Auburn

Auburn claims two national championships: 1957 and 2010. Three Auburn players, Pat Sullivan in 1971, Bo Jackson in 1985, and Cam Newton in 2010 have won the Heisman Trophy. The Trophy's namesake, John Heisman, coached at Auburn from 1895 until 1899. Auburn is the only school that Heisman coached at (among others, Georgia Tech and Clemson) that has produced a Heisman Trophy winner. Auburn's Jordan–Hare Stadium has a capacity of 88,043 ranking as the tenth-largest on-campus stadium in the NCAA as of January 2011. Auburn played the first football game in the Deep South in 1892 against the University of Georgia at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia. The Tigers' first bowl appearance was in 1937 in the sixth Bacardi Bowl played in Havana, Cuba. AU Football has won 12 conference championships (8 SEC), has had seven perfect seasons, and since the division of the conference in 1992, six outright western division championships (1997, 2000, 2004, 2010, 2013, 2017) along with three additional co-championships. Auburn plays archrival Alabama each year in a game known as the Iron Bowl. In the overall series with Alabama, Auburn trails Alabama 42–35–1, despite holding an 18–14 advantage in games played since 1982. Of the 14 SEC member universities, Auburn currently ranks 5th in the number of SEC football championships.

Auburn completed the 2004 football season with an unblemished 13–0 record winning the SEC championship, their first conference title since 1989 and their first outright title since 1987. However, this achievement was somewhat overshadowed by the Tigers being left out of the BCS championship game in deference to two other undefeated, higher ranked teams, USC and Oklahoma. The 2004 team was led by quarterback Jason Campbell (Washington Commanders), running backs Carnell Williams (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and Ronnie Brown (Miami Dolphins), and cornerback Carlos Rogers (Washington Commanders).

Auburn completed the 2010 football season with a perfect record of 13–0 winning the SEC championship when they defeated the University of South Carolina 56–17, which set an SEC Championship Game record for most points scored and largest margin of victory. The Tigers went on to defeat the Oregon Ducks 22–19 in their first appearance in the BCS National Championship Game on January 10, 2011, in Glendale, Arizona. The 2010 team was led by quarterback Cam Newton, who became the Heisman trophy winner of 2010 along with multiple other awards.

Auburn completed the 2013 regular season with an 11–1 record by knocking off then #1 Alabama. Auburn went on to defeat #5 Missouri 59–42 in the 2013 SEC Championship Game to claim its eighth SEC championship. Auburn faced #1 Florida State in the 2014 BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl, falling to the Seminoles in the final seconds, 31–34. The Tigers finished the season with a 12–2 record and ranked #2 in the final AP and Coaches polls.

In terms of winning percentage, Auburn ranks as the 15th most successful team of all time (1869-2019) with a 63.052% win rate.

The College Football Research Center lists Auburn as the 14th best college football program in history, with eight Auburn squads listed in Billingsley's Top 200 Teams of All Time (1869–2010). The Bleacher Report placed Auburn as the 18th best program of all time in their power rankings conducted after the 2010 season. In 2013, College Football Data Warehouse, a website dedicated to the historical data of college football, listed Auburn 13th all-time. After the 2008 season, ESPN ranked Auburn the 21st most prestigious program in history. Additional noteworthy outlets to rank Auburn in the top 25 all time were College Football News, who put the Tigers at 13th all time after the 2018 season, and the Associated Press, who ranked Auburn 15th all time after the 2017 season.

The Associated Press poll statistics show Auburn with the 11th best national record of being ranked in the final AP Poll and 14th overall (ranked 503 times out of 1058 polls since the poll began in 1936), with an average ranking of 11.2. Since the Coaches Poll first released a final poll in 1950, Auburn has 26 seasons where the team finished ranked in the top 20 in both the AP and Coaches Polls.

Auburn has also had success against teams ranked number one in the nation. The Tigers have beaten seven teams ranked number one in either the AP, Coaches, Bowl Championship Series (BCS), or College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings. The BCS was created in 1998 to guarantee bowl game matchups between the top teams, including a national championship game between the two top-ranked teams. The BCS was discontinued in 2014 and replaced by the CFP, which organizes a four-team playoff and national championship game.