Read Bleacher Fan and Loyal Homer’s arguments for which college football was the best team not to win a championship in the last decade.
It is only day two of football week here at The Sports Debates, and my mouth is watering like my five month old when I get the spoon full of sweet potatoes near his mouth. It is hard to believe that competitive football that counts is just two more agonizing days away.
What a great time to discuss the best college football team of the last decade to NOT win a championship. When considering the many options with my usual historical eye (and the frustration of not being able to select such historical sleepers as the 1981 Pittsburgh Panthers and the 1981 Georgia Bulldogs, for two quick examples), my mind is stuck on the injustice served up to the 2004 Auburn Tigers. With the many political behind the scenes influences that surely berthed the BCS title game of Oklahoma and Southern Cal, Auburn was left on the outside looking in despite finishing their season as division champions, undefeated, and as one of the best college football teams in modern – or any –history.
Auburn finished second in the Associated Press poll in 2004. They leapfrogged the humbled Oklahoma Sooners, who received a severe beat down at the hands of the USC Trojans Auburn even garnered three first place votes to go along with their 13-0 record. What further legitimizes the frustration of Tiger fans around the country is that they WERE in the coveted number two spot in the polling in the middle of November. Normally, if a team is ranked second in the country on November 14, does not lose another game the entire season, AND wins its conference championship game in the unanimously determined toughest conference in college football, they are sure locks for at least one of the two spots in the national title game. For whatever reason, the voters felt Oklahoma should surge ahead of the Tigers just before Thanksgiving in 2004. The shift in voting that put the Sooners ahead prevented the Tigers from having their legitimate shot to prove they were the best team in the country.
It is important to keep from concentrating solely on how the Tigers were wronged. They were also really, REALLY good. The 13-0 record was no joke, as they navigated a very difficult SEC schedule. The first tough game of the season they defeated LSU at home 10-9. The next few tough games were not as close, traveling to Knoxville and beating a very good Tennessee team 34-10, then defeating other SEC West foes Arkansas, Kentucky, and Mississippi by a combined 115-44. Then they ended the season with three consecutive pressure-packed, all or nothing games. First they dominated Georgia 24-6, then traveled to beat hated rival Alabama 21-13 in the Iron Bowl before knocking off Tennessee for a second time 38-28 in the conference championship game.
Conventional thinking about an SEC team (and I am writing this from Ohio, so there is no pro SEC bias) is that SEC teams do not have to take on a tough non-conference schedule because they play eight of the toughest conference games of any team in the nation. I agree completely, and it was true in 2004, as well. The best team in the toughest conference that gets an added bonus of a win in the conference championship game should play in the national title. That simply was not the case in 2004.
The talent on the Auburn Tigers in 2004 was remarkable as well. A record four Auburn Tigers were drafted in the first round of the 2005 NFL draft. In fact, Auburn was the first program in the history of the SEC to have four players drafted in the first round of the NFL draft in the same season. Must have been a good team, eh? The players included three in the top ten: running back Ronnie Brown second, running back Cadillac Williams fifth and cornerback Carlos Rogers ninth. Quarterback Jason Campbell was also taken at pick number 25. The team had other good players, but the offense dominated and hogged the ball while the defense hit hard and held down some potent offenses. (Some people might forget that current New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs was also recruited to this Auburn team, but transferred to Southern Illinois because he could not find playing time.)
The 2004 Auburn Tigers are the best team never to win a national championship because they were penalized for their style. They were not a flashy team that ran up the score like the pass-happy Sooners or a nationally famous showy team like the Trojans. They were from a state that, at the time, had one AP vote (the AP used to comprise a third of the BCS formula in 2004). They did not have the pull to get in the title game, even if they did have the record and the talent.
When chatting with Bleacher Fan about the subject of my article there was some disagreement. Bleacher Fan seems to think that my argument must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Auburn WOULD have beaten Southern Cal if the title game included those two teams. While I do concede that the BCS failed to properly award a true national champion that season, I refuse to accept the idea that I must prove that one way or another. While I believe that Auburn’s prowess on the ground would have helped them control the clock and keep USC’s explosive offense on the sidelines, and that the Auburn secondary’s hard hitting and penchant for playmaking would have been difficult for USC to score 20+ points on, the fact that Auburn never even got to play in the game is indisputably the most overt injustice toward any team in the history of college football. They were never even afforded the opportunity to prove they belonged on the field – when they very much DID belong with the top programs in the country.
Perhaps a reason the Tigers are not top of everyone’s mind for this dubious moniker is because they were not in the championship game. However, their dynamic offense and fierce defense prove they were a good enough team to compete and win that game. The talent on the team is one of the best collections of offensive talent in the history of NCAA football. They were an undefeated team, an increasingly rare accomplishment in the modern era of college football. They were defeated by politics, not pigskin, and they were the best team never to win a title.
I don’t know why, but it seems that lately I have been agreeing with the Geek a lot! I do this time too, but it is really hard to overlook last year’s USC team!
You agree because you’re brilliant! The 2008 USC Trojans were excellent. But, as good as they were, they still blemished their record with a loss. Auburn didn’t!