In honor of the "last" game in this annual rivarly: Auburn, Alabama. If there wasn't a large university there, it would probably be just some other small Alabama city that you don't give much thought to as you pass by it on the interstate. But there is a university there, and in this town of 35,000, you'll also find the largest football venue in the state, 85,000 seat Jordan-Hare Stadium. For years the Auburn Tigers were the football nomads of the South. SEC football started in 1933, and during its first six years, the Tigers played only four games in Auburn (with three of those games being played against some school named Oglethorpe). From 1933 through '39, AU played in such cities as Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Detroit and San Francisco. During this stretch the Tigers played in 22 different towns. Twenty-three if you count their January '37 trip to Havana, Cuba for the Bacardi Bowl (Bacardi Bowl?). Normally an Auburn "home game" was played in Montgomery or Birmingham. The Tigers played on the road constantly during this period for two reasons, they didn't have much of a home field and secondly, not many schools wanted to travel to Auburn, Alabama. Auburn officials knew they had to have a legitimate football stadium to compete athletically and financially with the rest of the conference (plus they were tired of having homecoming in Montgomery). So in 1939 they started to construct one. Jeff Beard, Auburn's assistant track coach (and future AU athletic director) drove the first stake to mark off the stadium and his brother Percy (who later would have the UF track field named after him) did the surveying. Convicts from a local prison did the grading. On November 30, 1939, 7,290 seat (with all the seats being on the west side), Auburn stadium, complete with a track, was ready to open. The Tiger's opponents this day? None other than the University of Florida . The Gators had to dress in their hotel in Opelika and ride to the game in their uniforms, because Auburn's field house wasn't ready yet (field house or not, what really must have stunk is, the fact there were only two public restrooms in the whole town, both at gas stations). In 1940, 4,500 wooden seats were added to the stadium's east side. The east stands lasted until 1949, when they were torn down and replaced by 14,000 new seats. It was also the year that the place was renamed Cliff Hare Stadium. In honor of Cliff Hare who played on Auburn's first football team and was the long time chairman of the Auburn faculty athletic committee. He was also at one point the mayor of Auburn (I guess he ran on the "Bring More Bathrooms to Auburn" ticket). Over the next two decades expansion continued. 14,000 west stand seats and a new pressbox were added in 1955 and in 1960 the south end zone was enclosed. According to Van Plexico, an Auburn alum and Jordan-Hare buff, the end zone seats were built over the track encircling the field, thus forcing the runners to disappear from view for part of their run, and making the track coach a nervous wreck. Though the expansions continued, the bias some schools had against travelling to Auburn for a game continued. From 1939 through 1959, Auburn played only 47 games at Cliff Hare Stadium and just 17 of them were against SEC foes (with UF being involved in 7 of them). But in 1960, things would begin to change. Georgia, who the Tigers had met in neutral Columbus, GA almost every year from 1916 until 1958, were finally coming to Auburn for a game. The 9-6 Tiger triumph that day (thanks to a field goal with only :45 remaining) was one of four AU victories of less then three points that year. By the time Georgia Tech (Oh yes, the Jackets. They last time they'd come to Auburn was in 1899. After that trip, Tech and Auburn played 56 straight times in Atlanta. In 1960 AU moved their "home" game to Birmingham) and LSU, made their inaugural trips to the Plains in 1970, the stadium capacity was over 61,000. In 1974, Tennessee, after meeting Auburn in either Birmingham or Atlanta for years, finally showed up at Jordan-Hare (the stadium was re-dedicated Jordan-Hare in 1973 to honor head coach Ralph 'Shug' Jordan). That same year a west side upper deck was completed, increasing the seating to 72,167. In 1981, Pat Dye was hired as Auburn head coach and he ordered hedges planted around the sidelines of the stadium (similar to the ones at his alma mater, Georgia). The hedges in Jordan-Hare are a little different then the ones in Athens, first off, their leaves have sharp edges to them and secondly, they are thicker then Sanford's. In 1994, I was in Jordan-Hare filming a Public Service Announcement with Auburn football player Andy Fuller. We were shooting down on the field and as I was standing near the hedge when I accidentally brushed up against them. They were sharp as hell (razor wire has nothing on these plants). I asked the Jordan-Hare groundskeeper, Robert Sexton if anyone ever tried to run through the hedges to get on the field after the game. "Everyone once in awhile you'll get some kid who thinks he's ol' Jim Beam himself and try to make it through, but they don't get too far", he said. "Because