Top five stories for the Auburn Tigers in 2019

Auburn’s athletic teams enjoyed tremendous success in 2019, with some reaching new heights and others returning to prominence.

Here are five top stories from the year:

1. Finally, a trip to the Final Four. Auburn basketball head coach Bruce Pearl led his squad to the school’s first-ever appearance in the Final Four. Auburn is now one of only eight SEC teams to ever reach college basketball’s magical milestone. If not for a missed call at the end of the game, who knows how the Tigers’ 2019 season ends. By any measure, as noted by CBS announcer Jim Nance, Auburn’s Final Four debut was a “massive achievement.” Pearl’s Tigers are finishing the calendar year much like they started it. Riding an 11-game win streak to start the season, they are projected as a high seed in the NCAA tournament once again.

2. “A second” Iron Bowl win in the last three years. Who knew Auburn fans in 2019 would find a fresh way to tell an old joke? (Not that they cared whether the other version had gotten old.) This year’s version of the rivalry proved, yet again, that head coach Gus Malzahn is adept at managing every one of the 3,600 seconds which make up a college football game. The 2019 Iron Bowl also showed why Gus Malzahn is the greatest coach to ever walk the sidelines at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Malzahn is the only SEC coach not requiring an interpreter to have beaten Nick Saban. With the Tigers’ 48-45 thriller over Alabama, Malzahn joins Les Miles as the only coach to have ever beaten Saban three times.

3. Derrick Brown comes back. One could argue that the second biggest story on the list does not happen without the third. In February, Malzahn got the news that Brown and seven other draft-eligible Tigers had decided to forgo early entry to the NFL and return to school. Brown anchored a stout 2019 defense in which he was virtually unblockable. Likely a top five pick in the 2020 draft, Brown received his due in the form of numerous postseason awards. He was named SEC Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All-America. Brown was also the 2019 recipient of the Lott IMPACT Trophy which annually recognizes a college football player for outstanding character.

4. Omaha! The 2019 Auburn baseball team reached the College World Series for the first time in 22 years. The Tigers won the Atlanta Regional and the Chapel Hill Super Regional on their way to Omaha. Following a 38-win season in 2019 that included the ultimate road trip to Nebraska, the expectations are high going into 2020. Look for coach Butch Thompson’s team to be right there in the mix again next summer.

5. Beating Oregon in Texas. Coaches like to emphasize that no single game means more than any other. But it is hard not to look back and see that winning the skirmish with the eventual PAC 12 champion was big. It vaulted the Tigers into the national discussion right out of the gate. And had they dropped the opener, beating Tulane and Kent State the following two weeks would not exactly have amounted to cleansing wins. Having to wait three weeks to get back on track would have been unsatisfying for Malzahn’s team. Instead, Bo Nix connected with Seth Williams with nine seconds left on the clock, and the Tigers cruised to a 5-0 start.

Tim Howe is an owner of Yellowhammer Multimedia