Holy crap the first: If you were wondering what would happen when Matt Hinton--already ridiculously prolific for someone workin' for a livin' at SMQ--got paid to write about our Glorious Game full-time, here is your answer: 27 posts in three days as of this writing, all of them of the same five-star quality we came to expect when Hinton was at SMQ. I'm expecting an expose soon from Yahoo Sports on Hinton's diet, which I figure must be downright Michael Phelps-ian to fuel such productivity.
Holy crap the second: 15 years?!?! You're telling me that if I had a child tomorrow, that child could get his learner's permit, and to celebrate he could drive the two of us to the local, say, Beef O'Brady's to watch Auburn pound new SEC member Flying Car State, and the game would still be on CBS under the same contract they're signing now?
I don't share Will's appraisal of CBS's SEC coverage--Lundquist and Danielson are above-average, I think Tim Brando's a decent studio host, and they recognized the need to get Tony Barnhart on air--but he's 100 percent correct that locking into a deal this long-term won't make much financial sense. Not that I'm any kind of financial expert (day job: journalist), but unless we're talking enough coin that Jordan-Hare winds up gold-plating their urinal troughs, I don't see why a contract of this length is a bright idea.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Works, Round 3 FIGHT!-style
One day I'll learn Photoshop, and then I'll be able to replace the heads here with Coleman's and Ziemba's, and then won't that be fun?Auburn ... wins? Honestly, I'm more happy than disappointed about Tubby's Fight Club when it leads to blog-based creativity like so. I suppose the possibility that Ziemba's going to put one of our starting defensive ends in the hospital (I have to type "again" here, don't I? Sigh) again is a little troubling, but as long as the Auburn version of Kyle Turley doesn't start throwing helmets at his teammates, I'm not sweating it.
And as for the tut-tutting from the crimson-tinted areas of the state, WRAS provides the proper response:
In the end, what will any of this matter once actual football starts? Assuming the unlikely event of an injury stays unlikely, none.
Really? I think David Ching's trying to be complimentary when he writes of Phillip Pierre-Louis:
He can flat out fly, but he's about 5-foot-nothing, 100-and-nothing. Maybe a faster version of Markeith Cooper if you remember him.Um, David, you probably know this, but the Auburn fans I know only remember "The Lizard" when we're forced to. Isn't there some, um, useful player we could compare Pierre-Louis to? Since that's the point--Pierre-Louis looks useful.
Well, he does have time for this sh*t. Coachbots understand that there's no reason not to treat the lowly beat reporters who make their livelihood covering him like the dirt underneath dirt's feet, or to even blow off the Stewart Mandels of the world. They can't offer anything genuinely beneficial in return; the only motivation to give them any help is useless common courtesy.
But of course if a reporter is interested in writing a lionizing cover story that calculations show should help expand a national recruiting footprint, be it for SI or for the likes of Forbes:
coachbots will be more than happy to accomodate you.
Co-sign, sort of. Kyle explains why Georgia should take on Clemson more often, and while I don't think the Auburn-Georgia Tech series ever quite had the animosity present between Cousin Clem and the 'Dawgs--I have an aunt who graduated from Clemson and will merrily curse Kevin Butler's name forever--there are several sections of his post where you could run a find and replace with "Auburn" for "Georgia" and "Tech" for "Clemson" and have it be entirely appropriate. Like Kyle, I can buy that it's not feasible for Auburn and Tech to renew their rivalry on an annual basis; I can't buy that two teams with as much tradition as the Tigers and Jackets can't work out more than one home-and-home over a span of 20 years. (There's a certain amount of irony to all this, of course.)
Buggin'. Lost amidst Aairon Savage's departure, the plague of ACL tears at Florida (which God was totally getting around to after the frogs and blood and whatnot back in the day ... and if you'd like to compare Meyer to Pharoah at this point to top off the metaphor, be my guest) and Sturdivant's breakdown at Georgia has been that Ole Miss has been bitten by the injury bug as well. In fact, he recently came right out and admitted it at Rebel blog the Red Solo Cup, which I don't think I've linked before but which you should probably bookmark/add to your reader pronto. Good stuff.
Elsewhere... the Auburner goes back to school; Evan Woodberry gives us a useful special teams update; TSIB expands humorously on the offensive nickname discussion; and Poseur at ATVS has some interesting thoughts on the Olympics and SEC expectations.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Blogpollery
Because the one consistent complaint I've heard about the JCCW is that there hasn't been enough discussion of whether the Mountain West runner-up might be a better team than the WAC champion, I've joined the BlogPoll. This is my preseason ballot.
