Perfection on the Plains: Auburn's 2004 SEC championship season

AUBURN, Ala. – On his way to becoming the 2004 SEC Player of the Year, Jason Campbell completed 188 passes. 

Twenty years later, three stand out above the rest, including two on the same drive against defending national champion LSU in the season’s third game. A must-have 14-yard pickup to Courtney Taylor on fourth-and-12, and a 16-yard touchdown pass to Taylor two plays later, the game’s only TD in Auburn’s 10-9 win.

The other occurred nearly two months later in the SEC Championship Game against Tennessee, a tie-breaking 53-yard touchdown to Devin Aromashodu to help Auburn win its first SEC title in 15 years. 

“Those are three critical plays that got everything rolling,” Campbell said. “You remember moments more than you do games. We had a lot of great moments that year.”

The 2004 Auburn Tigers will relive those great moments this weekend when they reunite on the Plains to celebrate and reminisce. 

Watching video from two decades earlier brings back memories and reinforces Campbell’s appreciation for the 2004 team’s resilience. 

“You realize how hard it is to go undefeated,” Campbell said. “The brotherhood and the bond we made.”

A fifth-year senior in 2004, Campbell recalled the pledge he made with fellow members of the 2000 recruiting class such as Ronnie Brown, Junior Rosegreen and Carlos Rogers.

“We made a special pact to commit to Auburn,” Campbell said. “To leave, doing what we said we were going to do, to help Auburn win a championship, makes everything even more surreal when you go back and look at it now.”

LEADERSHIP FROM WITHIN

When Auburn marked the 2004 team’s 10-year anniversary in 2014, the team’s head coach noted how the Tigers’ leadership, from Cambell to running backs Brown and Carnell Williams, to defensive lineman Reggie Torbor, made the coaches’ jobs easier.

“The players did the coaching in terms of getting people fired up and ready to play,” Tommy Tuberville said while signing autographs in 2014. “There wasn’t one game that we weren’t prepared to play.”

“From a leadership standpoint, it just stacked up for us,” Campbell said, echoing Tuberville’s assessment. “Coaches didn’t have to say a whole lot during games or at halftime. Our team leaders would stand up and approach our teammates. We were a true team from top to bottom.”

Two weeks after knocking off No. 5 LSU, Auburn routed No. 8 Tennessee 34-10 in Knoxville. In the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, Auburn earned another top 10 win, blasting No. 8 Georgia 24-6 before earning more bragging rights with a 21-13 Iron Bowl victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

In a rematch with Tennessee, the Tigers defeated the Vols 38-28 on Dec. 4 at the Georgia Dome for the SEC title to improve to 12-0. Campbell completed 27 of 35 passes for 374 yards and three touchdowns, adding 57 rushing yards to earn MVP honors. 

The Tigers would go on to defeat Virginia Tech in the Sugar Bowl to finish an undefeated season. Four months later, Campbell joined Brown, Williams and Rogers to give Auburn four first-round selections in the 2005 NFL Draft.

"The unselfishness of our football team," said Campbell, describing the key to Auburn's 2004 success. "We had two running backs who were high draft picks and didn't complain about who was getting more carries or touches.

"Some games we came out and threw it a lot, we had really good receivers who could go get the ball. Some games we came out and ran it more. You're able to accomplish a lot when you have unselfish players."

DEFENSE WINS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Campell, Brown and 2004 teammate Will Herring remain close to the program, providing analysis and sideline reporting on the Auburn Sports Network.

“I feel like we were a dominating defense,” said Herring, a redshirt sophomore starting safety in 2004. “It didn’t matter if we were going into Neyland Stadium, it didn’t matter if we were going against the defending national champions, LSU. It didn’t matter if we were backed up inside the 20-yard line on a short field a couple times against Alabama.

“If they were on the 1-inch line, we had the mentality that they’re not going to score.”

Against LSU, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama, the Tigers allowed a combined 38 points. Against the Volunteers, Rosegreen tied the SEC record with four interceptions. 

“There were a ton of moments,” Herring recalled. “That LSU game was special. The game in Neyland Stadium I’ll always say is probably the funnest sporting event of my life, and the defense was a huge part of that.”

Grit, recalls Herring, began in the weight room with strength and conditioning coach Kevin Yoxall, and developed further during a five-loss season in 2003.

“The DNA of that 2004 team was a hard-nosed team that experienced our success on the back end of some serious adversity the season before,” Herring said. “I attribute a lot of it to the leadership in that locker room.”

The 2004 Tigers benefited from the example of players who came before them, Herring says, mentioning Torbor, Karlos Dansby, Mark Brown and Kendall Simmons. 

UNSELFISH STARS

“A lot of them were not even there to experience the success but they had laid the foundation and the culture,” Herring said. “You had the unselfishness of your two best players, Ronnie and Cadillac. Their unselfishness was contagious.

“That undefeated season was the result of a lot of factors but ultimately it was the unselfishness and the hard work we had put in for years leading up to that season.”

At the team’s 10-year reunion in 2014, Tuberville echoed Herring’s point. 

“This team was so unselfish,” Tuberville said. “We had a great offense and defense; we had tremendous special teams. Everybody played their role. We never had one problem all year long. The coaches did an outstanding job. It was a fun time to be around all these guys.”

“We practiced hard and had fun out there,” said Bret Eddins, whose sack against LSU remains a staple on Auburn’s video board two decades later. “We held each other to a very high standard. There was no secret to it. Just hard work and trusting each other.”

Auburn’s 16-13 Sugar Bowl win over Virginia Tech gave the 2004 Tigers the first 13-win season in school history.

AN ENDURING LEGACY

Undefeated but uncrowned. Auburn ended the season ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press poll, but the Tigers began the year ranked No. 17. Oklahoma and Southern California, also undefeated and No. 1 and No. 2 in the preseason poll, met in the BCS National Championship Game. 

“We’ve done all we could do,” Tuberville said in New Orleans after Auburn completed the perfect season. “We beat more top 10 teams than anybody.”

“It’s unbelievable that an undefeated SEC team is not going to play for the national championship,” said starting center Jeremy Ingle after the Sugar Bowl win. “It’s definitely disappointing but we did what we could do.”

The outcry from SEC country was robust, hastening the arrival of the College Football Playoff, which began in 2014 and expands to 12 teams this season. 

“You saw after that year, if a team went undefeated in the SEC, they were going to get into the championship game,” Herring said at the 10-year reunion. 

“That season caused the four-team playoff, but it took almost 10 years,” Tuberville said in September at Jordan-Hare Stadium. “We changed the landscape of all of college football.”

Two decades have passed but the friendships remain strong, with multiple group texts keeping former teammates connected.

“We’re constantly checking in on each other and our families,” Campbell said. “For the most part, we’re still just as close as we were when we were here. When you see each other’s kids, that’s when it really hits home. 

“That’s what I tell young guys. You don’t come to college just to play football and go to school for four years. You come to build lifelong friendships and legacies.”

“Those who went through the 2004 season together, we have a bond and memories you can’t take away from us,” Herring said.

“I’ve never been around a team like that, that really represented the word team,” Tuberville said. “It was the easiest year I ever coached.” 

Twenty years later, the Hard Fighting Soldiers can celebrate – the 13 victories they earned for Auburn, and the one they earned for college football fans.

Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on X: @jeff_shearer