...the drizzling rain, and I remember how we couldn't stop Bobby Humphrey.  But that was ok because they couldn't stop Brent Fullwood either.  Everyone remembers the Tillman reverse, but they forget that both Fullwood and Humphrey rushed for over 200 yards each in a duel for the ages.

I also remember a clutch catch by Trey Gainous (sp?) on either 4th down, or 3rd and long, that sustained the game winning drive.  When I got home and watched the recording, Keith Jackson had called Gainous 'Old Reliable'.

Also on the recording, after we scored the winning TD, the camera cut to the sideline and showed Pat Dye and QB coach Pat Sullivan jumping all over each other like a bunch of monkeys.  It was funny to see Dye show that much emotion.

Man, I feel old when I realize that the average Auburn student today wasn't even born when that game was played.  I feel about as old as Acid Reign...   :-)

.....I had to work during. I've burnt a week of vacation every Iron Bowl week, since! War Damn Eagle!

.....That game was depressing. We were catching total Hell at work, and the wheels had seemingly come off a promising Auburn season. We raced off to a 7-0 start, blowing folks out right and left. We were gunning for a national championship, but then the offense went in a shell, and we let Florida escape from a 17-0 deficit in the 4th quarter, to beat us 18-17. I STILL hate Kerwin Bell! A couple of weeks later, we fielded the worst rushing defense of the Wayne Hall era, and UGA dumped us 20-16. Then, Alabama was taking it to us. Work sucked. We sucked. Trailing 17-7 in the 4th quarter, it looked like we were done. I had a 1.75 liter of Cuervo at home, and I was going to drink it all, and not brush my teeth before going to church the next day. Any Bama fan gave me crap, they were getting a face full of foul!

.....Fullwood gashed us to within a field goal, then we got down to 4th down and 4. Was Dye really going to go for it? No way, I thought. They'll run the clock down, trying to draw Bama off, and we won't have time to get the ball back. What, he's going to PASS on 4th down? Gainous! Shreeeeeek! I damaged one of my earbuds, and had to listen to the rest of the game on just one ear, with the volume on Jim Fyffe wide open.

.....Under an minute, and they're running an end-around, to Lawyer Tillman? What? Offensive linemen can outrun Tillman! Touchdowwwwwwwn Auburn! Yeah, I went nuts!

.....Some of the older guys at the plant love to tell the newbs about how, after that game, the boss turned a water hose on himself for about ten minutes, screaming "War Eagle!" at the top of his lungs!

.....but he was never fast. "Oh, my. Heavens to Betsy!  Tillman, Tillman, Tillman! Touchdowwwwnnnnn, Auburn!" Tillman was a giant in the 1980s, stout enough to shake off any defender. And he had hands of glue. Oh, I SO wish we had a set of hands like that on the offense, now!

.....I really started paying attention to Auburn in the 1970s. Even on good years, we'd tend to tank at the end of the year. There were some stinker years, to be sure, but it was not all bad.

1970. Close loss to LSU, Sullivan repeatedly throws it up for grabs loss to UGA, but, we were 7-2 going into the Iron Bowl, and rallied from a 17-0 deficit to beat Bama. Then we won a wild shootout with Archie Manning in the Gator Bowl.

1971. Rolled out to a 9-0 start, and Pat Sullivan won a Heisman. The year was horribly tainted, though, when we stunk it up against Bama, then Oklahoma, in the Sugar Bowl. HOW did we win nine games?

1972. Didn't expect much, but we somehow put Tennessee down for the third year in a row. We got seriously stomped in Baton Rouge, 35-7, but no one else could put us down. Bama thought they had us, then Punt-Bama-Punt happened. We finished by totally throttling Colorado in the Gator. Great, great year.

1974. 21-0 over UT with Condrege Holloway, early. An ugly loss on TV in Gainesville, but we ran the rest of the table in route to the Iron Bowl. We lost a classic grudge match in that one. Thomas Gossom caught a BEAUTIFUL long-range TD strike from Phil Gargis late in the game, to seemingly put us up 19-17, but it was called back because a Bama defender had shoved Gossom out of bounds off the line. You couldn't come back in and catch it, in those days. We took a good Darrel Royal Texas team apart 27-3 in the Gator Bowl.

1979. A bit of ugly, mixed with a lot of good. Ugly: a 35-17 loss to a mediocre Tennessee team. Worse: blowing a 38-21 halftime lead against Wake Forest, and losing 42-38. Good: Charles Thomas running the option. Better: Cribbs and Brooks both over a thousand yards rushing. Best: Big Frank Warren breaking Buck Belue's arm on TV. That gets better and better, every time I hear Belue's mouth! We lost another knock-down, drag-out war against Bama. They did what a national champion has to do, drive the length of the field late for the winning TD. Probation negated any bowl game, that year. I had broken my foot on a trampoline, that year, and couldn't march. Instead, I was there every home game on a student ticket, a pint of Bacardi stuffed down the trousers. A LOT of offense, in 1979...

.....In my early internet days, I was trying out Realplayer. I dialed up some Belue show. It was 1998, and Belue was really giving Terry Bowden the business.  About recruiting, discipline, scheme, arrogance, you name it. I suppose, in retrospect, he was absolutely right about it all. Didn't make it any easier to hear, from a UGA star!

.....Also, in 1979, I had some UGA grad family give me some serious jawing, at a summer family reunion. Belue was going to shred us, UGA was going to kill us, etc. Well, we knocked him out early, and put a 33-13 hurting on 'em, in Sanford Stadium, on TV. I was watching on the communal TV at Dorm 7, and we were going nuts!