AUBURN, Ala. – Saturday marked the first Auburn football game since Pat Dye passed away. He might not have been there physically, but everywhere you looked inside Jordan-Hare Stadium, he was there.
There were "Sixty Minutes" decals, designed with help from Pat Dye Jr., on the field and on the back of the Auburn helmets. The videoboard played a tribute to Coach Dye as kickoff neared. And of course, current head coach Gus Malzahn paid his own respects to the former coach by wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt, tie and hat similar to one Dye wore back in his day.
Honoring an Auburn legend. pic.twitter.com/1qA5LeysKG
— Auburn Football (@AuburnFootball) September 26, 2020
"It was perfect. It looked just like him," Auburn safety Smoke Monday said of Malzahn's attire. "[Dye] was a great coach. We honor him. He loved Auburn. He loved this team. He was with us every day, focused on helping us achieve bigger things in life also. He will be missed."
"You're talking about a guy that helped our program get to where it's at," Malzahn said. "A guy that I got to know really well when I was a coordinator here, and then of course being the head coach, he'd come to just about every practice. He got to know our players extremely well and gave me wisdom from time to time that was very helpful."
But the biggest tribute to Dye on Saturday came on the field.
The "Sixty Minutes" decals were created in part because Dye wore No. 60 and his senior season was in 1960, but it also goes back to his introductory press conference at Auburn where he was asked how long it would take to beat rival Alabama. "Sixty minutes," he responded. From that point on, his teams were always known for playing hard the full 60 minutes, until the final whistle blew.
On Saturday, the 2020 team used Dye's legacy as motivation and played hard all four quarters.
The Tigers fought through adversity, battling back in the second half after a late touchdown was wiped off the board at the end of the first half. The offense and defense both stepped up in the fourth quarter, outscoring Kentucky 14-0 in the final 15 minutes. And with the game all but over in the final minutes, the defense forced yet another turnover when Roger McCreary jarred the ball loose and Owen Pappoe recovered it.
The outcome might have already been decided, but the effort never stopped. Not until the final whistle. Somewhere, Coach Dye was smiling down while watching Saturday's game.
"We just want to honor his legacy this whole season by playing good, hard-nosed Auburn football and play for 60 minutes, and I really felt like he would've been proud (Saturday)," Malzahn said. "We didn't play our best in some areas, but our guys played their guts out. They played for each other, they played for Auburn and played physical."
"That was a big emphasis for us this week," quarterback Bo Nix said after the game. "We wanted to play 60 minutes. Not only for him but for all that it meant to Auburn. I think it was important that it came back and became kind of a saying for us."
Auburn knows it will have to play hard for 60 minutes again this Saturday when it travels to Georgia for a rivalry game that was always special to Dye. A native of the Peach State, Dye played at Georgia before later becoming the head coach at Auburn where he was 7-5 against the Bulldogs with four straight victories from 1987-90.
There's no word yet on whether or not Malzahn will continue to wear the outfit made famous by Dye, but regardless, the coaches and players alike will continue to honor Dye all season by playing physical Auburn football for 60 minutes each and every week.
"The legacy that he left, the person that he was, the coach that he was to all his players, the man that he stood for – he was just a true Auburn man," Nix said.