Which means I should probably explain my preseason polling philosophy, which is that this is purely a power poll, my personal ridiculous guess at which team would beat which team on a neutral field were they to play today. (I think I borrowed that criterion from Peter King's "Fine Fifteen," which is unfortunately not the best place to start.) Schedules are not taken into account and this is by no means intended as a sneaky method of prediction: just because I've got ranked Georgia ranked over Florida doesn't necessarily mean I expect Georgia to beat the Gators or win the SEC East.* Like ninjas, this ballot is about real ultimate power and nothing else.
On with it:
1. Georgia. Neither I nor any sane SEC fan will expect "SEC's best team" to automatically equal "country's best team." But after the last couple of years and given the SEC's BCS bowl record, that might be the case for the nonce. And as I expect Stacy Searels to come up with something to fill the Sturdivant-shaped hole in the o-line, I think the Dawgs are legitimately the best team in the SEC.
2. Ohio St. Sorry. But they return everydamnbody up to and including the drum majors and waterboys.
3. Oklahoma. Per Steele, more returning starts on the o-line than any other team in the country. After the West Virginia game people forgot they were one ill-timed injury to Bradford away from playing for the national title last year.
4. Florida. Impossible to rank them higher with as many question marks on the defense as they have, but Sweet Merciful Heavens will you look at that offense.
5. Missouri. The same team as last year. Assuming that team has improved on defense at all, the Big 12 North is theirs.
6. USC. They have waaaaaaay too much guru-approved talent to go any lower than here, but am I alone in thinking that the--for lack of a better word--spark has left this program? The last two years they've been supposed to romp past the Pac-10 and two years in a row the Pac-10's been more ready for the Trojans than advertised. Now they have a brand-new o-line, a new QB, and a corps of RB's and WR's who haven't done anything serious in two seasons. We'll see.
7. Cousin Clem. Am I really calling a Tommy Bowden-coached team the seventh-best one in the country? Do I really have them ahead of my own Auburn team, who beat them in a bowl game and should so more improvement over the offseason? Yeah, I guess so. When you've got the best set of RB's in the country and a studly defensive line, you have to figure that the year it inevitably all comes together for them will be this one.
8. Oregon. I'm taking a flyer on the Ducks based on the shakiest possible reasoning: this one play, which speaks to something deep in my soul about Chip Kelly's creativity as an OC. Well, that play, and the 56-21 obliteration (sans Dixon) of a legit USF team in their bowl.
9. Auburn. Seems about right.
10. LSU. Likewise.
11. South Florida. As with Missouri and Ohio St., this team (save for its cornerbacks) is back basically intact from 2007. And as an Auburn fan, I can tell you: that team is pretty damn good (one of the underrated performances from last year: they beat bowl-bound UCF 64-12). Now if they can just quit honking games to UConn.
12. Texas. Colt McCoy should be rebuilt by now, right?
13. Wisconsin. The most boringly effective team in America, a virtual lock to be their usual boringly effective selves.
14. BYU. First off: BYU always deserves the benefit of the doubt because a third of their guys are two years older than everyone else's guys. Only three returning starters on D makes me a tad nervous, but I figure Mendehall can coach that side up. In the meantime, the offense looks like it should outclass the rest of the MWC.
15. Tennessee. As stated previously: if Clawson knows what he's doing at all, the offensive line will give Crompton enough time and Foster enough room to make this one of the SEC's best offenses.
16. Texas Tech. Avast ye mateys, and prepare to walk the heart-stopping plank of 12 consecutive 54-50 games!
17. Kansas. Take scheduling into account and they probably drop out of the poll completely, but as SMQ has repeated ad nauseum, last year was not a fluke and with both Todd Reesing and nearly the entire defense back, they belong here.
18. Pitt. Another flyer, this time on the sort of defense- and ball control-first formula (seven starters back from the country's No. 5 unit, plus LeSean McCoy) that Rutgers employed to such great effect in the Big East two years ago.
19. West Virginia. The biggest outlier on the ballot. Bottom line is that I should probably have more respect for one of the nation's best o-lines and the blinding power of White/Devine, but I happen to think Bill Stewart was an awful, emotion-driven hire and that the house of cards built by RichRod collapses (for a given definition of "collapse") without him. That they've spent so much of the offseason talking about having Pat White throw the ball more often is just more evidence. (Note: still not a prediction about the Auburn-WVU game.)
