That claim has been made for 30+ years now, and frankly it's a valid gripe.
Thank you. Too many Tide fans get caught up in "Auburn can't win" to make a rational judgment on that one.
They went into the bowl game third, beat Michigan in the Sugar, and finished 11-1. The top two teams both lost in the bowls, and Auburn lost the national title when they were jumped by Miami, who came into the bowls ranked fifth but who beat Nebraska in the classic Orange Bowl game we've all seen the highlight of a thousand times.
And I also realize that because Schenllenberger was Miami's coach, a lot of Tide fans were pulling for them to win it. Joe Namath, in fact, was on the Miami sidelines during that game (come to think of it, Suzy Kolber was a freshman at Miami and might well have been at that game. Hm.........)
Whole issue was that Nebraska was the "it" team. Came into the Orange Bowl at 11-0, undisputed number one team all season long, had the Heisman Trophy winner in Mike Rozier, and had basically annihilated every team on the schedule. When Miami took down that team, it was just a showstopper result, and it made Auburn beating a two-loss Michigan team in a low-scoring, ugly game look like an undercard fight. That's how Miami jumped Auburn and won the title, and it certainly didn't help them that NBC marketed and billed the Miami-Nebraska game as the national championship game, which was a claim that CBS (or it might have been ABC airing it at the time) couldn't really make for the Sugar Bowl because Michigan was ranked near the bottom of the top ten and wasn't legitimately in championship contention.
All excellent points. Then again, NBC tried to do the same thing with the 1985 Orange Bowl while the actual champions (BYU) were sitting at home watching the other big name teams play.
Again, though, it's a very valid gripe. Auburn went 11-1 with Bo Jackson and slew of other top players (Tommy Agee, Lionel James, Steve Wallace, etc.), and only lost to an 11-1 Texas team. Miami, on the other hand, had been blown out by a Florida team that ended up with two losses and a tie.
But it's even worse than that. All valid points and then supplemented with:
1) SEVEN of Auburn's opponents won AT LEAST EIGHT GAMES (back when there were only 11), including the final five in a row, only two of which were at home. Miami played three teams that won eight or more games, all at home, and went 2-1 against those.
2) Auburn and Miami's sole common opponent was Florida. The only game the Canes lost was to Florida, who drilled them, 28-3. Auburn beat Florida, 28-21. While I grant the transitive property is generally not applied, it does strengthen the argument.
3) Auburn played only two teams all year with a losing record, Ga Tech and MSU. Their seven bowl opponents went 4-3 but two of the losses were to OTHER Auburn opponents (Tenn over Maryland, UGA over Texas). And doesn't the fact Auburn beat UGA offset - to a point - their early loss to Texas? The whole Miami claim rests on "Miami lost early" and "Miami beat Nebraska," but Miami lost their first game and Auburn their second (hardly a significant argument) and Auburn couldn't play Nebraska because both teams were contractually obligated to certain bowl games. Miami basically lucked out that teams 1-4 (Nebraska, Texas, Auburn, Illinios) were all OBLIGATED to play elsewhere.
Again - I don't want to sound like an Auburn apologist or booster because I'm not, but anyone who says they were NOT robbed in 1983 has no business saying Alabama was not robbed in 1977. Plain and simple.
I wouldn't say it's necessarily a robbery, per se, but admittedly they've got a very legitimate complaint and their fans were (and to an extent still are) quite vocal about it.
Truth be told, Auburn has a better claim to 1983 than they do 2004, and certainly infinitely better than 1993 (which is no claim at all, except to those floating in an ocean of orange-and-blue Kool-Aid).
Haven't heard much about it but it WAS a long time ago. Heard a lot at the time, though.
