Auburn football: Sam Houston State Bearkats join Tigers in elite company

The 2010 Auburn football championship team will go down in history as one of the most unstoppable teams in the history of college football.

Why? Simple: no one stopped them.

Cam Newton’s Heisman brilliance and the sturdiness of Nick Fairley and the Tigers’ top 10-ranked run defense helped the Tigers put down 14 different opponents in the 2010 season, which culminated in a victory over the dominant Oregon offense in the National Championship game.

The 2020 season saw two teams achieve such a feat. Of course, one of them was the team up north winning yet another title after another round of recruiting dominance the season before. Too bad the Iron Bowl is in Jordan-Hare this year, essentially guaranteeing Nick Saban’s squad won’t see that same success this year.

The other, though, is someone Fly War Eagle has no problem recognizing. Sam Houston State, winners of the FCS National Championship game yesterday against South Dakota State, was able to join the exclusive list of teams that can claim a national championship bow on top of a perfect season:

Of course, there are caveats here. UCF’s undefeated 2017 season has been recognized as a National Championship campaign, and the 2004 USC Trojans were not included because of their title being vacated due to Reggie Bush receiving illegal benefits in the recruitment process.

But really for getting caught.

Anyway, the Bearkats deserve recognition for being only the second team in FCS history to ever have an undefeated championship season after North Dakota State served as the one dominant pillar of Division I-AA for its existence.

They also deserve credit for being like Auburn football and overcoming the odds in victories over James Madison and South Dakota State in the final two games of their historic run.

Congratulations to Sam Houston State on winning the first (and probably last) spring college football championship!