20. Penn St. Another team whose coaching staff holds them back. The offensive line is awfully good, though, apparently.
21. Virginia Tech. Pretty much on sheer reputation, because by all accounts the offense = Tyrod Taylor + ghost town. But you know Beamer will, by hook and/or crook, get them to at least lower-rung top-25 material.
22. Arizona St. The Pac-10 seems pretty likely to produce a third team deserving of a top-20 spot, but I'll be damned if I know who it is. The Sun Devils don't have an offensive live, Cal lost almost everyone of note and lost to Stanford and Washington to end last season, and the rest all look even more unsatisfying. Erickson breaks the tie.
23. TCU. The Horned Frogs seem a little overdue for one of those 11-1 style years, no? What Steele calls the MWC's top defense and returning starters at RB and QB don't hurt.
24. Illinois. Zook has stockpiled too much talent for this team to backslide all the way out of the top 25, even without the kind of guy who's capable of saving the world.
25. Ole Miss. Yes, between their strength on the lines and the grudging respect for Nutt that befits an Auburn fan, I think this is the sixth-best team in the SEC. I will accept my straitjacket with a minimum of fuss.
Also considered: Alabama, South Carolina, Boise St., Fresno St., Oklahoma St., Cincinnati, Nebraska, Utah.
Which means I should probably explain my preseason polling philosophy, which is that this is purely a power poll, my personal ridiculous guess at which team would beat which team on a neutral field were they to play today. (I think I borrowed that criterion from Peter King's "Fine Fifteen," which is unfortunately not the best place to start.) Schedules are not taken into account and this is by no means intended as a sneaky method of prediction: just because I've got ranked Georgia ranked over Florida doesn't necessarily mean I expect Georgia to beat the Gators or win the SEC East.* Like ninjas, this ballot is about real ultimate power and nothing else.
On with it:
1. Georgia. Neither I nor any sane SEC fan will expect "SEC's best team" to automatically equal "country's best team." But after the last couple of years and given the SEC's BCS bowl record, that might be the case for the nonce. And as I expect Stacy Searels to come up with something to fill the Sturdivant-shaped hole in the o-line, I think the Dawgs are legitimately the best team in the SEC.
2. Ohio St. Sorry. But they return everydamnbody up to and including the drum majors and waterboys.
3. Oklahoma. Per Steele, more returning starts on the o-line than any other team in the country. After the West Virginia game people forgot they were one ill-timed injury to Bradford away from playing for the national title last year.
4. Florida. Impossible to rank them higher with as many question marks on the defense as they have, but Sweet Merciful Heavens will you look at that offense.
5. Missouri. The same team as last year. Assuming that team has improved on defense at all, the Big 12 North is theirs.
6. USC. They have waaaaaaay too much guru-approved talent to go any lower than here, but am I alone in thinking that the--for lack of a better word--spark has left this program? The last two years they've been supposed to romp past the Pac-10 and two years in a row the Pac-10's been more ready for the Trojans than advertised. Now they have a brand-new o-line, a new QB, and a corps of RB's and WR's who haven't done anything serious in two seasons. We'll see.
7. Cousin Clem. Am I really calling a Tommy Bowden-coached team the seventh-best one in the country? Do I really have them ahead of my own Auburn team, who beat them in a bowl game and should so more improvement over the offseason? Yeah, I guess so. When you've got the best set of RB's in the country and a studly defensive line, you have to figure that the year it inevitably all comes together for them will be this one.
8. Oregon. I'm taking a flyer on the Ducks based on the shakiest possible reasoning: this one play, which speaks to something deep in my soul about Chip Kelly's creativity as an OC. Well, that play, and the 56-21 obliteration (sans Dixon) of a legit USF team in their bowl.
9. Auburn. Seems about right.
10. LSU. Likewise.
11. South Florida. As with Missouri and Ohio St., this team (save for its cornerbacks) is back basically intact from 2007. And as an Auburn fan, I can tell you: that team is pretty damn good (one of the underrated performances from last year: they beat bowl-bound UCF 64-12). Now if they can just quit honking games to UConn.
12. Texas. Colt McCoy should be rebuilt by now, right?
13. Wisconsin. The most boringly effective team in America, a virtual lock to be their usual boringly effective selves.
14. BYU. First off: BYU always deserves the benefit of the doubt because a third of their guys are two years older than everyone else's guys. Only three returning starters on D makes me a tad nervous, but I figure Mendehall can coach that side up. In the meantime, the offense looks like it should outclass the rest of the MWC.
15. Tennessee. As stated previously: if Clawson knows what he's doing at all, the offensive line will give Crompton enough time and Foster enough room to make this one of the SEC's best offenses.
