different selectors chose a national champion in 2004, including two for us. Some will change their votes. Regardless, using decades of precedent by teams like Alabama, Notre Dame, Pittsburg, et al, even Utah would have a legit claim. There’s no doubt we do.

No parade, no fanfare. Just add it to the media guide next year. In a couple of years, it’s universally accepted. For the Bammer naysayers, we can just say that we learned from the best.

This is like living it all over again.
First of all, MY PERSONAL OPINION, I don’t want to be GIVEN anything. Auburn and its family is about HARD WORK and earning what you get. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the creed. For every fan who suffered through that season and watch a wholly overmatched Oklahoma squad get squashed by USC, it was torture not knowing what the AUsome Tigers could have done given the same opportunity. That being said, I don’t want some silly national title awrded to us by writers or anybodies opinion poll. Why?? In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter, really. Great teams are remembered regardless of where they finished in the polls. What people remember is what happened on the field…IN REALITY!!! People outside of Alabama still talk about the ‘83 Tigers and how they got robbed. They talk about Bo, Coach Dye and the Sugar Bowl and they talk about how Miami got something they didn’t really deserve. The same will be said about USC and Auburn in 2004. That season will long live in infamy with football fans for the grave injustice done to Auburn and will EVENTUALLY be a catalyst for a playoff of some sort…in my opinion, of course. Besides I believe most teams “bend” the rules to be competitive, Reggie Bush and Pete Carrol just outright destroyed the rules. I am sure if the NCAA went over our program, or ANY program for that matter, they could find a reason or two to find a player ineligible that played. So USC got caught and Oklahoma and AUburn didn’t get caught, it could have just as easily been the other way around. Just another reason I don’t think its right to strip the guys who played by the rules of the their title.
The bottom line, I don’t want something we didn’t win on the field, for all the above reasons and for all the reasons I dislike Alabama fans who crow about titles they never earned either. To me, if you aren’t USC, Texas, Oklahoma,Florida, Alabama, Ohio State, Michigan or Notre Dame, winning the BCS National title is the hardest goal to attain in all of sports beacuse you have to be dominant on the field AND in the art of politicizing your public image. While I detest the thought that politics largely determines who gets the opportunity to play for the National title, it also makes college football THE most passionate of sports in the United States. The system is flawed but, you have to admit, it makes us crazy about the sport. I love Auburn and winning a national championship would mean the world to me but I get absolutely zero satisfaction by getting it awarded to us. I couldn’t even wear a t shirt that said that because any football fan would know it wasn’t won on the field and that to me is all that matters.

I also ENJOYED that season more than any other in my, then 36 years, BUT for all the reasons you just stated Acid, I suffered knowing we were going to get screwed unless we showed without a shadow of a doubt how dominant we were. CTTdrove me absolutely banannas as he built a big half time lead and then sat on it the rest of the game most of the season.Sure that probably kept our guys fresh and decreased chances for injury but I can’t stand playing “not to lose” — it is an underdog’s/loser’s mentality and those guys were NOT losers!!
As we went into Amen corner, all the pundits said we had to dominate the rest of the way to jump Oklhoma in the polls and I agreed. Even though Oklahoma was stumbling to the finish line, most voteres weren’t going to let us jump them without proving we were the ones who deserved to take on USC. We had to climb the polls all season to get to number 3 at that point and we unfortunately took our foot off the gas at the most inopportune time. We could have easily beaten down UGA by a couple of more scores and the same for Bama and UT but CTT played it out hoping that winning would be enough. It wasn’t. If CTT had played the political side of going for the BCS game as well as the boys did playing the game on the field, there is no doubt we would in my mind we would have played USC.
But, oh well, I’m still amped up for the season and luckily the Chiz knows how that felt and I don’t thnk if he is going to let up if he gets that chance again.

this weekend. One of them stated that running the score up on an opponent was not the Auburn way. I couldn’t hold my tongue,
I had to let him know that running the score up on Furman would never be acceptable, but to hesitate against UGA or ‘Bama with all the marbles at stake, and at a school like Auburn, that has to fight for every inch of climbing in the polls anyway, was just irrational!
It’s one thing to put in the second string and they are good enough to score more points, it’s another to leave the first team in and just run between the tackles 3 times and then punt.

…..front. We didn’t let up on Ball State or Furman. Chizik did pull the starters, but the second string was still running the total package. There are guys that were allowed to run free those two days that we’ll NEED, this year. You can pull the starters, but keep running the real offense. Keep pouring it on.