Auburn Tigers Versus The NCAA, The SEC, Alabama, and The World

The countdown is underway; the Iron Bowl draws near.  A wave of hysteria has once again gripped the state of Alabama and yet for once the hype matches the merit of the football game.  Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa will be the scene of a titanic clash between last year’s BCS national champion and one of this season’s contenders.  And once more the Auburn Tigers find it is them against the world.

Forget about the Vegas spread.  Many Tiger fans are perplexed why the No. 2 team in the BCS is an underdog and in some regards with good reason.  Last year, an Auburn team that was not as good as this year’s squad took the Crimson Tide down to the wire before letting victory slip away at the end.  Make no mistake, the Alabama team of this season is not as good as the one from last year.

Yet had any Auburn fan been polled before this year’s season kicked off, they would have been shocked to have the line at anything less than 10 points.  The current line has been hovering in the vicinity of five points.  Auburn is getting plenty of respect in Vegas.  On a neutral field, this game would be a pick’em.

Set aside as well the various sports writer predictions.  Most of those picking against Auburn simply are not sold on the Tiger defense.  Although some think the Alabama defense will stop Cam Newton, the reputable writers are questioning whether the Tiger defense will make enough stops to affect the outcome.

No, the real reasons most of America are rooting against Auburn is jealousy, envy, opportunism and paranoia. 

Many college football fans will be pulling against the Tigers in hopes of seeing their team in the BCS national title game or perhaps newcomer schools like Boise State or Texas Christian University from the non-AQ conference.  Others hope that an Auburn defeat will limit the SEC to a single BCS bowl appearance, opening the door for schools from other conferences to cash in on the big bowl paydays.

Others will pull against the Tigers in hopes of keeping the SEC from getting a shot at securing its fifth consecutive BCS national title.  Indeed, animosity against the SEC is so high in certain parts of the nation that some fans would like nothing more than to see the footballs teams of all twelve of the conference schools disappear over the Bermuda Triangle.

Within the Southeastern Conference are teams like Alabama, Florida and LSU who are desperate enough to prevent a changing of the guard that they will stoop to new lows to discredit the Tigers by passing of unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo as fact even to the point that it opens their own programs up to NCAA scrutiny.

There are also the BCS busters who want to see the entire national championship picture muddled up in some twisted vision of football Armageddon in hopes of getting a playoff that will in all likelihood just open a new can of worms as stinky as the current system.

Finally, there are the paranoid legions of misguided people that accept the flawed logic of “where there is smoke there is fire.”  These are the people so concerned about the “good names” of the NCAA and BCS that they are willing to countenance punishing the Tigers even though no evidence of wrong doing has yet been tied to Auburn University and any allegations against the Newtons are tied specifically to a different institution (nor have those accusations been proven yet either). 

The last group is the saddest of all because if their own team was the subject of this witch hunt, they would be screaming about the injustice of it all.  They are all the more pathetic because they have lost any sense of justice, or even patience.

No, neither an NCAA investigation nor the media are burdened by judicial requirements like the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” and yet that very idea is the cornerstone of the America understanding of fair play.  When people are willing to jettison the prior presumption of innocence in a stampede to justice caused by little more than fear and unsubstantiated allegations, America and college athletics become increasingly hollow. 

Auburn fans have been accused throughout the past month of being paranoid and perhaps they have been, but who can blame them. The press has been more than happy to stir the pot despite a lack of any compelling evidence against the Newtons or the Tigers.  Yes, the FBI and the NCAA is involved, but the nature of their investigations is unknown and the same goes for their findings to date.

There is also a perception that both the media and many in college football are desperate to validate non-AQ schools.  Derailing the Tigers by any means necessary may give BSU and TCU title shots as well as strengthen the campaigns of their Heisman Trophy candidates. 

When Auburn takes the field tomorrow afternoon in Tuscaloosa to take on their bitter cross-state rivals, they will do so with little support but that coming from the Tiger faithful.  The green eyes of the nation will watch the game brimming with a fervent desire to see the Tigers fall before the Crimson Tide.  The battle tomorrow has all of the trappings of a Greek battle.

Will the Tigers find their Thermopylae or their Marathon?