16. Texas Tech. Avast ye mateys, and prepare to walk the heart-stopping plank of 12 consecutive 54-50 games!
17. Kansas. Take scheduling into account and they probably drop out of the poll completely, but as SMQ has repeated ad nauseum, last year was not a fluke and with both Todd Reesing and nearly the entire defense back, they belong here.
18. Pitt. Another flyer, this time on the sort of defense- and ball control-first formula (seven starters back from the country's No. 5 unit, plus LeSean McCoy) that Rutgers employed to such great effect in the Big East two years ago.
19. West Virginia. The biggest outlier on the ballot. Bottom line is that I should probably have more respect for one of the nation's best o-lines and the blinding power of White/Devine, but I happen to think Bill Stewart was an awful, emotion-driven hire and that the house of cards built by RichRod collapses (for a given definition of "collapse") without him. That they've spent so much of the offseason talking about having Pat White throw the ball more often is just more evidence. (Note: still not a prediction about the Auburn-WVU game.)
20. Penn St. Another team whose coaching staff holds them back. The offensive line is awfully good, though, apparently.
21. Virginia Tech. Pretty much on sheer reputation, because by all accounts the offense = Tyrod Taylor + ghost town. But you know Beamer will, by hook and/or crook, get them to at least lower-rung top-25 material.
22. Arizona St. The Pac-10 seems pretty likely to produce a third team deserving of a top-20 spot, but I'll be damned if I know who it is. The Sun Devils don't have an offensive live, Cal lost almost everyone of note and lost to Stanford and Washington to end last season, and the rest all look even more unsatisfying. Erickson breaks the tie.
23. TCU. The Horned Frogs seem a little overdue for one of those 11-1 style years, no? What Steele calls the MWC's top defense and returning starters at RB and QB don't hurt.
24. Illinois. Zook has stockpiled too much talent for this team to backslide all the way out of the top 25, even without the kind of guy who's capable of saving the world.
25. Ole Miss. Yes, between their strength on the lines and the grudging respect for Nutt that befits an Auburn fan, I think this is the sixth-best team in the SEC. I will accept my straitjacket with a minimum of fuss.
Also considered: Alabama, South Carolina, Boise St., Fresno St., Oklahoma St., Cincinnati, Nebraska, Utah.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Works, two roads diverging in an orange-and-blue wood-style
Introducing your new Auburn quarterback, Khrisodi Burn-Stodd. The arrival of another week of practice without a leader declared in Auburn's quarterback race seems to have the media circling the situation with even greater, uh, circular force. This hasn't been a purely negative development, mind you--getting to hear an apparent straight shooter like Tony Franklin say Burns vs. Todd is "the best problem I think I've had in my life" is more than a little encouraging for any Auburn fans fretting we might not have any viable quarterbacks at all, much less two.
Then again: I'm not sure Franklin's accurate when he calls the situation "nothing but positive," not when Burns has what seems like a legitimate point when he tells Chris Low it's hard to lead as half a quarterback. Hell, Tubby admitted as much himself.
This is one of a couple of things that make me fidgety with the building momentum towards a regular-season QB rotation, no matter how many articles we read about how great Todds and Burns get along. Not only does it strike me as awfully hard for a team to put its complete faith in a quarterback when there's always going to be the tiny voices inside each player that say "I sure do like Chris/Kodi, but I have to say I'm glad/disappointed Kodi/Chris is coming in," but it's difficult to remember any SEC team that succeeded with an out-and-out quarterback 1A and quarterback 1B approach. Everyone loves pointing to Greene/Shockley or Leak/Tebow or, if you prefer, Cox/Burns. But in every one of those situations there was a clearly-defined starter with the second QB brought in as a (run-first) change-of-pace. Tossing both guys into the pool and waiting to see who floats to the top, as Franklin seems to be suggesting, seems to yours truly a good way to risk the offense thrashing around at the bottom for another year, waiting for the defense to once again throw them a life preserver.
That's not to say, of course, I'm going to abandon hope if Burns takes the first snap against ULM and Todd comes in a series later; if Tubby and Franklin feel that's the best way to go about it, so be it. And reading between the lines, I think Tubby feels more-or-less the same way--otherwise, why not wait even longer to name a starter? But the best-case scenario at the JCCW will remain one guy or the other taking the next several days to look the job over, decide it's his, sign all the appropriate paperwork, and drive the sucker home.
