Has it sunk in for you yet?

Has it sunk in that the 2010 Auburn Tigers are the national champions?

Has it sunk in for all of the legends who wore the blue jersey and bled orange, but never reached the pinnacle of college football?

Pat Sullivan and Terry Beasley? Joe Cribbs, Bo Jackson and Brent Fullwood? Stan White and Frank Sanders, Jason Campbell and Courtney Taylor?

How big is winning the national championship to the Auburn family?

“Oh, man. That’s a simple question right there,” said former Auburn head coach Pat Dye to auburnsports.com after the Tigers defeated the Ducks 22–19 Jan. 10 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. “You know, bigger than this stadium—big as all that desert I crossed getting here.”

It took 53 years for Auburn to cross the desert between national championships.

Fifty-three long, frustrating years where at least three Tigers’ football teams were denied the BCS national championship.

The 1983 team, featuring Jackson and fellow running backs Lionel James and Tommie Agee, finished the season 11–1, defeating four top-10 teams while losing only an early season matchup to the then third-ranked Texas Longhorns.

The third-ranked Tigers played the eighth-ranked Wolverines in the Sugar Bowl, defeating Michigan on Al Del Greco’s field goal with 27 seconds left in the game.

After the first and second ranked teams lost their bowl games, the Tigers went to sleep thinking they were champions, but the coaches and Associated Press voted the Miami Hurricanes national champions in their respective polls.

The second snub came in 1993, when the best team on radio defied the odds of probation, finishing the season as college football’s only undefeated team at 11–0.

The Tigers finished the season No. 4 in the AP poll, while national champion Florida State finished with one loss at 12–1.

The final snub came in 2004, when former coach Tommy Tuberville’s Tigers were shut out of the BCS National Championship game in favor of media darlings Southern California and Oklahoma.

USC destroyed Oklahoma in the championship game, and the Tigers were, once again, left to ponder what could have been.

The 2010 Auburn Tigers would have none of that, though. The Tigers refused to lose even when they were facing seemingly insurmountable deficits.

After defeating Oregon in the championship game, coach Gene Chizik said the win was for the fans and the Auburn family.

The Auburn family includes the players who have fought for Auburn on the field for 53 years, but were denied.

The Auburn family includes the adopted and the converted who have come to love Auburn through their spouses or their children, but have never walked across the stage to receive an Auburn degree.

The Auburn family includes those who are no longer with us—Dean Foy, Jim Fyffe, parents, grandparents, sons and daughters—those who passed on the Auburn Creed and their passion for Auburn football to the next generation, those who built the foundation, who dreamt every August of winning a national championship.

When you gather Saturday in Jordan-Hare, cheer for this year’s team, but also cheer for those not there.

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