The Auburn Tigers compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as a member of the Southeastern Conference (SEC).

[2] Three Auburn players, Pat Sullivan in 1971, Bo Jackson in 1985, and Cam Newton in 2010 have won the Heisman Trophy.

However, this achievement was somewhat overshadowed by the Tigers being left out of the BCS championship game in deference to two other undefeated, higher ranked teams, USC and Oklahoma.

The Tigers went on to defeat the Oregon Ducks 22–19 in their first appearance in the BCS National Championship Game on January 10, 2011, in Glendale, Arizona.

Auburn faced #1 Florida State in the 2014 BCS National Championship Game at the Rose Bowl, falling to the Seminoles in the final seconds, 31–34.

Although equestrian is not yet sanctioned by the NCAA, Auburn competes with 19 other Division I schools, including SEC foes Georgia and South Carolina.

[9][10] Auburn's Women's Track and Field won the 2006 National NCAA Outdoor title convincingly by outscoring USC 57–38.50.

At the conclusion of the 1980–1981 NCAA Wrestling season, Auburn University became the first SEC team to place Top 10 in the country.

Coached by Ohio wrestling legend Tom Milkovich, Auburn claimed the SEC title en route to a historic season boasting 3 All-Americans and 6 NCAA qualifiers.

However, with the emergence of Title IX and the decline of wrestling in the SEC, Auburn found itself without a varsity program after the historic 1980–81 season.

[15] Birmingham Post-Herald artist Phil Neel created the cartoon tiger, who continued to appear on Auburn program covers for 18 years.

In 1962, he began to stand upright and in the next year, 1963, wore clothes for the first time—a blue tie, polkadot pants, and straw hat.

Aubie's appearances on game programs occurred during a successful period in head football coach Ralph "Shug" Jordan's teams.

The company was provided with copies of the 1961 Auburn-Alabama and 1962 Auburn-Georgia Tech game programs to use for reference in creating a costume of the cartoon character.

Aubie was introduced at the Birmingham–Jefferson Civic Center on February 28, 1979, and helped lead first-year Auburn coach Sonny Smith's team to an upset of Vanderbilt in his first appearance as a live Tiger mascot.

The following day, Aubie returned to the arena and the Tigers beat Georgia in the longest game in SEC tournament history, four overtimes.

The largest Tiger Walk occurred on December 2, 1989, before the first ever home football game against rival Alabama—the Iron Bowl.

It is named for businessman and State Senator Sheldon Toomer who founded the Bank of Auburn on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and College Street in 1907.

On January 10, 2011, when Auburn football won the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, a celebration was held at the corner which involved the traditional papering.

"Al" claimed to have poisoned the Toomer's trees with an herbicide called Spike 80DF (Tebuthiuron) the weekend following the 2010 Iron Bowl.

Tests of soil samples showed the lowest levels of Spike 80DF to be 0.78ppm, which experts stated was enough to be a "very lethal dose."

Updyke, a retired Texas state trooper, was taken into custody at 1:26 am CST on February 17, 2011, and charged with one count of criminal mischief, a class C felony in Alabama.

On March 22, 2013, he received a 3-year split sentence, which includes 6 months' incarceration and jail credit for time already served.

"It came to a point where we realized it wasn't going to work, and the amount of poison in the ground was such that the trees were not going to survive," said Mike Clardy, Auburn University's Communications Director.

[31][32][33][34] On November 8, 2013, Circuit Judge Jacob A. Walker III ruled that Updyke (who had moved to Louisiana) owed Auburn University $796,731.98 in restitution, to be paid in installments of $500 per month.

[35] Auburn University sought more than $1 million in damages, the greater part of which was based on a soil-analysis estimate of $521,396.74 by the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries.

[40] The replacement tree fronting Magnolia Avenue was set on fire on September 25, 2016, during celebrations for Auburn's victory against LSU the previous night.

According to the story, in the stands that day was an old Civil War soldier with an eagle that he had found injured on a battlefield and kept as a pet.

According to the story, the train carrying the Georgia Tech team slid through town and didn't stop until it was halfway to the neighboring town of Loachapoka, Alabama, The Georgia Tech team was forced to walk the five miles back to Auburn and, not surprisingly, were rather weary at the end of their journey.

Some of Auburn's former rivals included the Florida Gators, the Tennessee Volunteers, the Tulane Green Wave, and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, each of which was mitigated (or, in the case of Georgia Tech, ended) with the SEC expansion and division restructuring, as well as past long series with the Clemson Tigers, the Texas Longhorns, and the Florida State Seminoles.