quote:
It's interesting to note that Auburn's best runs in my lifetime were when Pat Dye coached there, before he was forced out for cheating and the resulting ncaa probation, and the Tubberville years, when Alabama was recovering (with Shula) from its own ncaa probation precipitated by Auburn paying Gene Jelks to lie (he admitted so later) to the ncaa about being paid at Alabama. You will note I didn't say that Alabama was busted because of the Gene Jelks lies, but the investigation was precipitated by that. UA was initially busted because Antonio Langham signed a napkin for an agent in the celebratory aftermath of the national championship game vs Miami. Granted, if Gene Stallings hadn't cursed and kicked the ncaa investigator out of his office, it wouldn't have been a major deal. In any event, it led in a meandering and circuitous way to one St. Nick Saban, so alls well that ends well. Still, on a level playing field, Auburn has never, in my lifetime, been able to competitively rival Alabama.

As a bama fan I am surprised you'd suggest Tubbs run is better than the current state of AU football. Tubbs had 1 SEC title. It's about trophies not rivalry wins.

That being said Auburn really isn't much different today than it has been historically. In the 80's we had one team robbed of a national title, it happened again in 2004. The system changed in our favor when it became "less" of a beauty contest and we got 2010 and came up short in 2013. In the 80's we had a couple of other teams come up short and one other one in the 2000's. I believe historically we are about an 8 win team with our schedule. Which would be 9.5 wins if we had bama's historical schedule. I understand why we chose to play Florida and UT and bama chose MSU. We needed to beat those teams to have a chance to get a prom date and bama didn't need anyone to get asked to the prom by the media.

This post was edited on 5/24/17 at 11:22 am