Another beautiful day at Jordan-Hare Stadium:
Samford University’s football team traveled to Auburn for homecoming. My terrific employer facing off against my beloved alma mater. Both teams entered 6-4, and Auburn should have handled the game with ease. No matter what happened, though, I should enjoy the day, right? I’ve looked forward to this game more than any other this year.
There are so many common ties between the teams and the schools, even though they are very different sizes and have different specialties and different formational history. Both play similar styles of football right now, and there are a handful of familiar faces on the Samford sideline.
Also, if you read the site yesterday you saw that Auburn’s first Heisman winner, Pat Sullivan, was returning home as the coach of Samford. They honored him in the pregame with a nice little ceremony:
And then Samford gave Auburn all they wanted and more for three quarters. Auburn would win by a 35-16 margin, but it stayed very close far longer than it should have. But the Tigers won homecoming. Samford played hard, like you’d expect a Sullivan team to perform. The Auburn Alumni Band marched. And there was a little bit of history:
Sophomore Mike Dyer became the 10th leading rusher all time at Auburn on that very play. The guy he passed to take over the 10th spot? James Joseph, who coaches running backs at Samford.
Up next, deep breath, Iron Bowl.
Tomorrow: Crowd shots from the game.
