Auburn’s Peach Bowl Aesthetic History

The Auburn Tigers travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for the annual Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl. This marks Auburn’s fifth appearance in the Peach Bowl, which is the second most visited bowl game for the Tigers. Auburn has played in the Sugar and Gator Bowls six times now. Let’s take a look at Auburn’s history in the Peach Bowl and the overall bowl history.

The Peach Bowl has been played since 1968, which makes this year’s game the 50th all time. Auburn’s first appearance came in 1990. That game would pit the Tigers against the Indiana Hoosiers at the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which still featured the Atlanta Falcons all across the nearly flooded field. Auburn won 27-23.

Auburn’s next trip to Atlanta would come in 1998 to face Clemson in the Georgia Dome. Auburn would overcome a 17-6 deficit and win 21-17. Clemson sported white jerseys and orange pants, as Auburn wore their blue and white uniforms.

It wouldn’t be long before the Tigers made another trip a few hours east to Atlanta, as Auburn faced North Carolina in the 2001 Peach Bowl. Auburn ended up losing 16-10, but did record one of the greatest plays in the history of the game. The Tigers once again wore blue, and the Tar Heels wore all white.

In 2006, the name of the bowl game changed from the Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl to simply the Chick-fil-a Bowl. Auburn would make an appearance in the 2007 edition, again facing Clemson. This game would mark the first (and only) time the Peach Bowl would go in to overtime. Auburn wound up with the 23-20 win in a hard fought matchup. Clemson would wear their purple pants this time around, paired with the white tops.

Only four years after the last appearance, Auburn would play in their fifth Peach Bowl in 2011, this time facing Virginia. Virginia would wear orange jerseys against Auburn’s blue tops, creating a nice color-on-color matchup. The Cavilers would also wear orange helmets for the first time since 1977. Auburn would earn their fourth win in the Atlanta bowl game, defeating Virginia 43-24.

Auburn and Central Florida will be facing off in the 2018 edition of the Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl. This will be the fourth meeting between the two teams, and the first since 1999. The two played each year between 1997 and 1999, with Auburn winning all three. The 1998 was the closest meeting, with Auburn winning 10-6. NFL Pro Bowler Daunte Culpepper was UCF’s starting QB and nearly let the Black Knights to a win.

Both Auburn and UCF have showcased this year’s bowl jerseys and patches. Even with the 50th anniversary golden logos the Peach Bowl has been using lately, the jersey patches are the regular colorway. UCF has joined the trend and has multiple jerseys, pants, and helmets to mix and match. At the time of writing this, UCF has not revealed the rest of their uniform combination.

In what will be Auburn’s fifth appearance in the Peach Bowl, the Tigers will once again wear blue. It’s rather unbelievable that they have only worn one of their two possible uniforms over the nearly thirty years of being a part of this game. Even considering Auburn’s other Atlanta-based post season games – the SEC Championship Game – Auburn has worn blue seven times. White jerseys have only been worn in the conference title game, and they’ve been worn three times.

It’s also rather interesting that this trend comes at the end of another. Auburn had worn white in bowl games for the last four seasons. The last time Auburn wore blue jerseys in a bowl game was, ironically enough, the 2011 Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl.

In addition to uniforms, the Auburn Uniform Database documents historic field designs. While many of the bowl game designs can be rather busy and wild, some can be empty and boring. The Peach Bowl designs fall somewhere in the middle. Here’s a look at the field designs Auburn has played on.

The 1990 game was played at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, an outdoor stadium the Falcons used prior to the building of the Georgia Dome. The field for Auburn’s first Peach Bowl was left as-is from the Falcons, as they would host the Cowboys in their season finale the following day. Much of game day was filled with rain showers, and the field collected much of it during the game. The field had formed puddles of water and resulted in a very nice mud game.

Auburn’s first Peach Bowl in the Georgia Dome would come in 1998, with the Chick-fil-a moniker on the front end of the bowl name. Blue was heavily used on the field, being featured on the 20 yard lines and in the endzones. The endzones mimicked the stripe in the logo, being blue on the top and bottom with green in the middle. Small secondary Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl logos would be placed on the 50 yardlines near the sidelines.

Chick-fil-a would take complete control the next time Auburn came to the Peach Bowl in 2001. The alternate logo would be placed in even more locations this time around. The endzones would also be simplified and have team nicknames featured.

The 2007 edition of the Peach Bowl would once again feature the Chick-fil-a logos everywhere. Two new bowl logos were adopted in 2006 and used throughout. Team specific artwork would be used in the endzones this time around.

The 2011 Peach Bowl would feature an incredibly similar design to the last time Auburn made an appearance.

This year’s game is unprecedented in many ways. Not only is it the 50th Peach Bowl, but it is the first time playing in the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. What should the field be expected to look like this season? Well, I would typically look back to last year’s game, even though it was played in the now-demolished Georgia Dome. But there wasn’t a traditional Peach Bowl last season. Instead, the game was played as a semi-final for the College Football Playoffs, and the field was completely different than what has been used in the past. The endzones were painted in team colors, the Peach Bowl logo was on the 50, Chick-fil-a logos on the 25s in the center, and the CFP logo was near the sidelines.

Embed from Getty Images

With a new stadium and a milestone anniversary, this year’s field could be designed in many different ways.

For those that enjoy stats and streaks, good news. Auburn is riding a four game winning streak in bowls when wearing blue jerseys. That streak stretches over two Chick-fil-a Peach Bowls, in fact. Last year’s Sugar Bowl resulted in the white jerseys going 3-1 in the four games since we’ve seen the blue tops in a bowl.

Auburn is 23-16-2 overall in bowl games. The blue jerseys have the best record across Auburn’s bowl history.

Want more?

Check out the history of Auburn’s bowl game uniforms here.
A collection of recent uniform match-ups can be viewed here.
You can view all the documented bowl game field designs in one place.

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