Why the Auburn schedule football 2017 season was the craziest rollercoaster in SEC history

If you were sitting in Jordan-Hare Stadium in late 2017, you knew you were witnessing something that shouldn't have been possible. Honestly, looking back at the Auburn schedule football 2017 slate, it felt like Gus Malzahn was playing a video game on the "Heisman" difficulty setting. Most teams hope to avoid playing the #1 team in the country. Auburn? They decided to do it twice in three weeks. And they won both times.

It was a year of extreme highs and a few head-scratching lows. You had Kerryon Johnson basically carrying the entire offense on his back until his ribs literally couldn't take it anymore. Jarrett Stidham, the Baylor transfer, finally gave the Tigers the vertical passing threat they’d been missing since Nick Marshall. But the schedule was the real story. It was a gauntlet.

The brutal reality of the early 2017 slate

Auburn didn't get to ease into the year. After a blowout win against Georgia Southern to open things up, they traveled to Death Valley to face Clemson. This was the defending national champion Clemson, mind you.

The defense was lights out. They held Deshaun Watson’s successor, Kelly Bryant, in check for most of the night. But the offense? It was a disaster. Stidham was sacked 11 times. Eleven! You could see the frustration on Malzahn’s face. It felt like the season might slip away before it even started. That 14-6 loss was ugly, but it actually served as a wake-up call for the offensive line.

They bounced back. They handled Mercer—though it was closer than people liked—and then absolutely dismantled Missouri and Mississippi State. By the time they hit the meat of the SEC schedule, the "Stidham-to-Ryan-Davis" connection was humming.

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That weird afternoon in Baton Rouge

Every Auburn fan wants to delete the LSU game from their memory. Leading 20-0 in the first half, it looked like a blowout. Then, the play-calling went conservative. It was like they were trying to run out the clock with 30 minutes left in the game. LSU roared back, Auburn’s offense went stagnant, and they lost 27-23.

People were calling for Malzahn's head. At that point, the Auburn schedule football 2017 looked like a recipe for a 4-loss season and a trip to a mediocre bowl game. But then, something clicked.

When the 2017 schedule became legendary

Everything changed in November. To understand why this specific year is so iconic in Auburn lore, you have to look at the stretch where they played Georgia and Alabama. At the time, both were ranked #1. Both were undefeated.

The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry turned into a massacre. Georgia came to town with Nick Chubb and Sony Michel, and Auburn’s front four—led by Jeff Holland and Derrick Brown—simply bullied them. The 40-17 scoreline didn't even reflect how dominant Auburn was. They outgained the Bulldogs by nearly 250 yards.

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Two weeks later, the Iron Bowl. The stakes were simple: winner goes to the SEC Championship, loser goes home. Alabama was the heavy favorite, but Jordan-Hare was vibrating. Stidham played the game of his life, scrambling for key first downs and picking apart the Bama secondary. When Auburn won 26-14, the fans rushed the field. It was pure chaos. For a brief moment, Auburn was the best team in college football.

The toll of the SEC gauntlet

The problem with the Auburn schedule football 2017 wasn't the talent; it was the attrition. Kerryon Johnson got hurt late in the Iron Bowl. By the time the SEC Championship rematch against Georgia rolled around in Atlanta, he was a shell of himself. Auburn didn't have the depth to beat a team like Georgia twice in a month while banged up.

They lost the title game 28-7. It was a heartbreaking end to the conference run, but the season wasn't over. They headed to the Peach Bowl to face an undefeated UCF team.

Honestly, the Peach Bowl was a letdown. You could tell the energy was gone. UCF played like it was their Super Bowl, and Auburn played like they were still mourning the SEC Championship. Scott Frost’s Knights won 34-27, finishing a perfect season and sparking that whole "National Champions" claim in Orlando.

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Why we still talk about this specific year

A lot of people point to 2010 or 2013 as the "peak" Auburn years. But 2017 was different. It proved that on any given Saturday, Malzahn’s system could destroy the giants of the sport.

• Kerryon Johnson's stats: He finished with 1,391 rushing yards and 18 touchdowns. He was the SEC Offensive Player of the Year for a reason.
• The Defensive Wall: Kevin Steele turned that defense into a top-10 unit nationally.
• The Quarterback Factor: Stidham threw for over 3,000 yards, a rarity in the run-heavy Auburn systems of the past.

Looking back at the full 2017 results

If you're trying to track the momentum, here's how the path actually looked:

• Sept 2: vs Georgia Southern (W 41-7)
• Sept 9: at Clemson (L 6-14)
• Sept 16: vs Mercer (W 24-10)
• Sept 23: at Missouri (W 51-14)
• Sept 30: vs Mississippi State (W 49-10)
• Oct 7: vs Ole Miss (W 44-23)
• Oct 14: at LSU (L 23-27)
• Oct 21: at Arkansas (W 52-20)
• Nov 4: at Texas A&M (W 42-27)
• Nov 11: vs Georgia (W 40-17)
• Nov 18: vs ULM (W 42-14)
• Nov 25: vs Alabama (W 26-14)
• Dec 2: vs Georgia (SEC CG) (L 7-28)
• Jan 1: vs UCF (Peach Bowl) (L 27-34)

It's a wild list. Ten wins. Four losses. But those four losses all came against teams that were either in the playoff or finished undefeated. There were no "bad" losses, just missed opportunities.

The 2017 season remains a case study in how momentum works in college football. It showed that a team can be left for dead in mid-October and still be the talk of the country by late November. It also proved that playing in the SEC West is basically a war of attrition.

If you want to dive deeper into the tactical side of that season, you should check out the film reviews of the 2017 Iron Bowl. Specifically, look at how Auburn used the "buck sweep" to neutralize Alabama's speed. It’s a masterclass in coaching. Also, keep an eye on the career arcs of the 2017 defensive line; almost all of them ended up playing on Sundays.

To really understand the legacy of this schedule, go back and watch the highlights of the Georgia game on November 11th. It’s perhaps the loudest Jordan-Hare has ever been in the modern era. That's the real story of 2017—not the final record, but those two weeks where Auburn was the center of the sporting universe.