Zac Etheridge looks back at his memories of Auburn's 2010 national championship

Auburn secondary coach Zac Etheridge knows what it takes to win a national championship. He did so as an Auburn player back in 2011, the last time the Tigers won the title. The former Auburn star recently joined the Paul Finebaum Show to explain how that 2011 team stood out, and what he thinks the current team could learn from that team.

Here was Etheridge’s full response when asked about his national title team:

“Oh yea, that was a special moment and a special year for a lot of us. But more so my teammates. I knew for a fact that I wanted to be apart of something special,” he said.

“So that’s why I came to Auburn, because of what it was built on. That competitive toughness and playing with grit. And it’d been a long draught but I knew for a fact that, when we were a player-driven team, we had the team to go win a national championship. We bought into what Coach Chizik did at that time. And just watching that team mature from year one to year two under Coach Chizik, it was really special.

“We took it, every day, one day at a time, and we wanted to get better. But we had a lot of confidence that no one on the field could beat us. And that’s the style that we wanted to play with.”

Auburn needs more of that sort of spirit to get back to its old standard of contending for national championships on a regular basis.

Why Zac Etheridge is at Auburn

As an Auburn alumnus, it might be easy to connect the dots as to why Zac Etheridge took a job coaching the Tigers. At the same time, this was an offseason full of drama. There was an attempt to oust head coach Bryan Harsin, which ultimately failed but has left the head coaching position unstable. Meanwhile, rumors swirled that Etheridge could go to a school like Georgia.

Zac Etheridge chose to stay at Auburn though and has previously explained that decision.

“I believe in Coach Harsin’s vision and what he brings to the team, and what he stands for,” Etheridge told Auburn Live. “He cares about people, he cares about making sure we develop our players bigger than football. That’s the standard, and that was part of the decision to stay. You’re going to work every day with people that you know have your best interests at heart, and what you love which is Auburn football.”

Dan Morrison contributed to this article.