Winning Iron Bowl would put 'cherry on top of these last few weeks' for Auburn players
AUBURN — It’s Iron Bowl week.
Each season, regardless of each team’s record or rankings, each team knows that anything could happen.
This year, though, it’s a little different. With this season taking all of the turns that it has for Auburn, this game runs a little deeper. Mid season, the Auburn football team seemed to be too far from recovery. Once Carnell Williams was named interim head coach, though, things began to change.
“Any time you play Alabama, we’ve said this for years, it doesn’t matter the record of either team,” John Samuel Shenker said. “This game is always a special game… Just surrounding it with what this game means to this state. But I think, when Coach Cadillac took over, we’re going to play for Auburn. I think we’ve done that and you can see the passion with him and with his team on the sidelines…”
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A win on Saturday would lock in a bowl game for the Tigers this year and one more game at the end of the season for the 24 seniors on the roster. This is something that nobody thought was possible at the beginning of the month.
“To get to a bowl game, it would just show that anything is possible,” senior Colby Wooden said. “Looking at where we were in the middle of the season, nobody -some people in our own locker room were doubting us… Just to make it to a bowl game, that would show that this team, no matter who you’ve got, as long as you’ve got your brotherhood and a solid team, you can do anything.”
For transfers like quarterback Robby Ashford, this game has been on their mind since they chose to come to Auburn. The Alabama native travelled cross-country to Oregon to begin his collegiate career, but grew up watching this rivalry and knows the importance.
“I just woke up today like, ‘Man, it’s Iron Bowl week for real,'” Ashford said on Monday. “You just come out there and there’s a different level of excitement… Once I got here, the Iron Bowl was something I marked on my calendar…”
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Regardless of how good Auburn feels about their chances, the players know their odds against the No. 8 ranked Alabama.
“We’re definitely feeling amped up, ready,” Wooden told the media Monday afternoon. “We know nobody gives us a chance in hell to win this, so we know we’re playing with house money… We know that our backs are against the wall, which historically tells us that’s when Auburn plays its best. We’re just anxious to get on the field and just show what we can do.”
Historically, there is a lot riding on the outcome of the Iron Bowl. The winner can often be named SEC West Champions and has the chance to compete in Atlanta for the SEC Championship game. This year, there is nothing riding on the outcome of this game further than Auburn’s chances of reaching a bowl game.
“…It would really put the cherry on top of these last few weeks and what we’ve tried to build up for,” Shenker said on Monday afternoon. “This is the game that we’ve really built up for at the end. We’re at the opportunity where this game could really be a special moment.”
