I’ll keep saying it ’til the day I die: shutting the 2004 Auburn team out of the BCS title game is the gift that keeps on giving.
Eddins: “This is what I tell everybody—we would have killed them. And the reason I say that with such confidence is you can’t prove a negative…
And you know what? He’s right. Auburn didn’t lose the title game. Sure, the Tigers didn’t win it, either. But that’s just a technicality.
Get The Picture 
Southern Cal didn’t lose the title game either. And, they played in it.
I do remember Virginia Tech putting one hell of a scare into Auburn, though. Virginia Tech, obviously, not being a national contender that year.
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“Auburn players: We deserve title, could have beaten USC” in 2004.
Just like they kicked Trojan ass in 2002
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/scores102/102245/20020902NCAAFUSC——-0nr.htm#RCPS
and 2003
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There’s really not much point in comparing teams, even the same team, from different years. UGA’s 2008 team can tell you that 2007 didn’t really carry over.
Seasons are what statisticians call “discrete trials”. Just become the ball landed on red last time doesn’t mean it will be black this time.
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I’m not an Auburn fan, far from it but if UGA had been in the same boat you know we would have been just as pissed and still be pissed today.
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But we aren’t… mostly because that 2004 team forgot to show up a few times that year.
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Come on Senator, it is rare for you to let emotions overcome logic but in this case you have. No SEC champion has ever been beaten in a BCS finale, much less an unbeaten one. That Auburn team had a more impressive list of wins, nine SEC teams in their wake, than either of the other contenders.
One may have an opinion that they may have gotten beat, but to deny them legitimacy in their complaints is just wrong. 69Dawg is right, not a single UGA fan wouldn’t be complaining about that injustice of that.
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Terrific. And no Auburn team ever beat a Pete Carroll-coached Southern Cal team, either.
Look, it’s one thing to assert that Auburn got screwed out of the chance to play in the title game. You’ll get no argument from me about that. It’s quite another to argue that the Tigers deserve to be named national champs.
Not that it’s gonna stop ’em. 😉
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I have no doubt in my mind that Southern Cal would wipe the floor with that Auburn team. I saw them in person twice, in the AU-UGA game and in the SECCG. Southern Cal was better. Would they have beaten Oklahoma? I have no idea. Really, all we know about Auburn is that they could really beat up on the Citadel and the other pansies they scheduled OOC that year. I still say that what happened to Auburn was unjust, it was crap, but it was also all their fault.
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So just that briefly, you totally dismiss the point of unbeatens from a better conference being passed over for two unbeatens with lesser credentials (other than they started the year higher ranked by a bunch of numnuts). Some team that no longer exists, beat another team that no longer exists? Why ever play the game if we can draw those conclusions?
What is it that blinds you on this: overpowering hatred for Auburn? Or realizing the need for a playoff is best illustrated by this abomination? Yes, I have heard about the +1 you think would solve this. That is definitely a mini-step in the right direction, it just doesn’t take it quite far enough. Yes there is a point that is too far, we can all agree on that.
Disclaimer: I don’t support Auburn, or any other team’s right to claim a MNC, nor do I suggest Auburn would have won a game against either, although I would have bet them against both. But of all the cases that demonstrate how unsatisfactory the current process is, this would be Exhibit A for me.
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But that’s the point, isn’t it? Auburn wants to be awarded a national title without playing in the game that determined the winner of the national title. The whole concept is absurd.
Look, if it satisfies your need for closure, make Auburn and Oklahoma co-MNCs. Or split the trophy in thirds and throw Utah in there too, since the Utes went undefeated. But to say that Auburn should benefit from not having played Southern Cal (lesser credentials? seriously?) is just as unfair as having excluded the Tigers from the chance to play for the title in the first place.
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We are in total agreement on these points, I DON’T think Auburn should be named NC, or co-NC. My position is that no program has EVER won a legtimate claim to a national title in D1 Football.
