AL.com presents "Undefeated Auburn", the story of Auburn's historic 2010 season told through the words of those who played in it, coached it and covered it.
Two years after being hired, Gene Chizik brought home Auburn's first national championship since 1957.
On the 10-year anniversary of the ultimate end to the 2010 season, let’s look back at the tumultuous story that finished with a fairy tale ending.
To say Chizik was an unpopular hire would be an understatement. The booing that met him at the airport as he stepped foot onto the Plains said it all. The transition wasn’t the smoothest behind the scenes either, linebacker Josh Bynes recalled. “He came in and just set the tone from the beginning,” Bynes said.
With his players behind him, Auburn went 5-0 to start the season and then almost beat Alabama. It finished the season 8-5, three wins better than Tuberville’s final season.
“Coach Chiz had a plan, and he always had a plan, and he wanted to work his plan,” said defensive back Zac Etheridge, who was hired as Auburn’s cornerbacks coach Friday. “Really, that year, we started to form a brotherhood.”
That brotherhood became even more critical the next season, helping the Tigers through tough moments on and off the field.
Through 2009, Bynes said the team could see “spurts of great moments,” but it needed something to take it to the next level. It turned out a junior college quarter back from Blinn College was the boost they needed. Cam Newton’s National Letter of Intent came through the hotel fax machine the day Auburn played Northwestern in the Outback Bowl, giving Auburn a great start to the new year.
“Our staff knew this was a really big deal,” said Malzahn, the offensive coordinator at the time. “I don’t know if anybody else did at the time.”
Newton started making a difference immediately, both on the field and in the locker room. He was a “great multiplier,” Chizik said, and made other players better. But Newton also unintentionally brought an added level of drama to the season. After ESPN reported that Newton’s father, Cecil, had been trying to make a financial deal with Mississippi State for Newton to go there, an NCAA investigation ensued.
Somehow, the coaches kept the team grounded. When Newton’s eligibility was reinstated the morning of the Georgia game, Etheridge said he and his teammates didn’t even know Newton had been suspended.
Newton played even better in that game against Auburn’s oldest rival and his home state’s school. And then, in the next game, he led Auburn in a comeback against Alabama, which has come to be known in Auburn lore as the “Camback.”
As the Heisman winner, Newton was clearly a big part of the 2010 season, but there were a lot of other players who were crucial. The veteran offensive line helped Newton to be able to run teams into the ground. By being reliable targets, the wide receivers punished any teams that tried to commit to stopping the run. And the defense made enough plays to ensure Auburn came out on top at the end of each game, like the forced fumble in the Alabama game that kept Auburn from falling to 28-0 and instead allowed the comeback.
“I think that was the defining moment of ‘good to great,’ " Bynes said.
It took everyone to be able to squeeze out the numerous one-score wins, like the 17-point comeback against Clemson and the three-point wins over Kentucky and Mississippi State. And it took everyone to win that final game, the national championship against Oregon.
That year, Chizik said the Ducks were the best at pretty much everything, but their offense in particular moved at “warp speed.” Everyone thought it was going to be a shootout, with the defenses scrambling to keep up.
But when the defense came back after a couple of series and said the game didn’t seem fast at all, Chizik knew Auburn would do just fine keeping up with Oregon. He was right. By the last two minutes of the game, the teams were tied at a low 19 points each.
Then running back Michael Dyer had a run he somehow kept in play despite being tackled. It set up an easy field goal for Wes Byrum, who nailed it.
With that field goal, Byrum cemented Auburn as the best team in the country in 2010. Despite the investigation, despite all the close games, despite the turmoil of a coaching change just two years before, the Tigers were able to come together and get the job done.
“For me to sit down and to really describe it, I’d probably cheapen it,” Chizik said. “But to be able to say on a particular given day, as you hold up a trophy, that there’s nobody in the world that was better than you, that’s a lot.”