Countdown to Auburn vs. Baylor - No. 90 Nick Fairley and Kevin Greene

The Auburn Tigers are 90 days from kicking off their 2025 football season against the Baylor Bears on August 29 at 7:00 p.m. CT in Waco, Texas. And though 90 days may feel like a slog, don’t fret, those perfect 90-plus-degree weather days of Auburn Football are just over the horizon, and AuburnOnSI is here to help get you to that horizon as we count down the days to kick off by former Tigers’ jersey numbers. 

Coming in at numbers 90 are Pro Football Hall of Famer Kevin Greene and professional Aaron Murray tormentor, Nick Fairley. 

There will, of course, be many numbers throughout this countdown that can be attributed to multiple players, but perhaps none with as much star power as 90. Both players took unconventional paths to Auburn football, and both left tremendous marks on the field in their short time with the team

Greene arrived at Auburn in 1980 and enrolled in the university’s ROTC program. He walked on to the football team that same year, hoping to make the team as a punter. Fortunately for himself and the Tigers, Southeastern Conference Punter of the Year was not in the cards for the young man from Granite City High School in Illinois. 

Greene would join the football program again in 1983, this time under legendary head coach Pat Dye. Greene found a home at outside linebacker and would contribute during the Tigers’ SEC Championship run in ‘83, but it would be the 1984 season that he would flourish. Despite starting only four games in the second half of the season, Greene would lead the SEC with 11 sacks and go on to win SEC Defensive Player of the Year. 

Greene was known for his immeasurable effort and tenacity. “He gave you all he had from the first whistle until the last whistle blew,” former Tigers fullback Tommie Agee said of Greene’s relentless intensity on the field. Greene would carry these traits into the NFL after the Los Angeles Rams selected him in the fifth round of the 1985 Draft. 

He played 15 seasons in the league, with stops in Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and Carolina. He finished his career as the NFL’s third all-time sack leader with 160. Good enough to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016. 

And as if former walk-on punter turned Hall of Fame linebacker isn’t an interesting enough story, Greene also wrestled five matches in the World Champion Wrestling (WCW), achieved the rank of captain and became a paratropper in the Alabama Army National Guard, oh, and he won a Super Bowl as the linebackers coach of the Green Bay Packers.  

In 2010, the celestial bodies aligned, and the powers that be saw fit to bestow the Auburn Tigers with the supernatural pieces that afforded the Tigers a perfect season and a BCS National Championship. 

There was quarterback Cam Newton, the closest thing to Superman Auburn (or anybody) has ever had, whose spaceship crash landed on the Plains from the distant planet of Brenham, Texas and Blinn Junior College. 

Newton orchestrated hot-shot offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn’s flashy hurry-up/no-huddle offense immaculately on his way to a Heisman Trophy. 

Then there was defensive tackle and fellow transfer Nick Fairley. And if Newton was Auburn’s Superman then we’ll call Fairley Doomsday. Not to call Fairly the villain, though he played the role well enough according to the rest of the SEC, but we needed somebody with comparable powers as Superman. 

Because for all the single-bound building leaping Newton was doing for the offense in 2010, Fairly was overpowering locomotives on the other side of the ball.

Fairly committed to Auburn out of Williamson High School in Mobile, Alabama, but failed to qualify. He attended Copiah-Lincoln Community College for two seasons before transferring to Auburn in 2009. He would play in 13 games in 2009, totaling 28 tackles, but his coming-out party was in that 2010 season. 

Fairley totaled 56 tackles and 11.5 sacks, including 5 tackles and a sack in the title game against Oregon. He ripped through opposing offensive lines with ease all season long and would go on to win SEC Defensive Player of the Year and the Lombardi Award. 

Like Greene, Fairley was known as a guy who would play through the whistle. Sometimes he would even play too far through the whistle. Just ask former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, he’ll tell you. 

Love it or hate it, that ferocity led Fairley to the NFL. The Detroit Lions selected Fairley with the 13th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. He played six seasons in the NFL, totaling 170 tackles and 20.5 sacks.