Legacy of undefeated 2004 Tigers resonates in first year of College Football Playoff
AUBURN – Legacy.
It can be a motivating factor: what do you want your legacy to be? But mostly it is the lasting impact, if any, of something in the past.
The legacy of the 2004 Auburn Tigers transcends those of national champions, and SEC champions. Without those Tigers, who went 13-0, with four wins over top 10 teams, including three during the regular season, being left out of the BCS title game, the College Football Playoff might not have come to fruition as quickly, if at all.
Auburn will honor the 10-year anniversary of the 2004 team during Saturday's game between the Tigers and San Jose State, with a long list of players and former coach Tommy Tuberville set to attend the weekend's festivities, which begin with a reunion at Jordan-Hare Stadium Friday night.
"I'll tell the guys this week when we sit down and we talk about that season that the one thing that they can be proud of is they changed history," Tuberville said, "because history is being made this year in college football and had it not been for that year it might have happened on down the line, but you can say it was fast-tracked 10 years. … Those guys had a huge hand in this playoff system."
With USC, Oklahoma and Auburn all finishing undefeated in 2004, it created chaos in the BCS, which left the Tigers on the outside looking in, and set off a chain of events first in favor of a "plus one" model, that eventually became the playoff system debuting this postseason.
Being left out of the championship doesn't take away from the accomplishment of being undefeated for Trinity graduate Bret Eddins, who played defensive end on the 2004 team.
"We did everything that we could have done," Eddins said. "Being recognized as a national champion is one thing … there's a national champion every year, but not that many teams can say they went undefeated. For a lot of us it's kind of a badge of honor to say 'we went undefeated.'"
Tuberville thought back to his postgame remarks following Auburn's 16-13 win over Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl, which guaranteed a second-place finish to eventual champion USC, whose title was later stripped by the NCAA as a result of the Reggie Bush investigation.
It didn't stop Tuberville from having "National Champions" emblazoned on the team's rings, a memento he intends to wear this weekend, or from Golf Digest, at Tuberville's behest, declaring Auburn as the No. 1 team."It's pretty hard for me to talk to them about what they had done and what they had accomplished but we were going to be second," he said. "No matter what happened we were going to be second."
USC's title being stripped but Auburn not being recognized still makes Tuberville "steam," and he's not alone.
Amid an offseason full of talk about athletic director Jay Jacobs considering recognizing additional past teams as national champions, St. James graduate and former center Jeremy Ingle feels the 2004 team should be recognized as such.
"As a player I think especially with USC's situation, the way we were able to tear through the conference, and the seven years that came following what happened to us, I absolutely think the university should recognize the team," Ingle said. "(Auburn) really should, for lack of a better word, celebrate the 2004 team more than they do. … It seems like our team, we were never really were celebrated quite the way I think we should have been."
They'll be celebrated on Saturday. Though they may not all be able to attend, Carnell Williams, Ronnie Brown, Jason Campbell, Carlos Rogers, Courtney Taylor, Devin Aromashodu, Will Herring, Ingle, Eddins and the rest of 2004 squad will have its chance to be remembered again at a sold out Jordan-Hare Stadium.
"I would take that team and play any team that's ever won the national championship," Tuberville said. "Now we'd win some and we'd lose some, but that's how good that team was. They could pretty much do it all."