Claiming national football championships has recently been a hot topic for many Auburn students, alumni and fans.
Because the NCAA does not officially award a national title in major college football, polls and organizations unofficially picked title-winners until the start of the Bowl Championship Series in 1998.
In the days before national title games, several schools could claim the national title for a given season because there wasn't a winner-take-all matchup like we saw in the BCS system or will see in the new playoff system.
While some Auburn fans like to poke fun at Alabama's retroactive claims to several national championships, our rivals are not alone.
Before their inaugural season in the SEC two years ago, Texas A&M officially added two national titles to its record book. Ole Miss and Georgia Tech have done the same in recent years.
While Auburn and Alabama fans can argue over the merits of the rival school's title claims, they should agree on one thing: claiming national titles is all about boosting a program's reputation.
Even in today's world of modern college football recruiting, with the new lure of state-of-the-art facilities and quick routes to NFL careers, a program's history and tradition still mean a lot to its future.
That is why athletic director Jay Jacobs and other Auburn alumni are debating official claims to the 1913, 1983, 1993 and 2004 national titles.
We think Auburn should make their rightful claim to some of these disputed championships, but not all of them.
In 1993, Auburn had a magical, perfect season but was ignored by the pollsters and coaches. There was a good reason for that: the Tigers were on probation, keeping them from any postseason action, SEC title considerations or televised games.
And while the unbeaten 2004 Auburn Tigers had a significant claim to be involved in the national title picture, there was a national title game that season. Though USC later had to hand back the consensus 2004 title for recruiting violations, we don't think No. 3 Auburn can definitively say it has a better claim than Oklahoma, who would be "punished" for a game that shouldn't have happened.
(Our apologies to former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville.)
But two of these seasons, 1913 and 1983, should be recognized as national title seasons on the Plains.
"Iron" Mike Donahue's 1913 Tigers went 8-0 and did not give up a single point until the second-to-last game of their season.
The NCAA also recognizes the University of Chicago, who does not even play major college football anymore, and Harvard as champions in its record book. But Auburn had the strongest resume of anyone that season -- more than enough to officially claim a title.
Pat Dye's 1983 team, which featured eventual Heisman winner Bo Jackson, went 11-1 in what is statistically the fourth-toughest schedule in college football history. The Tigers bounced back from a second-week loss to No. 3 Texas and knocked off four top-10 opponents in their final five games of the season.
After a close Sugar Bowl win against Michigan, then-No. 3 Auburn watched No. 1 Nebraska and No. 2 Texas lose their respective bowl games. Conventional poll logic would have made Auburn the No. 1 team at season's end, but the team that beat Nebraska, No. 5 Miami, jumped the Tigers in the AP and Coaches' polls.
Auburn and Miami finished with the same record, but Auburn had a much tougher schedule. Tigers beat Florida, the only team that beat Miami, and the Hurricanes' only top-10 win was against Nebraska.
As a member of that 1983 team, Jacobs knows how much Auburn deserved to be crowned the national champion that year.
Anyone who looks at a record book can see how the dominant 1913 team should be officially recognized as champions by Jacobs and the athletic department.
We know adding only two national titles will not immediately make us as historically prestigious as our bitter rivals in Tuscaloosa.
But when you look at the state of Gus Malzahn's current Auburn program, there is a great chance the Tigers will have more opportunities in the near future to close that championship gap.
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