Maybe this is common knowledge—if it is, don’t tell us—but apparently feel-good semantics ruled the pre-overtime era of college football, at least when it came to games with a trophy at the end (or at least when it came to inscribing those trophies). Because if you look closely you’ll notice that, no, Auburn didn’t TIE Syracuse in the 1988 Sugar Bowl—we CO-WON.
We’re assuming the Orange Men have their own version—all that angst, all those ties in the mail… all for (Windsor) naught—up in Syrexcuse.
If only we’d played in Cuba!
According to David Housel’s Auburn University Football Vault , when Auburn and Villanova tied the 1937 Bacardi Bowl–the game was the first played by two American teams on foreign soil—General Batista said screw it, no one would get the trophy. So we played for it again the next year in Philadelphia. And tied. No trophy. Played again in 1939. Villanova won.
When we asked to borrow the trophy for the centennial celebration of Auburn football in 1992, they couldn’t find it.
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If this was a story for Alabama trophies, there would be no shortages of posts
I was at that game, and it felt like we won it.
I was at that game too Dave…it felt like a victory. The best part was all the ‘tie-Dye’ ties that were sent to Auburn weeks later….and the crates of sour grapes shipped back up north. It was a fun rivalry and no trees were killed.
I think that was a national championship for us, right? If enough people agree to is apparenlty it’s so.