I really wasn’t planning on paying too much attention on Saturday afternoon. Then I saw my Auburn Tigers go down 14-0 against a team they hadn’t beaten since I nearly gave myself and my friend a concussion in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Turns out those College GameDay Home Depot helmets can withstand significant blows to the head.
When I saw a sophomore wide receiver who came into the game with four catches all season throw a football 34 yards down the field into double coverage I was all the way out.
But then, by what I can only describe as an act of God, it worked.
We caught the ball. In the end zone. Auburn scored a touchdown. Then they scored again. Then again.
Auburn led 17-14. That lead ballooned to 24-14.
Heading into the second half against Georgia it felt like Auburn could win a football game. Even after surrendering a 10-point advantage and giving the Bulldogs a chance to win in regulation, it still (kind of) felt like Auburn could win the football game.
I was fully prepared for the biggest college football story of my weekend to be about the once-again expanded College Football Playoff. With it, the regular season would surely mean even less and games like the ‘South’s Oldest Rivarly’ would carry less and less weight until the eventual abolition of the regular season in favor of the 128-team DI, DII & DIII Grand Playoff presented by Tesla’s Flying Roadster powered by Grok.
Instead, my viewing Saturday was defined by a coach who decided to immediately weave himself into the fabric of the Auburn family. A coach who managed to make a talented coalition of G5 transfers integrate with a holdover batch of five-stars. The product that coach has spit out has been the best Auburn has placed on a football field in a decade.
That is not hyperbole.
Even in the recent losses against Florida and Tennessee the grit Auburn showcased made it feel like something could be different. On Saturday Alex Golesh and Bryum Brown proved it was.
A group of friends and I text in a group chat every football Saturday. Most Saturday’s are filled with frustration and heartbreak. The text that stood out on this Saturday?
“That senior year bama win to rush the field was the last time I felt this joy”.
It’s been that long. I don’t have any football-related takeaways or gripes about the officiating or play-calling. I don’t really even remember most of the drives from that game. It’s all one big happy blur. That’s something none of us in that group chat had experienced since that senior year (or first senior year in my case) win over Alabama.
I got a reminder that even after the greedy suits water down the product that is college football to a shell of what it once was, beating Georgia will always matter to me.
Bryan Harsin’s tenure on the Plains was a self-destructing time bomb. Hugh Freeze’s Auburn Tigers were horseshoes and hand grenades.
Alex Golesh just told the world his program is a fucking heat-seeking missile.
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