AUBURN, Ala. – Faced with competing ultimatums, Tre Smith's fledgling NFL career hung in the balance.
If he remained at the Atlanta Falcons' preseason camp, he would fail his grad school final exams at Auburn. If he left training camp to take the tests, he'd get cut.
"I chose getting my master's degree over staying," said Smith, who earned his MBA from Auburn University's Harbert College of Business. "It was a no-brainer. You can't give up that to take the chance of making an NFL – I might not have even made the team. I could have gotten cut two days later then I wouldn't have a degree or a team to play for."
An Auburn running back from 2002-06, Smith's NFL days were done, but he still had professional football to play – in Canada for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
"It was super fun," said Smith, who capitalized on the league's wider, longer fields, averaging 6.6 yards per carry in 2008 before playing defense in 2009, making 49 tackles. "It's a way bigger field. All of the empty space, I loved it. Every time they handed the ball off to me, there was so much open space."
An ankle injury in his second CFL season ended Smith's playing career. Tre returned to Alabama, working as an IT manager in Montgomery, where he met his future wife, Rebecca. They'll celebrate their sixth anniversary this summer.
"We met in Montgomery one day and haven't separated since," he said.
In 2012, the Smiths returned to his home state, Florida, where he develops software for an advertising company in Sarasota, not far from where Tre became a high school phenom in Venice.
During recruiting, Smith's path to the Plains meandered. He first committed to Nebraska, dreaming of running the option. A coaching change in Lincoln led to a commitment to Florida, but when Steve Spurrier left for the NFL, Smith reconsidered his options.
Two of the coaches at his high school were Auburn graduates. The Tigers already had Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown in the backfield, but Cadillac broke his collarbone in the 2001 Iron Bowl and Brown had yet to emerge as an All-SEC performer. Auburn offered a chance to make an instant splash.
"We need somebody to come in and make an impact now as a freshman at Auburn," Smith said, recalling Auburn's recruiting pitch. "That sounded like a perfect opportunity. They're a top 10 school. I can be on ESPN and play as a freshman. That sounded awesome to me."
Smith visited Vanderbilt and Nebraska. Harvard, with its Ivy League credentials but without athletic scholarships, offered an intriguing possibility.
Like many before and since, Smith made up his mind after visiting Auburn's campus.
"So much about Auburn fit in place," he said. "Everything about it seemed better and nicer and more fun. You kind of feel it when you see a place, that you fit there."
Backing up Williams and Brown in 2002, Smith rushed for 454 yards as a true freshman with more than one-fourth them coming in the biggest game of the season. Thrust into the spotlight after injuries to Carnell and Ronnie, Smith rushed for 126 yards in a 17-7 win in Tuscaloosa, the first of Auburn's six straight Iron Bowl victories.
"That was super crazy," said the 5-foot-10, 195-pound Smith, whose Iron Bowl freshman rushing total was second to only Stacy Danley's 157 yards in 1987.
"As a true freshman, I was like, 'Ah, just another game,'" he said. "I was so young that I didn't even know how big of an impact it was until a few years later when I actually lived the rivalry for multiple years."
Smith's Auburn career ended as it began, with a signature moment. A fifth-year senior in 2006, he scored on a 15-yard return after a blocked punt to give Auburn the lead on its way to a 27-17 win over second-ranked Florida, the program to which he'd once been committed.
"That was a pretty big deal," Smith said. "It looks like I was showboating, but one of my own players fell and hit the back of my foot. All I wanted to do was get off my feet and make sure that no matter what happened in the back, I was going to fly into the end zone. There's no way I had time to think about like, 'I'm going to flip into the end zone.'"
Nearly two decades after his first visit to Auburn, Tre Smith says he's surprised how often fans still recognize him when he returns to the Plains.
On fall Saturdays on their six-acre ranch in central Florida, Tre and Rebecca, along with their daughter Alice, who turns 5 on the Fourth of July, and their 16-month-old son, Asa Tre, who looks just like his dad, schedule their day around Auburn's kickoff time.
"We still support Auburn everywhere we go, especially on game days," said Smith, who ranks sixth in program history with 644 career punt return yards. "Tell everybody War Eagle, and I miss Auburn, and I love it. Can't wait for the next season, hopefully I can get back up there and say hi to everybody."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer
Tre Smith (22), Carnell Williams (24), Ronnie Brown (23), Brandon Jacobs (27) August 12, 2003 in Auburn, Ala.Todd J. Van Emst