Good news. There's been plenty for Auburn fans to smile about over the last several days, starting with the simple fact that the offense had the upper hand in Saturday's scrimmage. I know that a) with hard facts about the scrimmage curiously made more difficult to come by than Chinese military budget information, their hand may not really have been so much "upper" as "sorta higher, maybe"; b) that any kind of "advantage" the offense had disappeared by the next practice; c) the scrimmage bore as much resemblance to an actual Auburn football game as I bear a resemblance to a shirtless D'Angelo.
But even with all of that taken into consideration: we have a new offense with new QB's and a defense that virtually all logic dictates will rank amongst the nation's best. If the Auburn offense enters the season even within striking distance of the Auburn defense, this is a Good Sign.
Also: Spencer Pybus is going to be a hell of a story if he winds up contributing; Tristan Davis is apparently ready to make Auburn's kickoff return a 2006-style weapon again; and more importantly, he, Merrill Johnson, Courtney Harden, and James Swinton got their degrees.
Franklin sez you suck. You've probably read this Franklin-featuring Ivan Maisel piece on the alleged decline of the huddle already, and Lord knows we've gotten enough Franklin profiles and quotes this offseason to last us through the apocalypse and beyond.
But it's worth highlighting again anyway, just for this little gem:
If you think about it, how many times do you have an extremely complicated NFL offense that has six shifts and motions before the snap, with these geniuses, and they run it and they lose two yards. I could have done the same thing in a lot less time. I've always thought I'm as smart as them. I'll just lose it faster.I'm not sure I totally buy Franklin's logic here--wouldn't it be better to uh, just slow down long enough to audible into something else?--but as an Auburn fan you have to enjoy having a coach who's willing to derisively call out NFL OC's making five times his salary as "these geniuses." Mostly, I would say, because it seems to be of a part with calling a quarterback draw for Brandon Cox on third-and-five in the fourth quarter trailing by a TD.
Also from the world of Franklin stuff you've already seen is this Fanpost at Track'Em, which is well-done but neglects to mention that even if the yards-per-play drop a touch, more consistency and more first downs and thus more plays (a la the Clemson game) is a huge boon to the defense as well.
This is your legacy, Warriors. Hope you're happy. Senator Blutarsky proves the point I made last January about Hawaii: all the work done by Boise the year before to legitimize mid-majors' right to crash the BCS party has been undone. It's not that I mind the skepticism regarding Tulsa's legitimacy for a BCS berth, but they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, either--sure, the defense sucked last year, but if it improves to the point where they're blowing teams out 55-20 on a weekly basis, I'm not sure that or their schedule should matter. It's simply about how good they are, and anyone who paid close enough attention last year would have realized that a Hawaii team that needed overtime to beat Louisiana Tech just plain wasn't. (Good, I mean.) A better schedule would be nice, but if even the likes of the Golden Hurricane romp all over it, the JCCW's official position is that they'll deserve their shot. Too bad that thanks to Hawaii, it seems a whole lot less likely they'd get it.
And lastly ... I didn't get all the details right with my recollection of Skip Caray's psychic-flash moment--the movie promo leaked right into his call of the play even more awesomely than I remembered--but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch this wonderful tribute to Skip from Ernie Johnson and TNT. (HT: AA.) Enjoy.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Cheese Puff Previews #5: Tennessee
This series of near-substanceless, air-injected preview puffery should in no way be mistaken for actual preseason football nutrition. Nonetheless, the hope is that you will find the series unaccountably tasty and even habit-forming, and as such it is unofficially sponsored by:
It's not week-for-week the way I'd draw it up, but one of the good things about Auburn's 2008 schedule is that after a fairly rigorous three-week stretch of wildcard Southern Miss, rugged Mississippi St., and the annual toughest-game-on-the-schedule against LSU, the Tigers will be able to take a bit of a breather in Week 5 as they play host to ...
Tennessee? Tennessee? %$#@! Seriously, for the love of ... seriously. %$#@. No Ainge, I know, but Arian Foster might be the best back not named "Knowshon" in the league, the o-line is monstrous, the defensive front seven might be a little softer but the secondary is frightening. They're still the Vols. LSU, Tennessee, back-to-back. I know it's the SEC, but come on, who ...
Wait, what? Tennessee's playing who the week before? Florida? Oh.
Well. That's ... that's OK then. I guess.
Last year: Tennessee opened the Phil Fulmer pressure valve a little wider with a 10-win season, one that that included an SEC East title via tiebreaker, a more-than-respectable performance against the national champs in Atlanta, and a bowl victory over Wisconsin. Powering the Vols' run? Luck. Yep, pure, unfiltered, undiluted luck, the 35-14 drubbing of Georgia obviously excepted. (Of course, lucky or unlucky they don't award trips to Atlanta for style points.)
