Auburn Athletics Season Review 2020-2021

PublishedJune 7, 2021//0 Comments on Auburn Athletics Season Review 2020-2021

With the difficulties of the last year across the world, it’s no small feat that a full athletic season was complete with rather minor difficulties. Unfortunately, some games got canceled and some seasons ended sooner than expected.

Last year was a little bare here at the Auburn Uniform Database, as many of the annual articles weren’t posted (or written). It just didn’t feel right to recap seasons, encourage fans to buy merchandise, and break down new uniforms across the football landscape not knowing what the next moments held. But as things start to turn around, it feels like even this site can get back to normal.

So, let’s pick back up some of these annual staples on the site, starting today with the annual season review.

The summer’s social unrest and injustice events led many teams to support the overall cause and their own minority student-athletes in many public showings. At Auburn, athletes joined in protests on campus and were even accompanied by their coaches.

Like so many other athletic programs, Auburn created a “unity” logo and produced patches with the design to adorn the uniforms. Each team sport donned the patch on their uniforms.

The 2020-21 athletic season for Auburn featured many highs and lows across the board. Strong wins, devastating losses – they come every year.

With the pandemic, Auburn didn’t go out of its way to provide many new uniform elements for the athletes this season. While there weren’t any complete overhauls, there were a few nice surprises to showcase.

Baseball

Word last year was that Auburn Baseball was going to add two new ballcaps to the rotation – the return of the white hat and a new throwback-inspired design featuring Sailor Aubie. The latter of those never came to fruition on the diamond.

The white hat, however, quickly overtook the role of the primary hat. The 2020 season saw the new white hat in 17 of the 18 games played before the season was halted. Auburn picked up right where they left off, sporting the white caps for the five-game homestand to open up the 2021 season. The Tigers would eventually revert to the navy cap for the majority of the season. The white hat would see action in eight more games throughout the season, still coming in under the total of games worn last year.

Outside of uniforms, Auburn did make a few changes to Plainsman Park’s appearance this year. The stadium’s concrete walls were painted grey, the back padding behind home plate is navy rather than green, some chairs behind home were swapped for new mesh-backed seats, and the Green Monster and batter’s eye have been adorned with tone-on-tone graphics.

The outfield wall padding was also updated for the first time in a few years. The ghosted images of former Tiger greats were replaced for retired jersey graphics, though the name and numbers were represented on the current uniform design rather than what was worn during their playing days.

Oh, and Brody Moore decided to rock some amazing high-cut stirrups this season and was easily the best-dressed player on the field!

Auburn sported 14 different uniform combinations this season. Here’s how they fared:

You can view the historic catalog of Auburn Baseball uniforms here.

Men’s Basketball

Year two of the current uniform set was rather uneventful for Bruce Pearl’s program. 2020-21 didn’t see any torn jerseys like last year!

This season and last season did have one interesting tidbit in common – Auburn wore white at home all year long. Yea, it seems simple, but the Tigers have often worn an alternate-colored for at least one home game since the 2002-03 season. Before 2019-20, the last time Auburn accomplished this feat was 2013-14.

As the working world dropped many of the formal wear requirements, so too did the basketball world. Bruce Pearl and his staff forwent the traditional suits and ties for the more casual polo and slacks. Bruce also joined many other coaches in honoring the late Georgetown head coach John Thompson Jr. with his trademark towel on the shoulder. Auburn women’s basketball coach Terri Williams-Flournoy worked with Thompson and also joined in on the tribute.

AUTLIVE has been a wonderful initiative from Coach Pearl and the program has embraced it each season. Since the beginning, the campaign has produced t-shirts with proceeds going to help cancer patients and their families cover everyday bills. The shirts have cycled through orange, blue, and white colorways with the team wearing the uniform that matches the t-shirt color.

This year’s edition of the AUTLIVE game saw that streak broken, as the team wore white while the coaching staff and fans wore the navy t-shirts. Despite the first occurrence of mismatching colors, Auburn remains 6-0 in such games.

