One of the greatest teams to not win a national championship is the 2004 Auburn Tigers. That group went undefeated in the always tough SEC, but USC and Oklahoma would play for the championship in the Orange Bowl. It was a great turnaround for Auburn following a disappointing 8-5 season the year before. A big reason for the big season was new offensive coordinator Al Borges. Auburn went 41-9 over his four years on the Plains as the offensive coordinator from 2004 to 2007. Coach Borges spoke to Last Word on College Football about the historic season and his upcoming book “Deny of the Tiger” due out this August. Here is the last word with Al Borges:
The Last Word with Al Borges
Inspiration for the Book
“It really wasn’t something that was on my radar”, said Al Borges. Coach Borges and his son went to the 2021 Iron Bowl that saw Alabama victorious. “He’s got Auburn in his blood”, Borges added. “He knows as much about Auburn as Phillip Marshall or Jason Caldwell.” The fans had not forgotten about that 2004 team either. “Everywhere you go it’s like you never left.” Borges had stops at San Diego State, Michigan, and San Jose State after leaving Auburn.
“I got to do something for the fans”, said Borges. “The book will go from when I got hired to the Sugar Bowl.” In the interview Coach Borges said he went back and re-watched the broadcasts of all 13 games. “When you watch the games, all these thoughts are triggered. The book wrote itself in three weeks. There are some stories you have not heard”, Borges added.
Getting to Auburn
After the 2003 season, Auburn and their head coach Tommy Tuberville were in search of a new offensive coordinator. “I was a late entry. They had already interviewed three guys.”, said Borges. At the time the Auburn strength coach was Kevin Yoxall, who worked with Al Borges while he was at UCLA (1996-2000). “I said I am going to call Yox to see what’s going on”, Borges added. He may have been a late entry, but Borges said Auburn called a day or two later.
“I saw the team during Winter conditioning, I went to watch them, and I said man alive I’ve got to get this job. They’ve got linemen, they got backs that look like backs, and they’ve got a quarterback out of central casting. They’ve got receivers who’s got range and hands”, said Borges. “I said they may have a lot of problems here, but it ain’t recruiting. That’s how it developed, I kind of came out of nowhere.”
Jason Campbell Potential
The day Jason Campbell set foot at Auburn, his talent was undeniable. In his four years as a starter, he had four different offensive coordinators and quarterback coaches. In our interview, Borges spoke on that, “Here’s the deal that was bad from him, good for me. It was bad for him because he had four coordinators in four years. Before I got there three in three years.” Borges continued, “For me, he had so much exposure to so much offense there was very little I could show him that confused him.”
So, what changed with Borges? He went on to say, “But the one thing that stood out to me with Jason (Campbell) because I studied all his not only ’03 but I went back. I looked at every single snap. I even studied practice tapes, anything I could get my hands on I wanted to study,” He continued, “And it just appeared to me as I watched, this kid has a lot of ability, but he plays apprehensively. “He plays afraid that he is going to screw something up. The first thing I wanted to convey to him was you will never be a great quarterback, and we will never be a great team until you let it rip. Until you start playing for the reasons, they recruited you.” The coaching of Borges worked with Campbell that season. Campbell went on to win AP SEC Offensive Player of the Year. He passed for 2.700 yards and 20 touchdowns with a 70% completion percentage. Washington selected Campbell with the 25th pick in the 2005 NFL Draft.
Legendary Backfield
Running backs Carnell “Cadillac” Williams and Ronnie Brown joined Campbell in the first round. Brown went second to the Miami Dolphins and Williams fifth to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For Auburn playing both at the same time was a match-up nightmare. “Well Cadillac was easy, Cadillac’s talent jumped out at you,” said Borges. “Ronnie was more hybrid, Ronnie could play tailback, play fullback, play whatever. Could play halfback and switch off of whoever the other halfback was.”
Getting Brown to play fullback was key according to Borges. “I called him in and said listen we’ve got to get you involved more.” Borges continued, “If you’ll buy into doing a little dirty work that means you’ve got to block every once in a while, I will play you two-thirds of the time at fullback and the other third at halfback. You’ll get triple the playing time and you’ll still get to play halfback. I want to incorporate you more into our passing game.” Brown caught 34 passes for 313 yards and one touchdown that season. “He bought in, he was a microcosm of the unselfishness of the team,” said Borges. Both Williams and Brown were All-SEC selections. They had a combined total of 2,078 yards rushing and eight touchdowns.
Auburn vs USC?
Some of the highlight victories of the 2004 season were the LSU, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama wins. The LSU and Tennessee victories were perhaps the biggest ones of the season. “It (LSU) made us believe we could play with anyone. They won the national championship the year before,” said Borges. “Beating Tennessee was a coming-out party. That was a different deal. When we did what we did to Tennessee in Knoxville, the team offensively in particular was very confident.” Auburn defeated Tennessee 34-10 to go to 5-0 on the season. The two would meet again in the SEC Championship which saw Auburn victorious 38-28.
The Tigers were kept out of the National Championship Game that would be played between USC and Oklahoma. The Trojans defeated the Sooners 55-19, while Auburn defeated Virginia Tech 16-13 in the Sugar Bowl. Coach Borges talked about what it would have looked like between Auburn and USC. “They were so much like us. They had LenDale White, they had Reggie Bush, had (Matt) Leinart.” Borges continued, “Defensively we had the best scoring defense in the entire country coaching in the best conference. I think we could have beat USC. I just have trouble envisioning that team losing any games and that’s why I think that way,” Borges concluded. USC would have to vacant that national championship due to NCAA Violations. Currently, there is not a champion for the 2004 season.
For the rest of the 50-minute interview with Al Borges make sure to check out the latest episode of the Talkin’ SEC Podcast with Phillip Jordan. The podcast can be found at one of the links below:
Apple Podcasts – iHeart – Spotify – Youtube