The point was Auburn is certainly as worthy as either of the other two in 2010, and the same was true in 2004.
Many fans are willing to overlook what was a remarkable injustice simply due to the starting position in the pre-season polls. To snub an SEC champion, an unbeaten SEC champion at that, is laughable and unforgivable. And the results of a game played between two different sets of players a year apart is not relevant in the discussion.
My post was that while your points may differ from mine on some issues, you always demonstrate clarity and logic in stating your position. On this issue your response seems clouded as the exclusion of an undefeated SEC Champ at the expense of two opponents (worthy as they both could have been) that played in inferior conferences would engender outrage from any objective SEC fan at least, and probably any objective CFB anywhere. It is the unjustifed snub that is wrong, not who might have won on the field. We will never know that, but I will forever feel Auburn deserved their shot. In a similar case involving UGA, I suspect you would feel differently. That weakness is one I expect from mere posters, not someone who usually remains above the emotional fray. That is why I wondered which poison had tainted the waters for you. I respect your opinion of whomever you feel would have won actual games between any of those three contenders, but question how anyone would exclude Auburn as, at least, an equal at that dinner table. Don’t mean to get boggerd down, just clarifying my position on your position.
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I’m way ahead of you there.
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So you’re Jewish? And now we are “bonded”?
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I’m usually in complete agreement that the SEC is the strongest conference. But the strength of schedule numbers from 2004 rank Auburn 60th, behind both USC(7) and OU(13).
So I don’t really have a problem with choosing those two teams over Auburn to play for the championship.
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Isn’t the larger point that they’re hypothetically trying to make the same as the one that they were hypothetically trying to make then? Not that they could have beaten USC, but that they could have beaten Oklahoma.
The logic leap being stated thusly, “Oklahoma should get the title by default since it no longer belongs to USC, AND since we (Auburn) were totally way better than Oklahoma… we (Auburn) should get the title.”
Two steps crammed into one.
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That’s why you have to love the argument. Auburn gets all of the benefit from Oklahoma getting its arse kicked and none of the burden of actually having to face the team that administered it.
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And you shall know us as The Plainsmen, wait no, the War Eagle… No wait! The Tigers.
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
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By Eddins’s logic, Christina Hendricks never would’ve married her current husband if she’d just met me first. She would’ve dumped him for me in a heartbeat — there’s no way to prove it wouldn’t have happened!
You all may now refer to me as “Mr. Hendricks,” and tell me what a lucky bastard I am at every available opportunity.
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It was a shocking loss. Well, at least it was in some parts of Alabama.
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20030901/NEWS/309010326?Title=Auburn-regroups-after-shocking-loss-to-USC#
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Hi Realist
What games did AU forget to show up for in 2004?
For sure in the 24-0 pounding of Georgia AU showed up.
As to awarding AU the MNC title, it is a beauty contest, nothing more, nothing less.
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Wow, does your heart fall on the ground every time you change shirts ?
Two parts. Reading and Comprehension. I know this is tough, but follow the logic train.
The “we” the Realist was referring to, is UGA.
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Fear the dumb.
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This old Dawg thought that Auburn had the better team that year & he still believes it today. A plus 1 format would have proven me right or wrong. The rest is just conjecture. No one will ever know or be proven right or wrong. It is what it is.
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Snarky thought for the Senator…
If you don’t want a playoff system, then how is awarding Auburn the 2004 MNC any different than going back to the “old days” when the press voted? Wouldn’t an writers poll pronouncing Auburn #1 be your vision of how things should be?
P.S. Misrepresenting your opinion = higher probability of indignant response 😉
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Well, I’m not opposed to a playoff – just an extended one.
I think the whole idea of vacated wins is exceedingly silly, as is Auburn’s claim to a MNC for that season.
By the way, if you’re going to bootstrap Auburn into a national title, why not Utah? The Utes didn’t lose to Southern Cal, either.
Besides, Urban Meyer’s never lost a national title game. 😉
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