By Matt Smith
SouthernPigskin.com

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Would Auburn be motivated for a second-tier bowl after starting the season in the top 10 and playing in New Years Six bowls the past two years? 56 first-half points later, the answer was yes.

The cS-E-Cd chant is as synonymous with SEC football games as speed, sundresses, and Solo cups. You cant have an SEC victory over a non-SEC team without hearing the rhythmic chant.

It reached its peak during the conferences run of seven consecutive national championships from 2006-12. After a stretch in which the league won only one of four national titles (gasp!), it was amplified a year ago when the SEC became the first conference to have multiple College Football Playoff teams, as both Alabama and Georgia qualified for and won games in the CFP, with the Crimson Tide ultimately sneaking past the Bulldogs in the national championship game.

No, the SEC didnt get multiple teams into the CFP for the second straight year. Another Georgia collapse against Alabama prevented that. Should we then expect fewer, less boisterous cS-E-Cd chants from the 14 fanbases?

Absolutely not.

And why is that?

Well, lets start with the program that has had to suffer through its two rivals playing for the national title last season and the SEC title earlier this month: the Auburn Tigers.

Auburn had, by Auburn standards, a bad 2018 season. The Tigers went just 3-5 in conference play, including an embarrassing home loss to a Tennessee team that had lost 15 straight games to SEC West teams. Yet, Auburn only aided the SECs position in the sometimes silly practice of ranking conferences that we always have to have.

The Tigers opened the season with a win over No. 6 Washington in Atlanta. The Huskies werent the playoff contender that they were expected to be this season, but they did win the Pac-12 championship despite losing to a 3-5 SEC team.

Because of that 3-5 record, Auburn fell to the Music City Bowl for their postseason game, meeting 6-6 Purdue from the Big Ten on Friday afternoon in Nashville. Would the Tigers be motivated for a second-tier bowl after starting the season in the top 10 and playing in New Years Six bowls the past two years?

56 first-half points later, the answer was yes.

Jarrett Stidhams final game in navy and orange was a brilliant one. His first-half line was 13-of-18 for 335 yards and four touchdowns. Thats 25.8 yards per completion, and a passer rating of 301.9. JaTarvious Whitlow scored touchdowns on his first three touches, opening the scoring with a 66-yard reception on a wheel route, followed up by short runs of one and two yards out to make it 21-0 Tigers.

After Rondale Moore scored for Purdues only first-half points, Stidham had two more long touchdown passes, both to Darius Slayton, going for 74 and 52 yards to extend the lead to 35-7. After the second Slayton touchdown, Stidhams stat line stood at 6-of-8 for 250 yards and three touchdown passes, good for a whopping 41.7 yards per completion and a 461.3 passer rating.

Big Kat Bryant made a nifty interception on the ensuing possession, returning it 20 yards for another Auburn touchdown. After a seven-minute scoring drought, easily the longest of the first half for the Tigers, Anthony Schwartz took a jet sweep six yards for a score, and Slayton closed the first-half scoring with his third touchdown reception of the day, this one from 34 yards out.

It was 56-7, and Auburn had shattered the bowl record for points in a half, set seven years ago by West Virginia with 49 points in the first half of its 70-33 rout of Clemson in the 2012 Orange Bowl.

The teams played a second half, only because it was required that they do so. Auburn scored again on its first possession, ending with Stidhams fifth touchdown pass of the day, this one to Ryan Davis, and final pass of his Tigers career. Despite have another season of eligibility, Stidham has graduated from Auburn and will enter next Aprils NFL Draft.

The final two quarters were mercifully played at a much faster pace than the 111-minute first half, and the game ended with a final score of Auburn 63, Purdue 14.

Back to Purdue. This was the same Purdue team that hammered Big Ten champion Ohio State, 49-20, just ten weeks ago. Using the flawed transitive property of college football, Auburn is 78 points better than the Big Ten champion Buckeyes. Yes, thats the Auburn team that went 3-5 in SEC play.

This is why they chant.

When a team with a losing record defeats another conferences champion, and sets bowl scoring records against a team that blew out a different conference champion, its hard to make a logical argument for the SEC not being the best conference in college football and getting the benefit of the doubt. That is what Georgia supporters tried to do earlier this month in arguing that the 11-2 Bulldogs should be in the College Football Playoff over 12-1 Big 12 champion Oklahoma, despite not winning their conference and having a 20-point loss to LSU on their resume.

The cbut what would their record be against our schedule?d argument is silly due to its lack of provability, but its results like what Auburn did to Purdue on Friday in front of 59,024 fans at Nissan Stadium in Nashville that will allow SEC fans to continue to make it. If Ohio State couldnt stay within four touchdowns of the Boilermakers, how would it have handled Auburns slate that included four New Years Six Bowl teams? Perhaps, with more than the one defeat it incurred in its Big Ten schedule.

This is why they chant.

Auburn fans next chance to chant comes when the Tigers open the 2019 season with a showdown against a Pac-12 power for a second straight year. After defeating Washington in Atlanta in September, the Tigers will meet Oregon at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Aug. 31. The Ducks will have a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback in senior Justin Herbert. The teams have not met since Auburn narrowly defeated the Ducks in the 2011 BCS National Championship Game (after which they chanted).

Purdue opens 2019 with a long road trip to Nevada, as the Boilermakers, despite Fridays forgettable performance, will be one of as many as six teams with a legitimate chance to win a wide-open Big Ten West.

The SEC still has at least nine bowl games left this season, and could claim its tenth national title in the past 13 years if Alabama defeats Oklahoma in Saturdays Orange Bowl and the Clemson-Notre Dame winner in the Jan. 7 CFP National Championship Game. You know what that means.

Get ready for more chants. Thanks in part to the work of a team that went just 3-5 in conference play, the chants are going to be louder and prouder than ever.