it's so sharp?", I asked. "That, and because of this", at that moment he pulled the branches back to reveal a chain link fence that ran right through the center of the thick hedge. I could just envision some poor, drunk students caught in the middle of that brush. The hedges mustn't have been too thick in November of 1986, because that's when a bunch of poor, drunk University of Georgia students stormed the field following the Dawgs 20-16 upset win over Auburn. In his book "Auburn-Georgia Football", George Scherer describes the scene like this: "Jubilant Georgians, frustrated by three straight losses to Auburn, raced on the field to celebrate. Ignoring repeated demands to clear the field, the frantic fans began tearing up pieces of turf, while those remaining in the stands cheered them on. At that point, Auburn officials resorted to a long-standing, but never used policy of turning on the sprinkler system in hopes of controlling the crowd. Fights broke out, bottles and flower pots were thrown. With those remaining in the stands growing more rowdy, the sprinklers were turned on them as well. At least 38 fans were escorted from the field in handcuffs and one of them on a stretcher." Scherer goes on to tell an interesting story about who decided to turn the hoses on the Dawgs: "Ironically, the man who ordered the sprinklers turned on was Auburn Director of Operations Kermit Perry, who graduated from Georgia and was business manager in the athletic department there from 1971-79. Perry even went to Dooley and advised him about what they were going to do, but in his excitement over the victory, Dooley was in no position to understand the situation. 'Kermit Perry came up to me...and said something about using the hoses,' Dooley said recently. 'I said "All right, that's fine"'". (You know old Vince is an Auburn grad, maybe that's his way of saying "War Eagle") Another game worth storming the field over was the 1989 Auburn/Alabama game. The circle was now complete for the Tigers, with Bama coming to the Plains, every conference school had now played in Jordan-Hare. Prior to the start of the '89 season the Tiger faithful pointed to the Bama game. This was their chance to get the Tide in Auburn territory (which had grown larger with a '87 addition of an east side upper deck). Auburn entered the '89 season looking for their third straight conference championship and 4th consecutive victory over Alabama. But you know a funny thing happened that year, it was Alabama who looked like champions and the Tigers who looked like an after thought. The Tide came in to the historic game 10-0 and ranked #2 in the country. Auburn wa 9-2 and ranked 11th. There was a very real possibility that the Tigers would lose on what was supposed to be a very special day. In the book "The Uncivil War", by Scott Brown and Will Collier, Collier writes about what this game really meant: "There was more on the line that day than a football game. This was the time for Auburn to put up or shut up. If the Tigers had collapsed, it would have opened a wound that would never close. The team and the coaches knew it. None of them wanted to be remembered as the guys who lost to Alabama on the occasion of the First Time Ever." Auburn's fears provided to be unwarranted as a record crowd of 85,319 watched the Tigers win 30-20. As a Gator, Jordan-Hare has always been a house of horrors for me. The first time I ever drove in to Auburn I noticed tiger paws painted on the road leading to campus. I half-expected to see skeletons of Gators lining the roadside. After our 7-7 tie in the stadium's first game (and even that was a game we let Auburn come back and salvage a tie) in 1939, it would be 33 years (and 12 losses later) until the Gators would win there. Steve Spurrier never won as a player there, neither did John Reaves, or even Chuck Hunsinger. It is a cursed place and it's driven me to drink (fortunately it wasn't that far of a drive). Shall we take a stroll down memory lane? Let's start with the 1951 game. With a 13-7 lead late in the contest all UF needed to do was get a punt off. We didn't. Auburn blocked it and scored the winning touchdown a short time later. The 1983 game featured 51 players who would go on to play in the NFL. One of those players, Neal Anderson scored a touchdown to cut the Auburn lead to 21-14. Unfortunately for those wearing the correct shades of orange and blue, the official didn't see it this way. He ruled that Neal had fumbled just before he crossed the goal line. The ball rolled out of the back of the endzone, thus giving possession to the Tigers. On the next play Bo "In the only game he ever did anything against UF" Jackson ran 80 yards to give AU a 28-7 lead. The Tigers would eventually win 28-21. In 1989, with under a minute to play the Gators led 7-3. Auburn was down to their last play. It was 4th and a taxi ride for the Tigers. Somehow not only did they manage to pick up enough yardage for the first down, they actually scored! I fell to the ground as if I'd been shot (The '94 Auburn loss caused the same reaction, but coupled with ten minutes of moaning).. ...And let's not forget the worst game of