Review the Rivalry: Auburn Tigers

by BirdGT on Aug 16, 2011 8:00 AM EDT in Georgia Tech Football

Rivalry Overview: Auburn leads the series 47-41-4 with the first game between both squads being played in 1892. Tech won the most recent affairs in 2003 and 2005. Tech's secondmost played series was a staple on the schedule from 1902-1987. When Tech joined the ACC, Tech planned on playing a 7-game ACC slate by 1988. The series contract originally expired in 1985 but Tech and Auburn agreed to extend it two more years via an option in the contract. At the time of the contract's expiration, Tech was playing Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, and Georgie every season. A supposed home and home series was scheduled in 1992 but the games were never played.

What Makes the Series a Rivalry: Proximity. Only 108 miles separate the two schools. Frequency. The two teams have met 92 times. Competitive balance. The average margin of victory was +0.7 points in Auburn's favor. It wasn't until Tech's program was in the dumps of the 80's did Auburn really start to dominate Tech on the field. Tradition. Tech fans love tradition and Auburn is a traditional rival of Tech's.

Personal Rivalry: I never really had a problem with Auburn until 2008 because we had so soundly dominated them in 2003 and 2005. Keep in mind I was a toddler when we played them in the 80's. I started working with a NC State grad coworker who was also an Auburn fan. I heard about Cadillac, Ronnie Brown, Pat Dye, Jason Campbell, Pat Nix, Bo Jackson, etc. on a daily basis. All he heard from me was "17-3" and "23-14". Fuel really got thrown on the fire when he chose to incessantly text me during Tech's debacle of a 2010 season while Auburn paid for a national title.

What are your thoughts on Auburn? When did you feel the rivalry between Tech and Auburn?

Tweet Comment 12 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

There's a lot more to it

At the time annual games were stopped it was the oldest continuous rivalry in the South.

The story (true or not is irrelevant) is that In 1896, for the first game played in Auburn (at what was, until 1960, officially named Alabama Polytechnic Institute), Tech traveled by train. Some Auburn students went out in the middle of the night and greased the rails. When the Tech train arrived it couldn’t stop and overshot the station by five miles. The Tech team had to walk back to town and were beaten 45-0.

This led to the annual Wreck Tech parade at Auburn, a night-time event in which the students marched in their pajamas.

The series was Auburn was still pretty much even going into the dark, dark Bill Curry years, and we were robbed of our chance to even it up.

I grew up in Georgia, but I was close enough that it was “War Eagle” country, especially with Pat Sullivan and “Punt Bama Punt” being recent memories.

I’ve been to a few games there. When I was a young Boy Scout I was an usher at what was then Hare Stadium (Jordan was still the coach). I went to a match summer camp there while I was in high school (and I first saw Star Wars in an Auburn theater). You’d think that I’d at least have some nice feelings for the town and the school.

You’d be wrong.

While of course I consider Georgia to be our #1 rival, I have had family members go to school there, they are in a great state, and they do have a couple of decent schools.

I have nothing good to say about Auburn. I can’t watch the Auburn/Georgia game, because, as much as I love seeing Georgia lose, I hate seeing Auburn win. I can’t stand them. I can’t stand their uniforms. I can’t stand their fans. I can’t stand the thought of them.

I forgot to mention that they pretend to be an engineering school.

by CraigT on Aug 16, 2011 8:45 AM EDT reply actions

2003, 2005

booyah

Better to have died a small boy than to drop this football - John Heisman FromTheRumbleSeat

Twitter, twitter, twitter

by Winfield Featherston on Aug 16, 2011 9:07 AM EDT reply actions

At first, I thought you had a typo

…while Auburn paid for a national title.

