Pat Sullivan. Bo Jackson. Cam Newton.
Three Heisman Trophy winners who forever changed the nature of their own sport. Auburn is one of only seven schools in the country who have had three or more players win the prestigious award after 1970.
Now that is 𝗔𝘂𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝘂𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻.
You too have a chance to make history this season. The Auburn football season ticket record was broken Thursday. Fewer than 300 season tickets remain. Be sure to secure your seat in Jordan-Hare Stadium for the 2023 season.
'Dream high'
For 11 years, statues of Auburn's Heisman Trophy trio – Pat Sullivan, Bo Jackson and Cam Newton – have greeted fans on the east side of Jordan-Hare Stadium.
Near the statues of the Heisman greats at the east entry plaza resides a bust of the trophy's namesake. John Heisman coached the Auburn football team from 1895-99, making Auburn the only school where Heisman coached that also produced a Heisman trophy winner.
That's Auburn being Auburn.
Sullivan in 1971, Jackson in 1985, Newton in 2010. Auburn people know the names and years like they know their children's birthdays.
Sullivan's Heisman win, says former sports information director and athletic director David Housel, transformed Auburn's national perception, not only in athletics.
"When Pat won that Heisman, that showed you can come to Auburn and do anything," Housel said. "You can be the best if you came to Auburn."
Sullivan, from John Carroll High School in Birmingham, was a two-time All-American and two-time SEC Player of the Year in 1970-71, leading the NCAA in total offense with 2,856 yards as a junior in 1970.
In three seasons leading the Tigers, he accounted for 71 touchdowns: 53 passing and 18 rushing.
Jackson, another Birmingham standout at McAdory High School, followed a decade later, becoming Auburn's all-time leading rusher with 4.303 yards while averaging 6.6 yards per carry.
Bo won the Heisman in his senior season, making his opening statement with a 290-yard, four-touchdown performance in the season opener vs. Southwestern Louisiana, and delivering an equally compelling closing argument with 142 yards and two TDs in the Iron Bowl.
A quarter century after Bo's Heisman heroics, Newton arrived on the Plains from junior college in Texas, producing a 2010 season that ranks among college football's finest from any era.
While leading Auburn to a 14-0 record and a national championship, he threw 30 touchdown passes, rushed for 20 TDs and added a receiving score.
Newton set Auburn's record with 4,370 yards of total offense, including 1,473 rushing yards and 2,854 passing yards.
Unveiled in 2012, the Heisman statues serve as reminders of Auburn's prodigious past while inspiring the next generation of Tiger football legends.
It was true in 1971 and it's true in 2023. In engineering, in business, in nursing and education and countless other professions. And, of course, in football.
"Auburn is among the best," Housel said. "You can dream high, come to Auburn, and you can make it."
