Auburn football: Time for Tigers to win when it should, play like title contenders
By Rob Maxwell
Raise your hand if you prefer the Auburn football team being the underdog going into a big matchup.
Most of you are raising your hands. Some of you are holding both of them high in the air.
There’s something comfortable about lower expectations. Losses are easier to stomach. You can shrug off sub-par performances because — sooner or later — you know it’s going to happen.
It’s time for that to change.
Today.
We wrote this week that almost everyone is siding with No. 7 Auburn over No. 12 on this one.
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It’s time for the expectations for Auburn football to rise to the next level and for the results to prove it. Auburn shook off its season-opener hiccups with a solid win against Washington. That’s a big step in the right direction.
But look back over the years and the best Auburn teams have done it when they weren’t expected to:
2013
Coming off a 3-9 (and 0-8 in the SEC) season, Auburn began the season unranked in Gus Malzahn’s first season. After reeling off six consecutive wins to start the season, the Tigers appeared at No. 24. Then they beat No. 7 Texas A&M and Johnny Manziel and catapulted to No. 11. You know the rest — the Prayer at Jordan-Hare, the Kick Six. No expectations, incredible results.
2010
After going 8-5 the previous season, Auburn entered the 2010 season ranked 22nd. Auburn escaped with close-calls wins early in the season against unranked Mississippi State and Clemson. Along the way, Cam Newton was becoming Cam Newton. By November, Auburn became the hunted and for one of the first times in many years, played with the confidence of the best team in the country.
2003-04
Auburn opened the 2003 season ranked No. 6 and playing at home against No. 8 USC. The result was an ugly 23-0 loss at home, followed by an uglier 17-3 loss against unranked Georgia Tech. A team that was supposed to contend for a national title was out of the picture in the blink of an eye.
The 2004 team paid the price (SEC should thank Auburn for paving way to success) for the 2003 team’s failure. After finishing 2003 with an 8-5 record, expectations again were not great. The Tigers began the season ranked 17th. USC and Oklahoma started the season 1-2. As we all know, Auburn dominated that season, played like the No. 1 team in the country while blowing past low expectations all season. Unfortunately, USC and Oklahoma both went undefeated and the low expectations for the Tigers that season came back to bite them as they couldn’t get into the BCS title game (which was a USC blowout and everyone knows Auburn-USC would have been a fantastic final).
The point is this: Auburn football does its best when no one expects it, too. Expectations should be higher now. Expectations should be going to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game and being one of the four teams selected to the College Football Playoff.
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Auburn needs to think that way and play that way.
Saturday against LSU is perfect time to make that statement.