Over the years, we’ve done different countdowns to kickoff (or tipoff). This year, we’re putting a twist on the classic “Best Auburn Player to Ever Wear Each Number” list. Football is all about lighting up the scoreboard in 2021, so let’s take a walk down memory lane and review the last time a player in each uniform number put up points.

#48 — Tellie Embry, FB

Game — Auburn vs. Arkansas, October 31, 1998

When we started this exercise, I assumed this number would go all the way back to Stephen Davis. 48 just isn’t a very popular number. Apparently I forgot about Tellie Embry.

It might be run from an I-formation, but that is a play Gus Malzahn would love: two play-fakes, a hidden ball, and a wheel route to a guy who caught all of nine passes that season. Nice design from one Jimbo Fisher, who was Auburn’s offensive coordinator and served as the field head coach*.

Later in the game, Embry would be injured while making a tackle on a turnover. He would eventually leave after the 1999 season. Auburn would fall in this game 24-21 after failing multiple 3rd and shorts. Then again, this was a 6-0 Arkansas team against an Auburn team that was 2-5 entering the game, and would need a miracle catch and run by Karsten Bailey the next week to avoid an upset at the hands of Central Florida.

*-Interim head coach Bill Oliver decided to continue coaching from the box as he had been all season, so Fisher acted as the head coach on the field.