I was halfway through the next sentence when it dawned on me. You’re a funny guy.

by acedarney on Aug 16, 2011 9:53 AM EDT reply actions

I've always thought we had much in co

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Aug 16, 2011 11:51 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

Common

Both Tech and Auburn have to live in the shadow of the BIG State school in CFB. It is much more so for AU in arguably the most CFB mad state in the Nation (no pro teams, Bear, multiple Natl Championships, etc). I mean they poison trees there over rivalries!

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Aug 16, 2011 11:56 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Difference is...

…they stayed in the SEC and win enough games to have bjillions of fans and make buckets of money. We play in the shadow of a larger state school but left its conference and therefore do not present an interesting enough product relative to them to garner a fanbase of any notable size…and we no longer make money.

Nevertheless, I’m a Ramblin Reck forever and there’s no one else I’d want to root for!

by GT_Jason on Aug 16, 2011 12:09 PM EDT up reply actions

Tech tried to maintain SEC rivalries

When Tech left the SEC I was among fans who thought it was a tragic mistake. Now, I don’t think it was as bad as I feared. When I was a kid, the rivalry with Tennessee was a big deal. Bobby Dodd had played for the Vols and the GT-Tenn of 1956 was my first Tech game. My cousins from LaGrange went to Auburn and others went to UGA. Those were the rivalries I wanted to keep going after we split with SEC. Later, I thought the Alabama game was a big deal.

So, when Tech said they would try to maintain the Auburn and Tennessee games, I was very happy. (At least with that aspect of becoming an independent) Later, when we joined the ACC, our program had gone separate ways with the SEC taking off with huge money deals and us looking forward to playing new rivals. I think we simply ran out of dates to play SEC teams. We had seven ACC games, plus UGa. In those days we only played ten games and we wanted to have at least one easy game, plus we wanted to play Notre Dame occasionally. It made scheduling Auburn and Tennessee every year impossible.

Since I have relatives from Auburn, I have to careful how to say this. Auburn will always be in the shadow of Bama. The legislature will never let Auburn outdistance the state’s flagship university. In that sense they are VERY similar to Ga Tech. Their engineering school is better than you might think. I hired a few Auburn EE majors at my job and they were good guys who knew what they were doing.

I hope they can continue to avoid the eyes of the NCAA, but the Cam Newton thing last year stretched my ability to think positively of the school. Plus, the overall academic requirements in Alabama are so much lower than GT standards that we were constantly playing at a disadvantage. Personally, I am happy playing in the ACC and no longer miss these games with SEC teams.

Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?

by orientalnc on Aug 16, 2011 1:24 PM EDT reply actions

For me it is only a nostaligia thing

from another era, another life, relived in faded yellow newspaper articles and old game day programs with funny looking mascots that also have been abandoned to the modern era.

An Auburn fan in high school once bet me a quarter that Auburn would whip Tech. Auburn was heavily favored but I took the bet just because I hated the smugness of it all. It was 1968 and Tech pulled off the upset. Yelling “war eagle” is still to me even more obnoxious than woofing like a dog.

by Atlanta's original team on Aug 16, 2011 5:42 PM EDT reply actions

The Auburn series

I remember the 1987 Tech-Auburn game. I was with my Auburn girlfriend in the stands, she had her Tiger Rags “Wreck Tech Once And For All” shirt on. Curry and the Curry Auburn curse had moved on to Bama, and we had a chance in Ross’s first year to beat Auburn. We almost had that game won—I can’t remember the details, but we lost that game in the last couple minutes of the game. AARRRGGHHH!!!

All the kids in school in ‘03 never knew how much that ’03 win meant to all the alumni who remembered the winding down of what was Tech’s longest continuously-running series—longer than georgie—especially the last 8 games being losses to Auburn that we couldn’t avenge at the time. And then to beat them again in ’05! You could shut up a lot of Auburn fans by reminding them that we beat them. Twice. With Chan Gailey. And Reggie Ball.

georgie then moved into the longest continuously running series, and Puke into second (every year since 1933).

by jabbajacket on Aug 16, 2011 11:56 PM EDT reply actions