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Looking at how well each team knows the conference's newest members
| Auburn History vs. New SEC Teams | |||
| First Meeting | Last Meeting | Record vs. | |
| Missouri | 1973 | 1973 | 0-1 |
| Texas A&M | 1911 |
1986 | 0-2 |
Perhaps its best that Auburn isn't going to play Missouri this year. After all, the Tiger-vs.-Tiger match-up, which would join another Tiger-vs.-Tiger (Clemson) and yet another Tiger-vs.-Tiger (LSU) game, could only add to the confusion. It also means that, for the time being, Auburn has lost the only game they've ever played against the Tigers. The Missouri variety, that is.
That would be the 1973 Sun Bowl, a game that featured the Tig-- Missouri running the ball 71 times for 295 yards. Two different Missouri players carried it more than 20 times as the team from Columbia -- Columbia, Missouri, that is -- coasted to a relatively easy 34-17 win. (Really, Mike Slive, you had to pick a Tiger team based in a Columbia?)
A more immediate concern is Auburn's similarly limited and similarly winless record against Texas A&M, a team Auburn will play this year. (And which thankfully brings a different mascot and city name to the conference.) The 1911 game in College Station was a 16-0 win by the Aggies, but it was the game almost 75 years later that might be more memorable.
First, on the field: Bo Jackson was fresh off his Heisman campaign. And A&M couldn't stop him. Jackson carried the ball 31 times for 129 yards and a touchdown and also caught two passes for 73 yards and a touchdown. The problem for the Tigers is that TAMU pretty much stopped everyone else. No one else in the game for Auburn even gained 50 all-purpose yards.
But the sidelines also had a couple of notable figures during the game. Jackie Sherrill had led A&M to a Southwest Conference title and a 10-2 record. Pat Dye had brought the Tigers into the season as one of the front-runners for the national title only to watch as losses at Tennessee, against Florida and against Alabama wipe out his chances at a trophy. Dye would get two more chances at Sherrill after the latter moved to Mississippi State in Starkville.
He lost both of them.