Sideline Warning

Alabama fans are often accused of “living in the past”. Of course, the simple fact is that there’s nowhere else to live. Living in the present is fun, but once a game is over it’s really in the past. Living in the future is much happier, but doesn’t really impress anyone.

Most people draw artificial lines to separate the “present” from the “past”, and it typically coincides with their recent runs of success being “present” and everything prior being “past.” Fact is, though, that everyone who has a past of any import remembers it, is proud of it, and talks about it. Any sane Auburn fan would trade their last five years for Alabama’s history. Why? Because success and failure come and go, but what’s done is done.

There’s another benefit to not ignoring the past: perspective. Those who spend too much time harping on the pseudo-present end up, like a lot of Auburn fans have, losing all sense of perspective. See, e.g., Jay Coulter’s breathless puff-piece on the media’s take on Saban and Alabama. They assume that because a team has had some bad years that their time has passed, that they’re “washed up”, or that they’re “has beens”. I call it The Auburn Delusion.

Taking a look a little more closely at the Coulter piece, we see some old hallmarks of The Auburn Delusion:

1. Creative Use of Statistics:

If you’re an outsider and new to the state, you probably don’t know that Auburn has won 21 of its last 24 SEC games and is riding a 33-5 record over the past three years.

Those numbers are correct. Of course, if you include 2003 the number of losses double and beyond 2004 you have to go back to 1997 to find the last time Auburn lost fewer than four games in a season. Same story with conference games, Auburn with 5-3 in 2003, 2002, and 2001; 6-2 in 2000, 2-6 in 1999, and 1-7 in 1998.

2. A Stunning Lack of Perspective:

Tommy Tuberville’s group takes a back seat to no one – including Alabama. That’s why Tuscaloosa is putting up the big bucks. This battle has gotten away from them.

O Rly? As it turns out, a five game winning streak isn’t even vaguely impressive in the Alabama/Auburn series, but don’t tell that to any Auburn fans. In fact, Auburn’s done the 5-in-a-row thing before. If they win again this November, it’ll be their longest winning streak over Alabama ever… and it still won’t be impressive. Alabama has won 9 in a row, and 9-out-of-10 two times. And yet, Auburn has managed to return to prominence and make runs for the MNC, the People’s Championship, and the SEC Title. A streak in this series isn’t impressive until you get a little closer to the decade mark.

3. Outlandish Exaggerations

[Alabama has] pushed all their chips to the middle of the table – all $32 million of them and bet on one person. This is not lost on the college football world. When you are in a high stakes poker game, you get your picture on the cover of magazines.

“All their chips”? Really? I wasn’t aware that the Athletic Department was down to its last dime. The fact of the matter is that Alabama could afford to spend 8 million a year on their coach. The numbers shock some people, yes, but this is far from some last ditch effort to return to prominence. Alabama paid what it had to pay to get the best coach on the market. If that makes the program washed up, then Mr. Coulter has some bad news to break to successful business people everywhere.

4. Outright Falsities

These are high stakes times for a once proud football program. Give Alabama credit. Their Sports Information Department has been mega successful this year – Saban could take lessons from them. They’ve managed to ratchet up the hype and get the entire country to buy in.

The stakes aren’t really that high. Fans realize that this is will be a year with some good games and some bad games. Nobody (aside from message board idiots) really expects the Tide to even sniff 10 wins this year. It’s going to take some time to get back to the top of the West, the SEC, and the country and nobody is more aware of that fact than the Alabama fan-base. Further, hype isn’t generated by schools, it’s generated by the media and, quite frankly, if Mr. Coulter thinks “the entire country” has bought in, he hasn’t been reading enough.

Does this mean that Auburn hasn’t had a great run over the past three or four years? Of course it doesn’t. Auburn has won a lot of games, they’ve been, year-in and year-out, one of the best teams in the conference. They’ve basically owned Alabama and they’ve had success in the post-season. It does, however, effectively illustrate the nature of The Auburn Delusion. I wonder: did people like Coulter just start watching football after the turn of the century, or have they conveniently forgotten the things on the other side of Y2K?

Or maybe I shouldn’t ask that question… does it out me as someone who’s “living in the past”?