Jordan greeted the 1966 season with a reorganization of his coaching
staff and a new helmet logo. He maintained the white shell, one-inch burnt
orange center stripe, the 1/2-inch white gap that preceded the 1/2-inch
navy blue flanking stripes but removed the numerals from the sides of the
helmet and instead displayed a navy blue AU logo that was trimmed in
orange. This would be a long-standing design that has since been
associated with Auburn football. Shug was still tinkering with his
approach to platoon football and the 4-6 record reflected that. With FB
Tom Bryan injured early and a young defense they suffered four
consecutive conference losses. Junior Gusty Yearwood was moved from
offensive guard to defensive nose guard and captained the team as a junior
and played at All SEC level. With none of the QB's able to really fire the
team, they limped to the finish, taking a 31-0 licking from Alabama to
complete their 4-6 mark for the season. 1967's 6-4 record revolved around
a leader on each side of the ball: Gusty Yearwood, a two-year captain and
All SEC performer at middle guard and his counterpart on the offense,
260-pound center Forrest Blue who became the first round pick of the
49'ers and an eleven-year pro. The offense got its boost from All American
end Freddie Hyatt who played six of his seven pro years with the
Cardinals, and benefited from the promotion of Loran Carter to full-time
starting QB after the second-game loss to Tennessee as Carter led the SEC
in passing. Emerging stars on the defense, one that gave up seventeen TD's
in '67 but would improve in coming years, included LB Mike Kolen and
safety Buddy McClinton. 1968 brought another 6-4 finish with excellent
individual performances but was played under the cloud of Coach Jordan's
cancer diagnosis, one that he beat by the following season.
Rambunctious LB Mike Kolen was All Conference and McClinton, continuing to
improve at safety, also made All SEC. DT Dave Campbell went them one
better, completing his junior year with All American honors, based
primarily on his great pass rush. QB Loran Carter again led the attack,
passing behind the protection of center Tom Banks. Many of Carter's passes
were taken by All Conference end Tim Christian but Jordan's illness served
as a distraction to the team and perhaps the staff and while they posted a
great win over ninth-ranked Miami, they once again could not find a way
to beat Bama. The season ended with a Sun Bowl victory over Arizona 34-10
as the Tiger defense picked off eight errant passes.
Two games marked the Pat Sullivan-Terry Beasley years at Auburn, the
best pitch-and-catch team in the country and one that allowed Auburn to
play above its actual talent level. As the Auburn freshmen team of 1968
found itself behind Alabama's frosh squad 27-0 with the clock ticking
down, the coolest hand on the field was the 6', 190-pound quarterback on
the wrong side of the score. He methodically led the Cub team to victory
as if it was expected. In the '69 opener against Wake Forest, this
Birmingham John Carroll H.S. QB, one of the most highly sought after
recruits in the country, overthrew his first pass, an attempted bomb to
fellow sophomore, receiver Terry Beasley, by more than twenty yards. The
Auburn fans actually stood to cheer that errant pass because it marked a
new approach and a new era in Auburn football. Sullivan and Beasley led
the Tigers to a 47-0 victory over the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest and
three years of exuberance and solid, winning records kept Auburn in the
national forefront. The well-built though somewhat small 5'11", 185 pound
Beasley was a quick, exacting receiver and the perfect complement to
Sullivan who for three seasons, refused to take credit for Auburn's
success. The 8-3 record was highlighted by a 49-26 defeat of Alabama,
their first win over the Tide since 1963 and the most points laid upon
Bama since 1907. It also included a nasty 36-7 loss to a loaded Houston
team in the Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl game to end the season but Sullivan and
Beasley had laid the foundation and had the absolute devotion of their
teammates. Sullivan as a soph, set new school records for passing and
total yardage. Buddy McClinton would be named as All American at safety,
while All Conference players LB Mike Kolen and center Tom Banks added to
team glamour. Kolen would go on to be an integral part of the Miami
Dolphin Super Bowl defenses.
