Though its regular season might have ended sourly, Auburn could still have an ending to the 2016 season that's as sweet as sugar.
Despite having four losses, thanks to chaos throughout the league, Auburn was ranked 14 in the College Football Playoff Selection Committee's penultimate top 25 on Tuesday night, making it the SEC's second-highest-ranked team.
That means that, if No. 1 Alabama takes care of business against No. 15 Florida in the SEC Championship Game on Saturday, the Tigers will clinch a berth in this year's Sugar Bowl to face the Big 12 champion (which will come down to the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game).
The Sugar Bowl wasn't where Auburn expected to land after its 1-2 start nor after its poor finish, but because they beat another four-loss team, LSU, head-to-head in week four, they finished second in the SEC West and in prime position for a New Year's Six bowl game.
The Tigers have a lot of history with the SEC's most prestigious bowl. If they do earn a bid to go to New Orleans, the Sugar Bowl will be tied with the Gator Bowl for the most-played bowl game in Auburn history, as both bowls will have hosted the Tigers six times.
In its five Sugar Bowl appearances, Auburn is 2-2-1, with an average score of approximately Auburn 14, opponents 18.
All but one of Auburn's appearances in the bowl has been decided by fewer than six points: its first. After the 1971 season, the Tigers faced Oklahoma, which very well could be their bowl opponent this year. If so, Auburn will hope it didn't go how this game went. The No. 3 Sooners cruised to a 31-0 halftime lead and blew out their fifth-ranked SEC foes, 40-22.
To this day, the 1972 Sugar Bowl remains the only time Auburn has played a team from Oklahoma.
Twelve years later, head coach Pat Dye led his 10-1 SEC champion Tigers, led by a young sophomore running back named Bo Jackson, to New Orleans. Auburn ran for 301 yards on the night and used three Al Del Greco field goals to rally against the No. 8 Michigan Wolverines, 9-7.
One of the most controversial bowl games in Auburn history came in the 1988 Sugar Bowl. One-loss SEC champion Auburn took on 11-0 Syracuse. With one second left, down 16-13, Dye elected to kick a 30-yard field goal to end the game as a draw rather than go for the win from the 13-yard line. The decision cost the Orangemen a perfect 12-0 record.
Upset by the result, a radio station in Syracuse sent Dye more than 2,000 ties in the mail. Dye then autographed and sold all the ties for more than $30,000, which he donated to the Auburn general scholarship fund.
A year later, the Tigers, once again champions of the SEC under Dye, went back to New Orleans looking to pull out a victory this time around. However, they were denied by No. 4 Florida State. Down six and having driven Auburn to the Seminole 22-yard line, quarterback Reggie Slack was intercepted in the end zone by eventual NFL legend Deion Sanders. Florida State beat Auburn, 13-7.
Auburn's most recent trip to New Orleans was one it really didn't want to make. Sitting at 12-0 with the SEC crown, Tommy Tuberville's Tigers were denied a spot in the BCS championship game in Miami in favor of USC and Oklahoma.
Despite facing a let-down situation against No. 8 Virginia Tech, the 10-2 champions of the ACC, the Tigers took care of business in a defensive battle. Auburn led 16-0 going into the final quarter and held on for a 16-13 win over the Hokies to finish 13-0.
Though that Auburn team was denied a national title, it was the first team to show the country that a two-team system just wasn't enough. The 2004 Tigers, along with the 2011 Alabama Crimson Tide, were the catalysts behind the creation of the College Football Playoff.
Now, a dozen years later, the committee for the playoff that Auburn helped create are the ones that will likely put Auburn in the Sugar Bowl. Despite a sluggish finish to the year, the Tigers will gladly take it.
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