ATLANTA – Eight days ago, Frank Sanders couldn’t watch it anymore. The former Auburn All-America wideout left his alma mater’s Jordan-Hare Stadium late in the third quarter of last week’s game against Alabama and drove his car toward Birmingham.
“It was too emotionally draining,” he said. “I had to get out of there.”
So he was in his car when the Tigers’ Chris Davis returned a last-second Crimson Tide field-goal try for the most talked-about touchdown in AU history, the one that won the Iron Bowl and sent Auburn to Saturday evening’s SEC championship game, which it won 59-42 over Missouri inside the Georgia Dome.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Sanders, who was his school’s Legends honoree at a banquet Friday night that saluted one former player from each of the SEC’s 14 schools. “I just started screaming as I drove.”
More than a week later, Davis’s score still has Auburn fans screaming every time they watch the replay, including at least four times Saturday at the Dome.