The games have come and gone. There were winners and there were losers. The doomsday pundits made the prediction that Hell would freeze over before Auburn won a football championship. It snowed in Tuscaloosa the day before the big game.
In the weeks leading up to the National Championship matchup between Auburn and Oregon, there was a huge ground swell of emotion.
Many Tiger fans felt that the Alabama fan base should fall in behind the team from the Plains and root on for consecutive titles for the state.
Lord knows we do need something good from this state considering how we are perceived by the rest of the world.
At one point I agreed with that assessment. But after careful thought and consideration I came to the realization that if Bama fans pulled for an Auburn team they had spent their lives hating, it would just be crazy.
There is a need for rivalry in our world of sports. We must have a team we love and that team must have a bitter enemy. It is human nature.
Last year the Auburn fan base threw more Hook’em Horn signs than all the combined gang signs ever seen by the Bloods and Crips.
There was nothing wrong, whatsoever, for Tide fans to wear Oregon colors and hope the Ducks would win Monday night.
Facebook was plastered with the division of fans who had Auburn artwork as well as Bama fans with Oregon colors. Watching the status updates was as amusing as anything I have seen in a long time.
At around 11:20-something p.m. Auburn had won their first title since 1957 and just their second ever.
Being the great fans they are, Bama fans immediately threw out the whole 13 title propaganda. (In fact they only have 11 since the NCAA no longer recognizes the 1934 and 1941 titles. Only Minnesota is recognized now.)
Still, it is highly doubtful that Auburn will win nine more before the Crimson Tide wins another. In fact, the boys from Tuscaloosa could likely win it all next year and give this state something never done before, three consecutive national champions.
I hope the day never comes where our society loses that ferventness in rooting for your team and against the rival.
That will be the day they can lay me in the ground and have slow walking and sad singing on my hillside because that would mean there is no longer any need for sports in our world.
I do wish some of the lifelong Auburn fans could have been around to see the Tigers win a title, like Harvey Jackson.
But I‘m pretty sure he knew and he was already wearing his Auburn shirt.
That’s all folks.....
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