Enemy Surveillance: The University of Auburn

As the regular season began to wind down, a handful of teams began to consider their prospects for post-season bowls, preferably with huge payouts and sunny climates. After Notre Dame escaped from The Farm with a $14 million win, I became interested in how fans of other BCS bubble schools were discussing their respective lots.

Visiting one such online forum—AUTigers.com—one thing became quickly apparent. Notre Dame’s success and the spoils thereof have now fully re-permeated NDHaterNation. Auburn is one school whose team stood to gain greatly (perhaps) from any ND misstep against the Cardinal. One simply look only to the thread being churned out during the course of the ND-Stanford game: over the course of three hours (the game was on ABC, not NBC), giddy AU followers posted FIFTEEN PAGES of content as the game went back and forth until the final seconds.

Even in the throes of defeat via transitive property, Tiger faithful remained unfazed. They then turned their attention to the evildoers responsible for mathematically placing their team at a disadvantage…the BCS. Going into the last weekend of the regular season, it seemed all was well for their undeserving outcast argument. After all, who wouldn’t give props to a schedule that included collegiate juggernauts Ball State and Western Kentucky, both of whom the Tigers easily vanquished.

Alas, their pipe dream began to unravel quite quickly. Georgia knocked off LSU in the SEC Championship, thereby securing the SEC automatic berth. And when Florida State put the hammer to Virginia Tech, another unexpected bid went by the wayside. With two top five teams losing on the same weekend, the path was cleared for other highly ranked teams (e.g. Ohio State, Notre Dame) to further solidify their position amongst the BCS elite.