The Men’s Basketball uniform history dates back to the 1969-70 season. You can view all those uniforms here.

Women’s Basketball

It was a tough season for the Women’s Basketball program, losing all 15 conference games and making a change at head coach.

The WBB squad was one of the two teams that broke out a new uniform during the season. On the trip to LSU in early January, Auburn broke out the new navy alternate uniforms with “Tigers” emblazoned across the chest. If you’ve read this site for a while now, you know that utilizing the school nickname on a jersey is a rather rare occurrence. These secondary navy duds were designed to mimic the men’s basketball team’s orange uniforms with the bold accents across the shorts and shoulders. It was an interesting departure from the primary set with the Northwestern Stripes donning the sides.

The Tigers uniform was only worn twice this year. That’s twice more than Auburn wore orange this year. In fact, this season was the third time under Coach Flo’s tenure that the Tigers went the entire season without wearing orange. Though no official word was ever given, it certainly feels as though Coach Flo, and possibly the players, had some disdain for the orange colorway. It’s really interesting to see the team go multiple seasons without wearing a specific uniform and to happen multiple times is more than coincidence. It’s also odd to see a new alternate design see action before the orange version of the primary uniforms was even revealed (if it even exists at all!).

To top off the lack of orange uniforms, Johnnie Harris was presented with the old-style orange jersey as she was announced as the new head coach. Even Coach Flo was introduced with an orange jersey at the press conference. Hopefully, Coach Harris brings the orange colorways back in the upcoming season.

The Women’s Basketball uniforms catalog was a recent research project and now dates back to the 2005-06 season. Those historic designs can be seen here.

Football

If it wasn’t a rollercoaster ride, was it really an Auburn Football season?

The 2020 football season started off with another hit to the Auburn Family as Pat Dye passed away on June 1st. Just before the season opener against Kentucky, the team announced a special memorial logo would adorn the football helmets and the playing field at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

Gus Malzahn also joined in on the tribute to the late coach, sporting a shirt and tie with a classic Dye-style ballcap for the Kentucky game. Malzahn would forgo his own traditional visor for nine of the ten regular-season games.

Of course, Malzahn would be let go from his coaching duties following the season. I was a Gus fan, and naturally, I loved keeping track of his visors and sweater vests throughout his tenure. I hated to see the Malzahn Trackers end almost as much as I hated to see Malzahn gone. And because we document everything here at the Auburn Uniform Database, there is a permanent home to the Malzahn Trackers on this very site.

Despite the up-and-down shortened season, Auburn earned a bid to the Citrus Bowl, the first time in the Orlando bowl game since 2006. Unfortunately, it featured a rather recent foe in Northwestern rather than a new opponent.

Auburn made an incredibly minor change to the helmets for the bowl game this year that I’m sure most fans didn’t even notice. The Tigers have traditionally worn navy visor clips and visor tab decals but went all white – with new white facemask clips – for Orlando.

The Tigers also wore the Citrus Bowl logo on the back of the helmets, which is a bit of a rarity for Auburn.

With the change to Bryan Harsin, many fans naturally questioned what, if anything, would be changed regarding Auburn’s uniforms. If Auburn history has shown us anything, the answer is: most likely nothing. For more on what Harsin’s Boise State background and alternate design history mean for Auburn, be sure to read this article from January.

The largest uniform collection on this site is naturally Football. You can view uniforms from 1934 to present day here.

Soccer

Soccer was the first Auburn sport to return this season. In their first game against Mississippi State, the Tigers were without the new Auburn Unity patch. However, the patch was present for the second game against Ole Miss, which occurred about a month after the season opener.

One of the rare new uniforms of the 2020-21 season belongs to the Auburn Soccer squad. The team broke out a new powder blue goalkeeper kit against Arkansas. The Tigers are no stranger to powder blue, having worn the color in the net as recently as 2017.