1970 began with five straight wins and big offensive numbers despite
stacked defenses. Those defenses weren't stacked properly against the type
of talent Auburn's dynamic duo had as Beasley caught 1051 yards worth of
Sullivan passes. Banks played great and went on to a ten-year career at
center for the Cardinals. Sullivan-to-Beasley was the combination that led
to the QB's standing as the NCAA offensive leader and MVP in the
Southeastern Conference but two wins that season meant more than any
individual achievement. Behind The Crimson Tide 17-0, it was a repeat of
the 27-0 deficit of their frosh year and calmly and confidently, Sullivan
and Beasley moved their team downfield until the end result was a 33-28
Tiger win. In the Gator Bowl game against Archie Manning and Ole Miss, the
two teams put up over 1000 yards in offense when it was still a generation
prior to the "basketball-on-grass" offenses of the late 1980's and '90's
with Pat Sullivan willing his teammates to a 35-28 win. The defense was
good all year long, with DB Larry Willingham an All America pick and later
playing two good years with the Cardinals, and McClinton, but it was the
offense of Sullivan that drove the team.
Every opponent took the field against Auburn in 1971 primed and ready
to stop "Super Sully And Terry Terrific" as the popular Auburn-area bumper
stickers noted, yet, Auburn ran the table to 9-0 and included a huge win
against powerful Georgia on November 14, a game that perhaps vaulted
Sullivan over Cornell's popular Ed Marinaro for the Heisman vote. That
35-20 victory in front of a hostile Georgia crowd was almost a one-man Pat
Sullivan show with Beasley in support. Hindsight indicates that the team
was perhaps distracted going into the Alabama showdown two weeks later and
the Tide dumped the Tigers badly, 31-7. The Sugar Bowl loss against
Oklahoma that followed left the Tigers with a still-terrific 9-2 record
and the Heisman Trophy winner as their QB as Sullivan continued to praise
teammates like his fellow All American Beasley and All SEC tackle Tommy
Yearout. Sullivan and his twenty-four Auburn records traveled to Atlanta
as the number two choice of the Falcons and played with them from 1972
through '75 but had what was considered to be a disappointing pro career,
starting off with a three-completions-in-nineteen-attempts first year.
Beasley, a first round pick of San Francisco, seemed to be ready to
fulfill his collegiate promise of 17.8 yards per catch, but was injured
early and played only the 1972, '74 and '75 seasons before retiring.
Despite the lack of professional success, Pat Sullivan, who later returned
to Auburn as an assistant coach and coordinator before moving on as the
head coach of TCU, and Beasley, remain matchless in the memories they gave
to the Tiger faithful.
The loss of the Pat Sullivan-to-Terry Beasley pass and catch duo going
into '72 would not be overcome and the Tigers of Auburn were destined for
a long and horrid season against a schedule rated as one of the toughest
in the nation. This at least was the common prediction among those who
were supposed to know something about big-time football. "The Amazin's" as
the '72 Tiger collection were called, proved everyone wrong, storming to a
10-1 record in the most improbable way. Beginning with an April 22nd
spring ball drill where the first team offense faced the first team
defense, running the same three plays for over two non-stop hours of
punishment, this team was forged in iron for the remainder of the
year.They reeled off four wins behind QB Randy Walls and the rushing of HB
Terry Henley and FB James Owens, not an easy task as the O-Linemen had to
mentally and physically switch from three seasons of pass blocking
techniques to the grind-it-out head-butting of a rushing offense. The
fifth game was finally, the predicted loss to LSU by an ugly 35-7 but
instead of folding, the close-knit team, especially the rock-solid
defense, rose up and stomped threw the remainder of the schedule. Led by
LB Ken Bernich and DT Benny Sivley, they were close to impenetrable. In
the season finale against second-ranked and undefeated Alabama, the
ninth-ranked Tigers made up their minds that they were going to win. They
blocked an extra point early and then scored all of their points in the
final 9:15 to overcome a 16-0 deficit. At the 5:30 mark, with Bama on the
fifty-yard line, punter Greg Gantt was terrorized by LB Bill Newton who
rushed in and blocked the kick. DB David Langer scooped the ball up on the
twenty-five and streaked into the end zone. Amazingly, "The Amazin's"
given the nickname long before this game, did it again as the same
combination of players watched the Tide line up on the Alabama forty-three
yard line with only 1:34 left. Newton again broke through, Langer again
recovered and this time ran twenty yards for the winning score. Making
reference to a critical comment made by Bama Coach Paul Bryant before the
game, tackle Mac Lorendo said, "This cow college hit 'em upside the head
with our cow bells!" With five Tigers named to the All SEC team, Shug was
rewarded with a Gator Bowl bid that translated to a 24-3 whipping of
Colorado and SEC Coach Of The Year award.
