Following the TAMU Aggies' 10-3 loss to "The U" in the College Football Playoff's first round, the Miami Hurricane's Gus Aspillaga unleashed a savage column examining how undeserving the defeated team was of making the field.
Beating a team, dominating their offense thoroughly, and then saying the competition wasn't up to snuff is some Gunther-level smack talk. It underscored something very sombering, though: the Auburn Tigers were a footnote on the records of several of the big SEC schools that made the CFP.
"Looking at the SEC, Texas A&M had a historic 11-1 regular season, good for one of the best records in the nation. However it featured in-conference wins against seven out of the nine worst teams in the SEC; and every team they beat had a conference win percentage of .500 or worse," Aspillaga prefaced before saying, "The Aggies season would end in disappointing fashion as they lost twice in a row, against in-state rival the Texas Longhorns 27-17 and in the first round of the College Football Playoff against the Miami Hurricanes 10-3.
"A&M arguably only faced three impressive teams all season (Miami, Notre Dame, Texas), and its only win of the three came in the form of a controversial one-point victory over ND in Week 2. TAMU is one of multiple glaring examples of how massive conferences allow teams to waltz unscathed through their conferences thanks to scheduling issues."
If you would've told yourself back in August that AU wasn't one of the three teams worth mentioning while discussing TAMU's unworthy CFP resume -- especially because their schedule also included the LSU Tigers, Florida Gators, and South Carolina Gamecocks -- you'd be in hard denial and skeptical.
Here we are, though. The calendar is about to turn, and Auburn football isn't on anyone's mind outside of the famblee and the Gumps.
Unless someone is thinking about a program that seems cursed because even the most talented of its recent rosters underperformed this past year.
Alex Golesh stands between Auburn and generational slippage
The Colorado Buffaloes are a program that fell from relevancy in the aughts and never truly earned it on a national scale again on the field. Deion Sanders was a nice pop for the program PR-wise, but a 9-3 regular season in 2024 ended up being the biggest thing to happen to Boulder before the team went back to the bottom of its conference in 2025.
Auburn can't become a program that celebrates such unimpressive achievements. This was a school that, not long ago, was in SEC Championship Games and defending its home field in rivalry games.
Alex Golesh stands in the way of this program becoming generationally irrelevant following five straight losing seasons. This program doesn't need to be in the CFP next year, but they need to receive a bowl game invite that isn't just because other schools wouldn't accept theirs.
No pressure.