SEC Championship Game: 5 best games of all-time
By John Buhler
3. 1997: No. 3 Tennessee Volunteers 30, No. 11 Auburn Tigers 29
Tennessee was an elite football program during most of the Fulmer era in Knoxville. Terry Bowden had great success in the early 1990s at Auburn. In the infancy of the SEC Championship Game, the 1997 game remains one of the best in the conference championship’s history.
Auburn would finish the year 10-3 (6-2) at No. 11 in the country. This would be Auburn’s first SEC West division crown and managed to hold steady against a superior Tennessee team. The Volunteers finished the season 11-2 (7-1) with their only two losses being to Florida and Nebraska in the Orange Bowl.
Had Tennessee defeated Nebraska and Michigan would have lost to Washington State in the Rose Bowl, the Volunteers would have won the National Championship. However, the 1997 SEC Championship Game would be the finest hour of quarterback Peyton Manning in college. He would win the game’s MVP in a one-point victory over Auburn in Atlanta.
Interestingly, Tennessee would win its only national title under Fulmer the next season with Tee Martin as his quarterback. Manning graduated to throwing a ton of picks for the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts as the No. 1 draft pick in the 1998 NFL Draft.
This game foreshadowed a bit of what was to come in future SEC Championship Games: elite head coaches and the team with the better of the two quarterbacks will probably win. Fulmer and Manning were glorious back in 1997, weren’t they? Auburn would get back to the SEC Championship in 2000 and wouldn’t win its first SEC Championship Game until 2004 under Tommy Tuberville.