Aubserver Mailbag 172: What should be the next big home-and-home?

This week: Your picks for Auburn's future schedules, wide receiver rankings, luck, trick plays, Mac vs. PC and athletes as musicians

(Steven Leonard/Auburn Tigers)

When you’ve written literally hundreds of mailbags over the years, you run into certain questions that get asked pretty often.

For me, the questions that stand the test of time and are always popular, no matter the time of year, are ones about scheduling and which teams Auburn should play next. I’ve given my opinions in a number of mailbags here, and I even did a whole story about the biggest ones the Tigers have never played two summers ago.

This summer, in hopes of generating some more interactions during a time when there might not be as many pressing Auburn football and basketball issues, I’ve been posing a question each week for readers to answer themselves. So far, we’ve done snow cone flavors, favorite American cities, your favorite random Tigers from the past and arcade games.

This week, I turned my most frequent question back to y’all: If you could schedule one home-and-home series for Auburn in football and/or basketball, what school are you picking?

Let’s go through your answers, along with some questions about Auburn football, basketball and a few other go-to topics this time of year.

Thanks as always for continuing to read, listen and subscribe to The Auburn Observer. Your support during the summer months means so much. Let’s go.

Notre Dame for football. We've never played them!

Admiral Salty

Prior to their meeting at the Legends Classic in Brooklyn last year, Auburn and Notre Dame had never played in football or men’s basketball.

The Tigers dispatched the Fighting Irish on the hardwood with relative ease, but it’s clear a good chunk of the fan base wants to see them on the gridiron. (You’ll see Notre Dame several more times in this mailbag.)

In terms of history, Notre Dame is clearly the biggest team Auburn hasn’t played yet. Notre Dame is one of only two top-20 FBS teams in all-time wins that has never faced Auburn. It’s No. 4, and the other one is No. 19 Pittsburgh. Also, No. 13 Auburn is the winningest FBS program that Notre Dame has never played. It truly goes both ways.

It’s kind of bizarre that the two sides have never met, considering how much Notre Dame has tangled with other SEC schools in the past. Alabama has played ND eight times and has a home-and-home set for 2029 and 2030. SEC newcomers Texas and Oklahoma have played ND double-digit times each. Georgia played Notre Dame in 1981, 2017 and 2019. Tennessee has played ND eight times, and LSU has done it a dozen times.

Out of the current SEC schools, Notre Dame has never played Auburn, Arkansas, Kentucky and Mississippi State. The Fighting Irish will check the Razorbacks off of their list in 2025, which happens to be a year where they’re playing Texas A&M again. They’ve got a home-and-home with Florida scheduled for 2031 and 2032.

And therein lies the major problem with scheduling Notre Dame: Everybody wants to do it. Notre Dame is an independent, but it’s got an agreement with the ACC where it has to play five of its schools per season. Throw in the annual games with Navy and USC, and it’s tough to get on Notre Dame’s dance card. The Fighting Irish have a major home-and-home scheduled every year between now and 2034.

Maybe Auburn can get next in line. Maybe the ACC explodes within the next decade. Maybe all previous scheduling agreements get tossed out because of radical restructuring in the sport. Those last two seem more likely than the first one, to be honest with you.

Notre Dame might not be the colossal championship-winning program it once was, but it’s still a huge deal in college football. Playing Notre Dame would automatically get Auburn on one of the biggest stages of that weekend, and there’s just something about two big brand names colliding in what we call a true “helmet game.”

Sure, it’s cliche to pick Notre Dame as your answer to this question. But cliches are cliches for a reason. This is the biggest whale in the scheduling sea for Auburn.

For football, I think you should exclude Notre Dame, since that will probably be the overwhelming answer. Make people think.

Miami and UCLA were my first thoughts, but we have them scheduled, so I will go with a trip to the Big House and Michigan. In basketball, UNC.

John

John is correct in saying that Notre Dame would be the most popular answer, but we got a lot more than just the Fighting Irish this week. I’m proud of the variety here!