them all, the 1993 debacle. Here's the situation: I'm in Maryland's Byrd Stadium watching an 0-5 Terp squad battle a 1-4 Duke team (Hey, Auburn was on probation so the UF-AU game wasn't on TV. I had no way of watching it). I'm on a pay-phone getting updates from a friend in Florida. We are up 10-0 and driving for another score when Danny Wuerffel throws an interception that's returned for a touchdown. This was the start of a crappy day. Everytime I'd call my buddy He'd have bad news for me. With UF down 35-27 midway through the 4th, I finally just left the stadium and decided to go home. As I was walking across campus I decided to make one last call, which allowed me to find out we'd tied the game. I had my friend put the phone up to the radio so I could listen to the last few minutes of the game. I don't know what's worse, being at a game and having your team lose on a last second field goal or being in Maryland's Student Union and having your team lose on a last second field goal. To this day I can't walk in to Byrd Stadium without thinking of Auburn (maybe that's why I rarely go there). Then there was the '81 game, a 14-12 loss were Tony Lilly picked a fumble out of the air and returned it for a touchdown, but the officials mistakenly called the play back, and let's not forget the 26-21 loss in 1967 (Actually let's forget that game, I'm getting ill thinking of these losses). Overall the Gators haven't fared as bad as some teams at Auburn. Georgia is the only visiting team to have won more games in the stadium then UF (10 wins for the Dawgs as opposed to 6 for the Gators). Florida State is 1-10-1 there (though I'm sure in true Nole fashion they count their tie as a win), and Bama is still looking for their first victory on the Plains. Oh there are some good memories that derive from Jordan-Hare. The '85, win that catapulted us to our first #1 ranking. The '91, 31-10 laugher, the '95 win (which we trailed 10-0 less then three minutes in to the game and still came back to score the most points a visitor has ever scored against AU at J-H in regulation time) and last year's stirring win all make me smile, but still it's hard to get sentimental over a place that's brought me so much anxiety (and the Rolaids company so much business). But through all the hell the place has brought, I can look back fondly at an Auburn game I remember well. It was October of 1990, I was in the old C.J.'s in Gainesville (the one on Archer road, not the new one. Hell, I didn't even recognize the new one when I was in there. It had plants hanging from the ceiling, my feet didn't stick to the ground and it didn't smell like Bourbon Street on a Sunday morning). It was UF's Homecoming weekend. I was glad to be back at my school, I was glad to be with friends and I was glad I had this doozy of a game to watch. The C.J.'s crowd was in a festive mood, but I couldn't say the same for the crowd in Jordan-Hare that night. Midway through the 4th quarter Auburn was trailing FSU 17-10, and it wasn't anywhere near as close as the score would indicate. Auburn was fortunate to be trailing by only seven. The Noles had the ball in Auburn territory and a field goal would probably be enough to "ice" the game. But Saint Bobby wasn't content to settle for a field goal, he had to dig in to his bag of tricks and try the old "fumblerooski". Well fumble was the right word, because the play didn't work and Auburn recovered the loose ball. The play brought the crowd and the Tiger team alive. They quickly drove for the tying touchdown. With 3:47 left, the visitors from Tally still had plenty of time to mount a drive and score. They managed to get the ball down to the Auburn 37, where they were faced with a 4th and 5. St. Bob decided to go for it and called a pass play. Nole quarterback Casey Weldon mustn't haven't heard the "pass" part of the call, because all he did was drop back, and drop back and drop back, until he was finally sacked for a 22 yard loss (you'd think on a field built by criminals, FSU would've had an advantage). Auburn had 1:10 to operate with and they managed to move in to field goal range. With :06 left, Jim Von Wyl booted the winning field goal for the Tigers. Auburn radio commentator Jim Fyffe called the final play of the game like this: "There's a little dribbling kick down the middle of the field, they didn't kick it long, time is out, didn't give them a chance to run it back, it's over, it's over, War Eagle, 20 to 17, Auburn has defeated Florida State, ladies and gentlemen let it all hang out, little Jim Von Wyl, soccer style kicker, Akron, Ohio, wins another one for the Auburn Tigers...the celebrating goes on, the Florida State people are in stunned silence, the Auburn people are going crackers. Nobody has moved, they're all standing and cheering and celebrating, they all want to be part of this. This is one of the most beautiful moments that you can possibly experience in sports, ladies and gentlemen, this is what you dream about, this is why you play, this is why you work so hard, this is Auburn, unmatched anywhere. 20 Auburn, 17 Florida State." Jordan-Hare Stadium is truly one of a kind. And thank God for that.