9.15.23 Football Articles

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si.com

Top-rated corner in 2025 class to visit Auburn this weekend

Daniel Locke

2–3 minutes

Na'eem Offord, one of the highest-rated recruits in the class of 2025, is set to visit Auburn this weekend.

Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze has put a major emphasis on the recruiting efforts by him and his staff.

Those efforts have been put on display once again as one of the top recruits in the class of 2025 will be visiting Auburn this weekend.

Na'eem Offord, a native of Birmingham, has received attention from every major program.

According to 247Sports, Offord has a 0.9971 composite rating and is ranked No. 7 nationally, the No. 2 cornerback and the No. 2 player in the state of Alabama.

Aside from Auburn, Offord has offers from programs such as Alabama, Arkansas, Clemson, Colorado, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pounder attends Parker High School. 

Offord took snaps at quarterback and wide receiver in addition to cornerback last season. He rushed for 360 yards and three touchdowns, averaging 10.3 yards per carry. He caught 18 passes for 366 yards and three touchdowns.

On defense, Offord logged 13 tackles and a sack. 

If Freeze and company could land Offord's commitment, it would speak volumes as to how much improvement Auburn has made on the recruiting trail. 

Landing top talent from the state of Alabama would make a statement about Auburn reclaiming its spot as one of the top brands in college football. 

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al.com

 

The tale of Aubie the Tiger's first football game, which was 44 years ago today

Updated: Sep. 15, 2023, 11:03 a.m.|Published: Sep. 15, 2023, 10:55 a.m.

4–5 minutes

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The Auburn Tigers won the football game that hot afternoon in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

But that isn’t what people remember about Auburn’s game against Kansas State on Sept. 15, 1979. Instead, that afternoon is best remembered as the day a refrigerator box was planted on the 50-yard line well before kickoff. Well, maybe not the box itself, but rather what was inside the box.

As fans filed into the stands of Jordan-Hare Stadium, they couldn’t help but ask, “What’s the deal with the box at midfield?

Inside the box was Barry Mask, who toed the line of a heat stroke the entire time as he waited to make his grand entrance.

“Nobody knew what was going to happen,” Mask said in a 2019 interview with AL.com.

Eventually, Auburn stadium announcer Carl Stephens broke the ice.

“Introducing a new Auburn tradition, Aubie the Tiger,” Stephens said over the PA.

The Auburn marching band struck up a tune and Mask jumped from the box, dressed as Aubie the Tiger, and began dancing to the delight of Tigers’ fans.

When Mask finished with his antics, he said he was seeing stars as he went back to the tunnel. The thermometer taped to his chest read 115 degrees.

For the full story, which was told by AL.com’s Tom Wofford in 2019, click here.

For nearly 20 years to that point, Aubie was often featured on the covers of Auburn’s football programs — but it wasn’t until then that he was brought to life.

Phil Neel of the Birmingham-Post Herald is credited for creating Aubie, who first appeared on a football program on Oct. 3, 1959 ahead of the Tigers’ matchup against Hardin-Simmons. Despite Aubie’s humble beginnings, he was a good-luck charm for the Auburn football team, which won its first nine games with Aubie on the cover of its programs.

Initially, Aubie’s presence on the sidelines was an anomaly.

In the late 1970s, many college football teams used live animals as their mascots. At Auburn, a golden eagle who was ironically named “Tiger” was used.

Meanwhile, costumed mascots were unheard of. At the time, Boston College’s “Baldy” the eagle was about the only costumed mascot that existed.

But Auburn student government spirit chairman James Lloyd wanted to find a way to entice fans to come to Jordan-Hare Stadium earlier on game days. And he figured the antics of a costumed mascot could be the ticket.

Lloyd sent clippings of Neel’s illustrations to Brooks Van-Horn — a famed costume shop in New York. And after dishing out $1,350 for the original costume in 1978, the Aubie costume was born.

Lloyd himself went on to wear the costume as Aubie made his first-ever appearance at the SEC basketball championships in Birmingham on Feb. 28, 1979. Auburn went on to upset Georgia and Vanderbilt to punch its ticket to the semi-finals.

But Lloyd wasn’t sold on acting as Aubie long-term. So auditions were held and 32 people showed up.

After narrowing it down, the university decided it would announce the audition winner at Toomer’s Corner the Thursday prior to the spring football game.

Mask said not one person showed up to learn who would be wearing the Aubie costume. But thanks to his background in theater and preparation heading into the audition process, it was Mask who got the nod.

“Some people assumed it would just be someone in a suit walking around,” Mask said in 2019. “But I decided this was going to be a real character, like Phil Neel created. I decided Aubie should be loveable, a good dancer, a harmless flirt, and a good-natured prankster. And I drew inspiration from the Pink Panther, especially because the costume’s feet.”

Forty-four years later, it’s thanks to the creativity of Neel, the initiative of Lloyd and the literal out-of-the-box thinking of Mask that we still get to enjoy the unpredictable antics of Aubie the Tiger on Saturdays.

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