So I picked up this YouTube clip of ESPN’s “Images of the Decade” from the Georgia Sports Blog, and they’re right, it is exceptional. But see if you can spot anything missing:
No Cadillac. No Ronnie. No Jason. No Carlos. Or Marcus or Junior or Courtney. Nothing from 2004. Unless the half-second juke from … someone at the 1:10 mark is from that magical season. Even if it is, does it count when even I can’t tell you for certain who it is?
OK, so it’s very likely Ben Obomanu, No. 2 on the ’04 squad. (Though whether it’s from ’04 or ’02 is anyone’s guess). Still: all the other great college football teams of the decade have their easily-identifiable inclusion here. Coker’s Miami. Stoops’s Oklahoma. Tressel’s miracle Bucks. Carroll’s USC with Leinart and Bush. Meyer’s Florida. Even LSU’s championship teams have a 2003 Sugar Bowl clip and Les Miles’ “Have a nice day.” But the decade’s first and until 2009 only undefeated SEC team? Either bupkis, or the closest possible thing to bupkis.
This is where anyone reading who’s not an Auburn fan rolls their eyes and asks why I’m whining about something so trivial. And I say because that team deserves to be a part of the college football historical landscape represented by a clip like this. Cadillac and Ronnie were important. Jason Campbell was important. The win over LSU and the pass to Taylor that made it happen: important. At least as important as many of the teams and players featured in that clip. And they’re not treated that way by the people who are writing the history of that decade, not here or elsewhere, because they didn’t have their big capital-M Moment in the championship game they were denied by a stupid, stupid system with two holes for three pegs. As a result, even when they do make a cameo in the best-of-the-decade retrospectives, it’s as a cautionary tale, as the hard-luck example-of-what’s-wrong-with-the-system, which is nice but is very different from being remembered as what they are: a great, great football team made up of great, great football players.
So this is where anyone reading who’s not an Auburn fan rolls their eyes so hard they’re examining their own optic nerves, and says So you’re still whining about 2004, then? Yes, I am, because that’s what that team deserves. They can have their history. Fine, whatever. But that only means we have to write ours all the more loudly, all the more often. Some things are worth whining about.
I’ll never stop being mad about it. Never. Those seasons don’t come around often. I’ll tell my grandkids I was there for every one, but I’ll never be able to explain why there isn’t a trophy.
First, it is pretty egregious on ESPN’s part. However, more than that, it’s a pretty lazily made video.
Outside of a couple of “big buzzworthy stories” like the hook and ladder D-II Game (I’ll have to double check but I’m pretty sure Millsaps is D-II) and the “I’m a man” most of the clips are from ESPN produced games or games acquired by ESPN when the ABC/ESPN merger occurred.
I think the biggest thing missing are the games from 9-11 and the impact College Football had on healing. Kind of a big thing to just skip over.
If they’d have had a shot of Tubby holding up the fingers I would have liked it better.
I was initially going to say the oversight was due to sensationalism. There’s iconic plays, players slapping coaches and so on, and the 2004 team was just … solid.
Sure, I can think of a few Brown or Williams runs that would qualify. The Catch or whatever we’re calling it now was incredible, timely and crucial given the context, but on its own it does look a bit prosaic. So I was going to say the big play would be when Bret Eddins crushed the LSU QB.
But then I realized sensationalism couldn’t even cover it. After all, Mike DuBose indirectly made the video. Tressell made it, as you pointed out.
You know what’s even more annoying? That quarter-second blip isn’t even from live game play (against, presumably, Arkansas). Look at the ESPN ticker below. It is showing a score from the Florida-Bearcats Sugar Bowl.
Also, it is hard to imagine Byron Leftwich and Maurice Clarett in the same decade as Tim Tebow and some of the later stuff. Long decade.
(As an aside, Clarett ran a blog last year: http://mauriceclarett.wordpress.com/)
Finally, this video must have been produced pre-Vince Young meltdown, or surely they would have picked something else to end with, like Ben Roethlisberger running wild in the GMAC bowl.
I am mad about it as well and will continue to be. I firmly believe in my heart that Chizik will get it done. Keep the faith brothers. WDE
I just wish the auburn video was not filmed from space.
Man, look at those names on defense and think about what Chizik was able to get out of those guys. Anyone could argue that with 3 future #1 draft picks in the backfield, the offense could have succeeded with a chimp at OC (though apparently not with an O-line coach and a highschool QB coach), but there weren’t many stars on that defense (Rogers excluded obviously) and Chizik had them playing lights out. Please, please, please let him (and Roof) do the same thing with the defense in the near future.
Auburn getting left out was not “A day that will live in infamy” on a national scale, but it definitely was one on a personal level. What I saw at the 2:25 mark bothered me a little because the image of Ronnie Brown crushing Jason Allen would’ve been a much better use of that space. I mean outside of Iowa, Auburn, and Pitt who even knows him? I’d even bet the casual AU fans couldn’t pick him out of a lineup! For those of you who missed it that is our former D coordinator Paul Rhodes if I’m not mistaken. Also, did anyone else get chills seeing David Greene’s jersey in there. He was one of those guys that seemed like he never graduated. I guess they said the same about Cox. Also, Herbstreit must have edited it because the only ohio state clip was them winning the NC, not getting their face stepped on with a hobnail boot by UF or LSU. We’re Auburn, we get no love, and we are not AU fans because it’s the cool thing to do…It’s because we love Auburn and what it represents. War Eagle
Damn right WBE! I saw that piece of crap clip when they first played it and was pissed then. I’m shaking my head right now just like I was the night my buddies and I had just come from the SEC championship game in 2004. Undefeated. Un-tied SEC team. Unbelievable. ESPN’s so-called pundits ripped us then, just like they did by not including us in that video clip, and everytime they let Bob Davie call one of our games (lol). I’ll be the one at the games this year with the self-made 2004 championship t-shirt. WDE
Come on now, let’s not knock Paul Rhodes. Personally I’m happy for him and ISU and all of them up there. They’re the ones that should be bitter at us and our coach — not us at them and theirs.
Besides, that’s a great sound bite.
Honestly, there’s a lot that’s not in this video, so I’m not all that frustrated. Hell, Utah went undefeated and got snubbed TWICE in this decade, and they don’t even have a single juke from #2.
It’s not like it’s a video dedicated to the great teams of the decade anyway. It’s just the memorable moments. If they want to make a video about the Miami/FIU fight and the “I’m a man I’m 40” rant, I’m actually kind of glad we didn’t have anything like that take place over the past decade that would have us included.
Maybe the national media has forgotten about the funnest season ever played. Who cares? All that really matters to us, and hopefully to the alumni from that squad, is that we never have, and we never will.
. We’re Auburn, we get no love, and we are not AU fans because it’s the cool thing to do…It’s because we love Auburn and what it represents. War Eagle
The above quote by Tigertracker should be read by every Auburn man, woman and child and frankly should some how be added to the Auburn Creed. WDE
Nothing else to add to this thread other than “I agree.” Lots of rgeat comments in here, guys, thanks.