Mailbag 208: What's the most consistent jersey number at Auburn?
This week: Linebackers, OOC scheduling, Tahaad Pettiford, Keyshawn Hall, wrestling history, Walton Goggins and breakfast cereals
AUBURN — Over the weekend, I was having a conversation with someone about my job. This person asked how I came up with topics for newsletters when neither Auburn basketball nor Auburn football are in-season.
I told this person that I wrote a mailbag almost every week where I answer questions directly from our subscribers. It’s an easy way to come up with stuff to write. It’s been the longest-running thing I’ve done, dating back to the SEC Country days and through my time at The Athletic. It’s also, on average, my most-read piece each week.
I’ve done more than 200 of these at The Observer alone, and I did hundreds more at my past jobs. I’ve learned there’s a science to picking which question gets the lead, headline-making treatment. While a lot of our mailbags are total free-for-alls, especially towards the end, you usually want to make your first question something timely and relevant to what’s going on right now with Auburn.
And then there are times when an off-the-wall question commands that slot. This is one of those mailbags.
This week, we’ll tackle questions about Auburn football’s linebackers, future scheduling approaches, looking ahead to next season in basketball and a lot more. And my question to y’all this week was a simple one: What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?
But, before we get to all of that, we start with a historical question that caused me to do some heavy-duty diving into past media guides and roster breakdowns.
While we know the most famous jersey numbers at Auburn, which digit has had the most consistent success over the years? The answer might surprise you.
Let’s go.
What is the most consistent jersey number in Auburn football history?
Like, what number has been the most successful overall? 2, 7, 34 and 88 have their singular players, but, for instance, 18 is almost always a dude — usually a WR and/or a DB, but you get a few older QBs, plus Wes Byrum.
And Peanut Butter Crunch is the greatest breakfast cereal.
James
This is such a great question, because the retired and unofficially retired numbers for Auburn football are the ones that stand out the most: Cam Newton’s 2, Pat Sullivan’s 7, Bo Jackson’s 34 and Terry Beasley’s 88. While those numbers have the biggest stars attached to them, they don’t have much depth — because they’re not reused.
My first approach to answering this question was a simple one: What number, outside of these four, had the most star players? The best way I knew how to tackle that was to look through Auburn’s All-Americans over the years.
There were a pair of numbers that had two picks each: 74 for Tracy Rocker and Wayne Gandy, and 11 for Karlos Dansby and Chris Davis. But there was another pair that had three All-Americans each: 4 for Chris Shelling, Junior Rosegreen and Jeff Holland, and 55 for Ben Tamburello, Takeo Spikes and Carl Lawson.
Right away, I had the two numbers I wanted to look at the closest. James makes a good point in his question about how certain numbers feel like they always have a dude with them. If we’re trying to find the most consistent one, we should start with the current era and work our way back.
When it comes to the 55 jersey, there were a couple of solid players in the last decade or so that had the number with Lawson: T.D. Moultry and Corey Lemonier. That number was most recently worn by offensive lineman Bradyn Joiner, who recently transferred out of the program. While 55 conjures great visions in my head of terrifying pass rushers or dominant offensive linemen, it’s not extremely deep outside of the big names.
Then I turned my attention to the 4 jersey, and I was blown away.