Nov. 3, 2017
Each Friday during the 2017 football season, AuburnTigers.com will feature a column from Auburn historian and Athletic Director Emeritus David Housel to commemorate the 125 year history of Auburn football. We hope you enjoy!
By David Housel
There was a time when this, the first week in November, was the start of "Amen Corner."
That was what Coach Pat Dye called the season-ending stretch of the most important games of the year—Florida, Georgia and Alabama.
How you did in those three games determined the success or failure of the season, Florida, Georgia and Alabama, all three major rivals, and all three usually in the Top 10. November was an exciting month of football.
Dye grew up in Augusta Ga., home of the Augusta National golf Club and the Masters, always and forever the greatest event in sports. He worked at the Masters every April and he was well familiar with the term "Amen Corner."
It referred to holes 11, 12 and 13 at the famed Augusta National. They formed the far corner of the golf course and Herbert Warren Wind, noted golf writer of the fifties, famously wrote "If you can make it through those three holes without making a mistake, you ought to say 'Amen.'" Thus the phrase, "Amen Corner" as born.
Dye, who worked as a gallery guard at the Masters when he was in high school, transferred the term to football, Auburn Football in particular.
Florida, Georgia and Alabama. If you could make it through that stretch you should say "Amen." A great and memorable season was at hand.
But it was not just Amen Corner for Auburn. It was Amen Corner for Florida and Georgia, too. The schedules ran thusly:
In a month's time, Auburn played Florida, Georgia and Alabama; Florida played Auburn, Georgia and Florida State; Georgia played Florida, Auburn and Georgia Tech. All within one month.
It was make-or-break time for everybody. Whatever happened in the season to that point was prelim, warm up. It was Amen Corner that counted. That's where championships were won or lost, where dreams came true or turned to ashes.
Amen Corner. That said it all, and it had been that way for much of Auburn's football history With all due respect to Texas A&M and anyone else, the history and juxtaposition of those games--Auburn-Florida and Georgia; Florida-Auburn and Georgia; Georgia-Florida and Auburn—made it special, as special as college football could be.
There hasn't been an Amen Corner since 1991 when Arkansas and South Carolina joined the conference and the SEC divided into eastern and western divisions. All of which this brings up the question of which division Auburn should be in, but let's not go there. Not today.
It is fair and accurate to say that as the years go by, fewer and fewer Auburn fans, younger fans in particular, remember the agony, ecstasy, the joy and sorrow of Amen Corner. Those of us of a certain age will never forget.
Even before conference realignment, there was talk of eliminating Amen Corner for all three teams. Auburn would physically beat up Florida, giving Georgia an advantage in the Florida-Georgia game. Florida would traditionally force Georgia into a physically demanding game, giving Auburn an advantage over Georgia.
Or so it was thought and argued by coaches of the three schools, all but Pat Dye. He loved the concept of Amen Corner when, in a one month period, it was all on the line.
So even if Auburn should move to the eastern division in some unforeseen future, in the name of equity in scheduling Amen Corner would not return. It belongs to history.
But what a history it was; what a memory it is.