points.
[edit] LSU
Main article: Auburn-LSU rivalry
Auburn also has a very competitive football rivalry with the LSU Tigers. The last four games have been settled by a total of fourteen points. The two share more than just a mascot, as one of the two teams have won at least a share of the SEC Western Division championship every year since 2000. Auburn won the SEC West title in 2000 and 2004; LSU won the SEC West title in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007, winning the tiebreaker over Auburn in 2001 and 2005.
The home team has won every year since 1999. While the series has no formal name, many of the games themselves have been named by the media, the most famous example being the Earthquake Game in 1988.
LSU holds the series lead 22-19-1.
[edit] Former rivals
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Before the Southeastern Conference expanded and split into Eastern and Western divisions, Auburn had annual rivalries with SEC East powers Florida and Tennessee. Auburn was forced to stop playing Tennessee every year, and stopped playing Florida every year in 2002, when the SEC implemented two rotating opponents on the schedule. Since 2002, Auburn only plays each of these two teams four times every ten years unless they meet in the SEC Championship game. The Tigers lead both teams all-time with a 42–38–2 edge over Florida and 25–21–3 series with Tennessee.
Auburn also had long standing rivalries with two former conference foes: Georgia Tech before Tech left the SEC to join the Atlantic Coast Conference and Clemson dating back to 1899 when both teams competed in the SIAA. Auburn leads the Yellow Jackets 47–41–4, with Auburn also leading in the Clemson series 33–11–2 after winning the 2007 Chick-fil-A Bowl matchup.
[edit] Traditions
[edit] Tiger Walk
Before each Auburn home football game, thousands of Auburn fans line Donahue Avenue to cheer on the team as they walk from Sewell Hall (the athletes’ dormitory) to Jordan-Hare Stadium. The tradition began in the 1960s when groups of kids would walk up the street to greet the team and get autographs. During the tenure of coach Doug Barfield, the coach urged fans to come out and support the team, and thousands did. Today the team, led by the coaches, walks down the hill and into the stadium surrounded by fans who pat them on the back and shake their hands as they walk. The largest Tiger Walk occurred on December 2, 1989, before the first ever home football game against rival Alabama—the Iron Bowl. On that day, an estimated 20,000 fans packed the one block section of road leading to the stadium. According to former athletic director David Housel, Tiger Walk has become “the most copied tradition in all of college football,” although there are older pre-game walks at Stanford and Williams College.[16]
Toomer’s Corner
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The intersection of Magnolia and College streets in Auburn, which marks the transition from downtown Auburn to the university campus, is known as Toomer’s Corner. It is named after Toomer’s Drugs, a small store on the corner that has been an Auburn landmark for over 150 years. Hanging over the corner are two massive old-growth oak trees, and anytime anything good happens concerning Auburn, toilet paper can usually be found hanging from the trees. Also known as “rolling the corner,” this tradition is thought to have originated in the 1950s and until the mid 1990s was relegated to only to celebrating athletic wins. However, in recent years it has become a way to celebrate anything good that happens concerning Auburn.
In April 2007, it was reported that the landmark trees at Toomer’s Corner are dying due to “years of abuse”.[17] While it is difficult to determine how long the trees have left, plans are already being made to replace the historic tree with another live oak when the day comes.
[edit] “War Eagle”
Main article: War Eagle
There are many stories surrounding the origins of Auburn’s battle cry, “War Eagle.” The most popular account involves the first Auburn football game in 1892 between Auburn and the University of Georgia. According to the story, in the stands that day was an old Civil War soldier with an eagle that he had found injured on a battlefield and kept as a pet. The eagle broke free and began to soar over the field, and Auburn began to march toward the Georgia end-zone. The crowd began to chant, “War Eagle” as the eagle soared. After Auburn won the game, the eagle crashed to the field and died but, according to the legend, his spirit lives on every time an Auburn man or woman yells “War Eagle!” The battle cry of “War Eagle” also functions as a greeting for those associated with the University. For many years, a live golden eagle has embodied the spirit of this tradition. The eagle was once housed on campus in The Eagle’s Cage (which was the second largest single-bird enclosure in the country), but the aviary was taken down in 2003 and the eagle moved to a nearby raptor center. The eagle, War Eagle VI (nicknamed “Tiger”), was trained in 2000 to fly free around the stadium before every home game to the delight of fans. The present eagle, War Eagle VII (nicknamed “Nova”), continues the tradition.
Wreck Tech Pajama Parade
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The Wreck Tech Pajama Parade originated in 1896, when a group of mischievous Auburn ROTC cadets, determined to show up the more well-known engineers from Georgia Tech, sneaked out of their dorms the night before the football game between Auburn and Tech and greased the railroad tracks. According to the story, the train carrying the Georgia Tech team slid through town and didn’t stop until it was halfway to the neighboring town of Loachapoka, Alabama, The Georgia Tech team was forced to walk the five miles back to Auburn and, not surprisingly, were rather weary at the end of their journey. This likely contributed to their 45–0 loss. While the railroad long ago ceased to be the way teams traveled to Auburn and students never greased the tracks again, the tradition continues in the form of a parade through downtown Auburn. Students parade through the streets in their pajamas and organizations build floats. This tradition has recently been renewed with Georgia Tech returning to Auburn’s schedule after nearly two decades of absence.
Tigers in the NFL
Ronnie Brown was the #2 pick in the 2005 NFL Draft
Ronnie Brown was the #2 pick in the 2005 NFL Draft
There have been 237 Auburn players drafted into the National Football League, with 15 earning 30 All-Pro honors, 27 making Pro Bowl appearances, and 23 playing in the Super Bowl.
The Dow Jones College-Football Success Index ranked Auburn as the eighth best program in the nation, with the second highest Draft Value which indicate “that a school’s players perform better than NFL scouts seem to expect”.[25] Auburn is tied (with Miami) for second most Top 5 NFL Draft picks this decade, and have The Plains have produced 25 first round draft picks overall.
[edit] Runningback U
Cadillac Williams evades a tackler.
Cadillac Williams evades a tackler.
Auburn currently has ten former running backs currently playing that position in the NFL (see below). They carry on a long legacy of top NFL backs from Auburn such as Tucker Frederickson, William Andrews, Joe Cribbs, James Brooks, Lionel James, Brent Fullwood, Tommie Agee and Bo Jackson. Over the last 20 years (1987-2007 Draft), there have been 15 Tiger running backs drafted into the NFL, with several more successfully signing as undrafted free-agents.
[edit] Current NFL players
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There are a number of former Auburn players currently listed on NFL rosters. These players include seven running backs, seven linebackers, six wide receivers, two tight ends, five cornerbacks, one quarterback, one placekicker and fifteen linemen including four nose tackle, five guards, five tackles and three defensive ends.