The biggest drawback about this current soccer kit is the shortened sash stripe. The previous iteration was hands down the greatest uniform in Auburn Soccer history and it’s unfortunate that Under Armour’s latest shirt template ruined such a beautiful look. The 2020-21 season was the third year of this kit, which is a year longer than the previous two sets lasted. Maybe that means this will be the final time we see this design.

The Auburn Soccer uniform feature on the AUD is admittedly lacking, but the plan is to flesh that section out a good bit soon. You can view the current collection of soccer uniforms here.

Softball

The Auburn Softball team has been the leader in the uniform clubhouse for many years now. They sport as many uniform combinations as possible and often add new elements each season to add to the mix and matching.

2021 did not disappoint, aesthetically, as the Tigers donned 19 different combinations! That blows out the former program record of 14 but falls just shy of the Baseball team’s 20 combinations worn during the 2019 College World Series season.

The season started strong as the Tigers showed off a new pair of orange striped socks and orange belts in the preseason photo shoot. It didn’t take long for these new additions to make their debut, as Auburn wore them in just the second home weekend for a doubleheader against Murray State.

For the now three seasons that this uniform set has been worn, I’ve been saying that this is the best design in Auburn Softball’s history. The uniforms all look incredible and the addition of the Northwestern Striped socks in 2019 was one of the best uniform changes ever. Even though some jersey/pant/sock combinations may not have been winners, the best combos were always incredible.

The Tigers have also taken to sporting new batting helmets each season, with much of the last decade-plus seeing multiple designs. For 2021, Auburn only wore a single helmet – an all-white shell with a silver facemask (or white C-Flap for some players) and an orange AU logo on the front. Funny enough, the orange/blue colorway of the AU logo is not an approved design, per the school’s branding guidelines.

With this being the end of year three for this set, a new uniform design may be on the horizon. The last set lasted only two years (though the orange jersey had an extra season of use) and the previous uniforms had a four to five-year lifespan. It will be a sad day when this look gets retired. Hopefully, the next set will be equally as nice.

The Auburn Softball uniform history has recently seen a makeover, moving to a new template like the designs above, and having many more designs added. You can view nearly every uniform design worn since the team’s inception in 1997 here.

Volleyball

The Auburn Volleyball team added a new set of jerseys last season that included contrasting colored shoulders and sleeves with Northwestern Stripes down the arms. They were sprinkled in during the year and returned this season for a few matches. As the team opted out of the spring portion of the schedule, we didn’t get to see if they were going to be treated as alternate designs again or be promoted to primary status.

The new look is rather unattractive, personally. Between the two colorways, the design isn’t even consistent. With the body color, sleeve (or shoulder) color, and the addition of the stripes, it all just feels too busy.

From 2016 to 2018, Auburn wore a really nice set of jerseys that featured the traditional Northwestern Stripes across the sleeves. Despite the awkward seem, the stripes made for a great design. The current look is still lacking with the current vertical-striped sleeves.

Volleyball is the newest addition to the Auburn Uniform Database. I hope to add more historic designs to this site soon. The last four years of uniforms can be viewed here.

The last year has certainly been difficult for many and it such a success that a full slate of sports was able to complete their seasons.

Here at the Auburn Uniform Database, things were pretty off and on. With no games happening and no new uniforms, there wasn’t much to write about. Most of the last year has been spent on creating content for the AUD social media pages. But the last few weeks have centered around uniform research. It’s been really refreshing to update the Baseball, Softball, Women’s Basketball, and Soccer uniform pages and research photos of older seasons.

In the last month, 30+ years of Auburn uniforms have been added to this site. There are now over 222 combined years of uniform designs featured here on the Auburn Uniform Database.

In addition to that, the Auburn Uniform Database website received some well-needed TLC. The home page got a facelift and many of the pages across the site now feature a cohesive look. It’s relatively minor, but it certainly felt great to make these changes and make the AUD that much better.

Want to see more like this? Be sure to follow the Auburn Uniform Database on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for even more uniform news.  For ways to support the AUD, including affiliate links to Fanatics and Dick’s Sporting Goods, visit the Support page.

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