Auburn football: Under new CFP format, AU would have made ’17 postseason

There seems to be a consensus among experts on how the newly proposed 12-team College Football Playoff would have retroactively affected the last several years. Most pertinent to this blog is the fact that Auburn football would have been a lock for the final postseason field back in 2017.

Of course, that year ended in the Tigers losing to the shared 2017 NCAA Champion UCF Knights. While the season ended in former head coach Gus Malzahn losing to his new team, it featured two victories over the AP poll’s top team. Twice.

Those victories happened to be over eventual SEC Champion Georgia and eventual National Champion–aka the team that won the National Championship game–Alabama at different points in the season. Playing spoiler twice in the same year against your fiercest rivals is quite a way to leave your mark on the sport.

The 2017 season was perhaps Gus Malzahn’s second-finest effort while at the helm of Auburn football behind only his first season in 2013 that resulted in a BCS National Championship appearance.

And in the wake of college football potentially changing course to expand the CFP, that team is being recognized as one that would have been playing for the right to appear in the 2018 National Championship game:

Looking back may not serve much of a purpose now, especially considering Auburn football lost to the Knights anyway, answering the question of what would have happened with more postseason games.

But Tiger fans should know that the 2017 season will always be more special than the official accolades (or lack thereof) the team owns from that year.