Former Auburn coach Pat Dye died on Monday at the age of 80. He led the Tigers from 1981 through 1992. SEC Football by the Numbers remembers the Tigers’ icon with 10 of his football numbers:
1 Game at Auburn without points for coach Pat Dye – his final one. On Nov. 26, 1992, Alabama blanked the Tigers 17-0 in Birmingham. The shutout ended a school-record 149-game scoring streak for Auburn, with 141 of those games since Dye had become the Tigers’ coach in 1981. The streak started after a 42-0 loss to Tennessee on Sept. 27, 1980. The Iron Bowl shutout also was the only one during Dye’s career as a head coach in which his team failed to score, ending a 219-game scoring streak. During Dye’s six seasons at East Carolina and one at Wyoming, his team scored in every game.
2 Teams in the nation had better cumulative records from 1982 through 1990 than Auburn did under Pat Dye. In those nine seasons, the Tigers compiled an 84-22-3 record. The only teams with better records in that stretch were Miami (Fla.) at 91-17 and Nebraska at 93-18. Overall, Dye had a 99-39-4 record at Auburn, tied with Mike Donahue (1904-1906, 1908-1922) for the second-most victories in school history behind the 176 of Ralph “Shug” Jordan (1951-1976). Dye also was the head coach at East Carolina from 1974 through 1979 and Wyoming in 1980. Dye compiled a 153-62-5 record during his career.
2 Members of the College Football Hall of Fame and one member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame played for Pat Dye at Auburn. Running back Bo Jackson played for the Tigers from 1982 through 1985. He was a consensus All-American in 1983 and a unanimous All-American and the Heisman Trophy winner in 1985. Jackson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1998. Defensive lineman Tracy Rocker played for Auburn from 1985 through 1988. He was a consensus All-American in 1987 and a unanimous All-American and the Outland Trophy winner in 1988. Rocker was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2004. A walk-on at Auburn, Kevin Greene played for the Tigers in 1983 and 1984. The linebacker played 15 seasons in the NFL and earned five Pro Bowl invitations and first-team All-Pro recognition twice. Greene was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016. Dye was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2005.
2 Fumble recoveries were returned for touchdowns by Pat Dye while playing for the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League in 1961 and 1962. Dye joined his older brother Nat with the Eskimos after playing guard and linebacker at Georgia, where he was a first-team All-American as selected by the Football Writers Association of America in 1959. Although he played both ways in the CFL, too, as a tight end and linebacker, Dye was primarily a defensive player for Edmonton, with two career receptions for 58 yards. He also had four interceptions and five fumble recoveries in 32 games for the Eskimos.
4 SEC championships were won by Auburn teams coached by Pat Dye. No other Auburn coach has more than one SEC title. The Tigers won the conference crown in 1983 with a 6-0 league record. At 5-0-1, Auburn finished one-half game ahead of LSU in the 1987 SEC standings. The Tigers tied for the top spot at 6-1 in 1988, the same league mark as LSU, and 1989, equaling Alabama and Tennessee. Auburn also owns SEC championships from 1957, under Ralph “Shug” Jordan; 2004, under Tommy Tuberville; 2010, under Gene Chizik; and 2013, under Gus Malzahn. Dye also led East Carolina to the Southern Conference championship in 1976 and played on the SEC championship team in 1959 at Georgia.
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6 Victories for Auburn in a span of eight games against Alabama from 1982 through 1989 under Pat Dye. The Tigers had six victories in their previous 25 games against Alabama before the Tigers’ 23-22 victory on Nov. 27, 1982, ended the Crimson Tide’s nine-game winning streak in the Iron Bowl. Dye also guided Auburn to seven victories in an eight-game stretch against Georgia from 1983 through 1990. Before their 13-7 victory on Nov. 12, 1983, in Athens ended the Bulldogs’ three-game winning streak in the series, the Tigers had seven victories in their previous 19 games against Georgia.
7.2 points per game were yielded by Pat Dye’s 1988 Auburn team, the lowest average in the SEC in the past 40 seasons. The Tigers led the nation in scoring defense, as well as rushing defense and total defense, in 1988. In the third of four straight seasons in which Auburn led the SEC in scoring defense, only two teams scored more than 10 points in a game against the Tigers – North Carolina in the Tar Heels’ 47-21 loss on Oct. 1 and Florida State in the Seminoles’ 13-7 victory in the Sugar Bowl. Auburn posted a 10-2 record in 1988, with the other loss a 7-6 setback at LSU on Oct. 8. Auburn shut out its next three opponents after the loss, becoming one of two teams in the nation with three consecutive shutouts during Dye’s 12 seasons with the Tigers. Boston College had three straight shutouts in the 1992 season.
28 Points were scored by Auburn in the fourth quarter of the Tigers’ 59-27 victory over No. 4 Florida State on Oct. 13, 1985. Those are the most points the Tigers have scored in the final period of a game. Pat Dye and Auburn led Bobby Bowden and the Seminoles 31-27 in the fourth quarter, when the Tigers scored touchdowns on a 13-yard reverse by Freddy Weygard, interception returns of 33 yards by Kevin Porter and 22 yards by Ron Stallworth and Demetrius Threatt’s 8-yard run. Three days past the 25th anniversary of that game, Auburn equaled the fourth-quarter output of the 1985 Tigers in a 65-43 victory over Arkansas.
60 Auburn players who spent their final season on the Plains under Pat Dye were selected in the NFL Draft, including two who were No. 1 picks. Running back Bo Jackson was the first player chosen in the 1986 draft, and linebacker Aundray Bruce took that honor in 1988. In the 1989 draft, 10 players from Auburn were selected to set the school record
79 Consecutive Associated Press polls included Auburn teams coached by Pat Dye, the longest streak in the Tigers’ history. Dye also owns the third-longest poll streak in school history with 51 weeks in a row. One poll separates the two streaks, as Auburn was ranked in 130 of 131 AP polls. Auburn’s 51-poll streak started with the last three of 1982, stretched through the 1983 and 1984 seasons before ending when the Tigers were not ranked in the final poll of 1985 after ending the season with losses to Alabama and Texas A&M, the latter in the Cotton Bowl. Auburn’s streak restarted with the preseason poll for 1986 and included every ranking in that season plus 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 until the Tigers fell out of the rankings in the Dec. 4, 1990, poll after losing three of their final four regular-season games to drop to 7-3-1. Dye’s teams account for four of the nine No. 1 rankings in the AP poll for Auburn. The Tigers were No. 1 in the 1984 preseason poll and topped the poll again for three straight weeks in September 1985. Auburn also had the No. 1 spot for two polls in 1957, one in 1958 and two in 2010.
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @AMarkG1.