Meanwhile, behind a frightfully green-but-improving offensive line, Auburn rebounded from early upset losses to South Florida and Mississippi St. to upset top-five Florida on the road, take eventual national champion LSU to the wire, and stretch their school-record Iron Bowl winning streak to six on their way to a satisfying 9-4 final record.
Notable previous meeting: In 1989, in what was almost inarguably the sport's biggest rivalry at the time, Auburn and Tennessee met for a climactic clash that would decide the national championship.
Auburn had powered their way into the national title discussion with an undefeated regular season and would continue to build momentum with a five-point win over defending national champion Louisiana Tech. Before a national TV audience on CBS (still a novelty for the sport at the time), the Volunteers took an early lead, although Auburn responded to draw within a single possession early in the second half.
Unfortunately for the Lady Tigers, All-American Vickie Orr struggled with foul trouble throughout the game and picked up her third just as Auburn began to gain their second-half momentum. Despite the efforts of All-American Ruthie Bolton and freshman sensation Carolyn "C.J." Jones, the Volunteers would pull away for the 76-60 win and Pat Summitt's second women's basketball national title.
Damn them.
Actual (football) series history: The inter-divisional rotation hasn't brought the two teams together since Auburn swept two match-ups against the Vols in their division-winning seasons in 2004, giving the Tigers a three-game streak in the series after their 2003 win. Before that victory, though, the Tigers hadn't beaten Tennessee in six tries since 1988 (including a 26-26 tie in 1990).
All-time, Auburn leads the series 25-21-1.
Causes for Alarm
1. This is the sort of thing that would usually fall under the "alleged analysis" section of these things, but the Tennessee offensive line scares me worse than heights, needles, snakes, and Lou Holtz combined. It would be one thing if all they had going for them was the two allowed sacks on 301 pass attempts in SEC play. It would be another if the only other positive was that the Vols' 4.2 yards-per-carry mark was their highest since 2004. But it's something else when they return four of the five starters--fourth in the country according to Steele in terms of returning 2007 OL starts--that made those accomplishments possible. Yikes.
Second-team All-American senior left guard and certified nightmare fuel Anthony Parker.
Yes, Auburn should have a defensive line capable of inspiring a certain amount of terror itself. I'd feel better about their chances at wetting the pants at the Reggie Cobb Oil Change if Marks, Coleman, Carter, etc. weren't facing--yeah, I'm going to come right out and say it--the best o-line in the SEC.
2. I'm convinced somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of the Vols' success in football is attributable to--in the words of a study published by leading researchers in a major medical journal--the "the uncontrollable disruption of even routine mental thought processes, a reflexive impairment the layman might even refer to as temporary brain damage" caused by repeated exposure to Rocky Top over a three-to-four hour period. The study suggested that the occasional, random exposure to Rocky Top during a childhood spent in a Tennessee-centric environment could eventually create a tolerance for the song sufficient to render its immediate effects minimal (though long-term exposure was shown to have its own adverse side effects), but with no such protection Auburn's players and coaches can expect to struggle with the presence of the Pride of the Southland Band in Jordan-Hare.
On the positive side, the study suggested that if Earth ever comes under attack from the sound-vulnerable species of Martians depicted in the film Mars Attacks!*, bombarding the aliens with Rocky Top may prove as equally effective a countermeasure as Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call."
Causes for Confidence
1. There are two good recognized nicknames out there (that I'm aware of, anyway) for SEC offenses: the "Cock and Fire" and, forgive the homerism, the "Spread Eagle." Both have the names of fierce and school-affiliated birds involved. Both have active verbs (two in C&F's's case). Both have certain pleasant sixth-grade-level sexual double-entendres, which I for one certainly appreciate. And both are clever.
At the moment, the term "Clawfense" is, like the baby bird fiddling with its wings and perched at the edge of the nest, trying to soar into the broader SEC consciousness as shorthand for new offensive coordinator Dave Clawson's mysterious offense.
Frankly, the "Clawfense" already has a strike against it when its players greet it not so much with the obligatory OMG SO GREAT WE'RE GOING TO SCORE A MILLION POINTS but with "uh, a lot of this is going over my head" statements borrowed from the opening of the Bill Callahan era in Lincoln. But it also suffers when it gets nicknamed the "Clawfense," more a Bad Joke than actual nickname.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. even though As any of my longtime readers (or readers of any length of time, come to think of it) could tell you, I am a lifelong appreciator of bad jokes. And as bad jokes go, it's not bad. I'd probably be awful proud of it if it was my bad-joke baby.
