Pate's Perspective: Auburn's cross-country trek creates identity-forming opportunity

Rob Pate played safety for Auburn from 1997-2000. Pate helped lead two teams to SEC Western Division championships in 1997 and 2000. Now, residing in Auburn, Alabama, Pate is an exclusive contributor to Auburn Live.

There is little else more riveting in college football than going on the road and winning. When that opportunity is combined with a late night—stand alone time slot, a confident opponent fan base that has circled this game as a program definer, and you are attempting to jumpstart your own program under exciting new leadership—the aura of this game is magnified. 

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I can only imagine Coach Freeze was none to thrilled to see this cross country game on the schedule when he took the Auburn job, but I also have little doubt he will use this trip as an opportunity. 

There’s a chance to get the Auburn brand in front of a West Coast recruiting base with little Auburn exposure. Auburn’s most recent recruiting win being a California product displays the Freeze staff’s willingness and ability to recruit nationally. 

There’s the opportunity to take a team of so many new faces and let them bond together on the longest trip most will likely ever make to play a game—in a part of the country most have never visited. 

There’s the opportunity to unleash a more colorful playbook with all available personnel and see where you stand from an execution and ability standpoint. 

There’s the chance to find out how this group handles the numerous obstacles that will create adverse conditions—from time change acclimation, to being the visitors, to playing a quality, confident opponent, to having to fight four full quarters. You finally get a true glimpse of what this team is made of. A barometer of where this team is and what they might become in a winnable game against a worthy and equally hungry opponent.

But more than anything, you get opportunity to experience the best part of college football—what I miss most. You want to taste the sweetest of all nectars this sport can offer? Go into a road game atmosphere and be the last man standing. Watch a crowded stadium that jeered you walk away in disappointment.

Celebrate catapulting your program to a higher plane—from their field, to their locker room, to the airport, all the way home to Auburn University. It’s the best thing in college football. Those are cherished memories. And this team has a focused audience as the latest game of the day to watch it transpire. 

The biggest key will be protecting the football. No turnovers in week one was an unheralded feat with so many new faces, systems, terminology, and ball-handlers. Turnovers are daggers and road turnovers are lethal. We simply can’t afford to lose possessions. 

Winning the battles up front would be my second highest necessity. The Auburn offensive line has too much depth and experience to not have success here. Cal could match that if the Auburn front seven plays soft. We need our big bodies on both sides of the ball to play physical and relentless football. 

Some teams loaded with talent never materialize and become what they could be. Some teams loaded with adversity and a litany of obstacles rally together to achieve greatness that would have never happened without the challenges. This team has talent, and this team will have obstacles.

Choose from the outset you will fight for one another from start to finish, no matter the challenge, no matter the opponent, no matter the scenario–no one walks alone, no one wins alone, no one falters alone. Play as a team, play with pride, play physical for four quarters regardless and this team will be hard to beat—by anyone.