Clemson Isn't Auburn, With Or Without A Lake

[AUChizad]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2010/09/scarbinsky_clemson_isnt_auburn.html

Scarbinsky: Clemson isn't Auburn, with or without a lake
Published: Friday, September 17, 2010, 5:30 AM
Kevin Scarbinsky, Birmingham News

Dabo Swinney leads a Tiger Walk. Where have we seen that before?

There's a little-known law in the college football constitution. On those rare occasions when Auburn plays kissin' cousin Clemson, every college football writer south of the Mason-Dixon Line is required to channel Lewis Grizzard.

So, with the sometimes-purple Tigers visiting the true-blue Tigers this weekend, sue me, and stop me if you've heard this one a thousand times before.

Clemson is Auburn with a lake.

That line might've been funny the first time Grizzard said it -- if the first person to hear it was on laughing gas -- but the famous Southern humorist was laid to rest in 1994.

They should've buried that insult along with him.

Fact is, it's just not true.

Clemson isn't Auburn with a lake. Clemson isn't Auburn with a rock. Clemson isn't Auburn in a box, with a fox, on a train or on a plane.

Clemson isn't Auburn. Period.

Any suggestion to the contrary is a bad joke.

If the difference between them is a body of water, it's not a lake. It's a gulf, and it's bigger than the Gulf of Mexico.

Oh, sure, there are surface similarities between the Tigers and the Tigers. They do share a nickname. And a color. And a history as agricultural schools without their home states in their names.

As a result, they both suffer from occasional bouts of a common malady in major college football known as Little Brother Syndrome, in which they think they're being slighted in favor of Alabama and South Carolina, even when they're not.

Angst alert. Auburn and Clemson fans will have to make room for each other on the dark side of the moon if the Crimson Tide and the Gamecocks meet for a second time this season in the SEC Championship Game.

Until then, and before ESPN and "College GameDay" give them the kind of national publicity they rarely see, it's time to do the math on this Auburn=Clemson equation.

It just doesn't add up.

Auburn leads the all-time series with Clemson 33-11-2. Auburn is 21-2 against Clemson in Auburn. Auburn has beaten Clemson in their last 13 meetings.

Clemson last beat Auburn in 1951, a decade before Gene Chizik was born.

Those numbers alone should shatter this mirror-image nonsense, but why stop there?

John Heisman coached at both schools. Two Auburn players, Pat Sullivan and Bo Jackson, have won his trophy. Clemson is still waiting for someone to bring home the stiff-arm statue.

Auburn's most famous player was Jackson. In his spare time, he played major league baseball. Clemson's most famous player was William "The Refrigerator" Perry. In his spare time, he opened the refrigerator.

Auburn has sent 12 men into the College Football Hall of Fame. Clemson? Six. One of them, Heisman, first coached at Auburn.

Auburn has more bowl trips (35-32) and bowl victories (20-16) than Clemson, but at least those totals are in the same ballpark. Each school claims one AP national championship.

Clemson's edge: It has 13 ACC titles to Auburn's six SEC championships. Then again, most decades, it's at least twice as hard to win the SEC as it is the ACC.

That's the bottom line.

Clemson may be good enough to beat Auburn this weekend -- after all, Dabo Swinney's roots are in the SEC -- but no matter what happens, one thing won't change. Clemson is a good ACC program. Auburn is a good SEC program.

They may have a lot in common, but they are not little brothers in arms.

Witness the last time they met, in the 2007 Chick-fil-A Bowl. Kodi Burns was a quarterback, and Tony Franklin was the offensive coordinator, and still Auburn beat Clemson.

It's a wonder Tommy Bowden didn't go jump in the lake that night.