But as a nickname? To my ear it just sounds a tiny bit like a streeeeeeeeeetch. Plus, a claw is less intimidating than an entire bird. Plus plus (and speaking of birds) it sounds like the offense built around this guy:
and you don't want your offense to sound like that.
2. Britton Colquitt's a hell of a punter (or possibly, from the sound of it, a law firm), but Auburn doesn't have to care, as his suspension will end the following week against Northern Illinois. Mmmmm, field position.
(I will say this for Fulmer: I'm not sure every coach in this conference would suspend one of his team's best weapons for the back-to-back games against Florida and Auburn and let him come back only when it's time to steamroll a MAC tomato can.)
Actual alleged analysis: Honestly: what the hell do we make of Tennessee?
There are grumblings from certain hunter's orange-colored corners that with an avalanche of hype burying the division's top two teams, the defending East champs deserve to have at least a slushball or two of respect tossed their way. And on paper, there's little question they have a point. The offense is Ainge-less, yes, but Ainge-less isn't so bad when the line is this good, the entire receiving corps returns, and Arian Foster is ready to take 30 handoffs a game when you are, sir. All Jonathan Crompton has to do is not screw it up, and combining his relative experience (junior, one start) with his recruiting evaluations (PS #3) suggests he may be capable of doing much more than not screwing it up.
Defensively, the front seven loses four starters, but two of the returners are mountainous senior tackle Demonte Bolden and tackling-machine linebacker Rico McCoy, and the line gets the "despite the losses, this unit should be tougher up front" treatment from Steele. The secondary, meanwhile, might be in the "best in the country" discussion. There's not a ton to dislike on this side of the ball, either.
But as always, it's the play that's the thing, and the 2007 Vols--who had just as many on-paper reasons for optimism as this year's version, if not more--just didn't play very well if you look anywhere besides the scoreboard. Again, their Pythagorean was awful. They were outgained by 32.7 yards a game, the third-worst mark in the league. They finished plus-7 in turnovers. Whatever their record said, this team underachieved on a down-to-down basis and will have to dramatically improve just to tread water in the win-loss column this year.
And as many positives as the Vols' have, there are reasons to think that if there is improvement, it's not going to be dramatic. Crompton will still have a learning curve, one made all the more steep for Cutcliffe's departure and the Clawfense's apparent intricacies. The wideouts are experienced but--Gerald Jones potentially aside--don't seem the sort to keep opposing DC's awake at night. And even with the staggering late-season improvement shown by the secondary, this is still a defense with several major losses from a unit that gave up 59 to Florida, 41 to the Tide, 45 to Cal. My hunch is that 2008 Tennessee proves to be a slightly better football team than 2007 Tennessee, with the giant caveat of a slightly--or even significantly--worse record.
A loss at J-Hare could--maybe even should--be part of that, um, worse-ness. I like Auburn in the trenches, where our d-line should be able to battle even the Vols' o-line to something approaching a draw and our o-line should have an edge. Frankly, unless the Clawson hire turns out to be a coup, I like the game-planning track record of Tubby and his staff better than I do Fulmer and his. The Vols have also been wretched on the road of late--they've lost their last three away games against ranked teams by a combined 70 points, and that's not even taking the beatdown in Tuscaloosa into consideration.
In the end, though, I come back to the same complaint with the schedule I opened this post with. Don't get me wrong: Auburn fans don't have the slightest bit of whining wriggle room when the Vols are going to arrive on the Plains a week after hosting the Gators. But let's theorize, regardless, that the Tigers emerge battered and bruised from the LSU game (is there any other way to emerge from an Auburn-LSU game?) but with what will surely look like a season-defining victory in hand. Meanwhile, let's say Tennessee gets Tebowned for a second straight year, this time in Knoxville. This scenario would send Auburn into their date with the Vols as an unequivocal home favorite, one ranked in the top-10, in the SEC West driver's seat, and busy soaking up the congratulations and title-talk on all sides. The Vols, meanwhile, would be wounded and angry, while still as talented as ever and likely badly underrated.
If you have been an Auburn fan for any length of time, you recognize this as the sort of scenario that has always been Tubby's biggest Achilles heel. It's also, unfortunately, the same scenario Fulmer has used to save his career on more than one occasion and has perpetually thrived in. It terrifies me.
