Not No.1,

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Not No.1, but Auburn's a team like none other

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

When does sympathy sound like a symphony?

When you lose to no one and you're not No.1. When you're undefeated and unrecognized but far from unloved.

When you're the 13-0 Auburn football team of 2004.

This will forever be the little team that couldn't.

Couldn't lose at all. Couldn't win it all. Couldn't walk away with its head held any higher if it did.

Figures. The best thing that ever happened to Tommy Tuberville was getting fired but getting to stay. The best thing that ever happened to his team was not losing a game and not winning the national championship.

Who better than the Tigers to turn lemons into Toomer's Drugstore lemonade?

This Auburn team is special in a way that a team that gets handed the AP and BCS trophies after its bowl game isn't.

These Tigers will be known as the team that changed the system. They will be remembered as the team that did everything it could do and had nothing to show for it and showed nothing but class.

They will go down in history as no Auburn team ever has or ever will.

They didn't finish first, but the memory of these nice guys will last. They're the third SEC team to go 13-0 - after Alabama 1992 and Tennessee 1998 - but the first to go 13-and-no.

The Tigers proved the folly of polls and rankings better than any team that's come before. Barely ranked in the top 20 to start the season, they finished it with victories over four teams ranked in the top 10, with four wins over teams that ended with 10 wins.

If changing an unfair but powerful system weren't enough, this Auburn team completed a major overhaul of the balance of power in this state.

Since Paul Bryant arrived to tilt the world toward Tuscaloosa, there's never been this big a gap between Auburn and Alabama with Auburn on top.

The Tigers have won 15 straight games. They've won three straight bowl games, two of them played in January. They've beaten Alabama three straight and four out of five.

And their coach is the national coach of the year.

Look around the SEC. Examine the competition. It's not a stretch to say Tuberville is the best coach in the division, as good a coach as there is in the entire league.

Hey, it's been three years since Steve Spurrier won a college football game. And he never went 13-0.

Across the state, Alabama hasn't had a winning season in three years, with just two winning seasons in the last five. Alabama has a head coach with promise but little experience and few credentials.

For the longest time, Auburn strived to be considered Alabama's equal and seemed content when it got there. No longer.

The upper hand can change hands in 60 minutes, but at the moment, Auburn and Alabama are not equal. It's not even close, and there's no sign that anything will change anytime soon.

No team has suffered more this season than Alabama. But in the end, the sympathy vote, like 13 scoreboards, belonged to Auburn.

Kevin Scarbinsky's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Write him at kscarbinsky@bhamnews.com.

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If Shula loses the next Iron Bowl he's gone. No doubt. I'd like to think Bill Curry would visit T'town to offer disaster relief aid to Shula, I think it's that bad. bammars aren't going to take 4 straight Iron Bowl defeats very lightly.

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If Shula loses the next Iron Bowl he's gone.  No doubt.  I'd like to think Bill Curry would visit T'town to offer disaster relief aid to Shula, I think it's that bad.  bammars aren't going to take 4 straight Iron Bowl defeats very lightly.

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In that case, I hope they go through SIX coaches in the next 18 - 20 years.