Obviously, the scenario could just as easily be reversed, with Auburn falling at home to LSU and Tennessee springing the upset over Florida. Or both teams could win and set up a massive clash of undefeateds. Or they could both lose and set up the Raycom Game of the Week. Whatever happens, the point is this: I firmly believe Auburn's too good to go 0-2 over these two weeks. But even if that's a valley too deep to expect Auburn to slip into, 2-0 is likewise a mighty tall hill to climb. The Tigers can get there, no question, but they'd better bring some extra oxygen and the best crampons they can find, because both LSU and the Vols are going to make sure it's treacherous footing every step of the way.
*I haven't met enough other people who enjoyed (or even remember) this movie to really make this reference worthwhile, I know, but screw it--the image of the UT band marching down the streets of Vegas with Martian heads exploding left and right is too appropriate to pass up. Plus, the film's a totally underrated entry in the Burton oeuvre and deserves the attention. So there you go.
It's not week-for-week the way I'd draw it up, but one of the good things about Auburn's 2008 schedule is that after a fairly rigorous three-week stretch of wildcard Southern Miss, rugged Mississippi St., and the annual toughest-game-on-the-schedule against LSU, the Tigers will be able to take a bit of a breather in Week 5 as they play host to ...
Tennessee? Tennessee? %$#@! Seriously, for the love of ... seriously. %$#@. No Ainge, I know, but Arian Foster might be the best back not named "Knowshon" in the league, the o-line is monstrous, the defensive front seven might be a little softer but the secondary is frightening. They're still the Vols. LSU, Tennessee, back-to-back. I know it's the SEC, but come on, who ...
Wait, what? Tennessee's playing who the week before? Florida? Oh.
Well. That's ... that's OK then. I guess.
Last year: Tennessee opened the Phil Fulmer pressure valve a little wider with a 10-win season, one that that included an SEC East title via tiebreaker, a more-than-respectable performance against the national champs in Atlanta, and a bowl victory over Wisconsin. Powering the Vols' run? Luck. Yep, pure, unfiltered, undiluted luck, the 35-14 drubbing of Georgia obviously excepted. (Of course, lucky or unlucky they don't award trips to Atlanta for style points.)
Meanwhile, behind a frightfully green-but-improving offensive line, Auburn rebounded from early upset losses to South Florida and Mississippi St. to upset top-five Florida on the road, take eventual national champion LSU to the wire, and stretch their school-record Iron Bowl winning streak to six on their way to a satisfying 9-4 final record.
Notable previous meeting: In 1989, in what was almost inarguably the sport's biggest rivalry at the time, Auburn and Tennessee met for a climactic clash that would decide the national championship.
Auburn had powered their way into the national title discussion with an undefeated regular season and would continue to build momentum with a five-point win over defending national champion Louisiana Tech. Before a national TV audience on CBS (still a novelty for the sport at the time), the Volunteers took an early lead, although Auburn responded to draw within a single possession early in the second half.
Unfortunately for the Lady Tigers, All-American Vickie Orr struggled with foul trouble throughout the game and picked up her third just as Auburn began to gain their second-half momentum. Despite the efforts of All-American Ruthie Bolton and freshman sensation Carolyn "C.J." Jones, the Volunteers would pull away for the 76-60 win and Pat Summitt's second women's basketball national title.
Damn them.
Actual (football) series history: The inter-divisional rotation hasn't brought the two teams together since Auburn swept two match-ups against the Vols in their division-winning seasons in 2004, giving the Tigers a three-game streak in the series after their 2003 win. Before that victory, though, the Tigers hadn't beaten Tennessee in six tries since 1988 (including a 26-26 tie in 1990).
All-time, Auburn leads the series 25-21-1.
Causes for Alarm
1. This is the sort of thing that would usually fall under the "alleged analysis" section of these things, but the Tennessee offensive line scares me worse than heights, needles, snakes, and Lou Holtz combined. It would be one thing if all they had going for them was the two allowed sacks on 301 pass attempts in SEC play. It would be another if the only other positive was that the Vols' 4.2 yards-per-carry mark was their highest since 2004. But it's something else when they return four of the five starters--fourth in the country according to Steele in terms of returning 2007 OL starts--that made those accomplishments possible. Yikes.
Second-team All-American senior left guard and certified nightmare fuel Anthony Parker.Yes, Auburn should have a defensive line capable of inspiring a certain amount of terror itself. I'd feel better about their chances at wetting the pants at the Reggie Cobb Oil Change if Marks, Coleman, Carter, etc. weren't facing--yeah, I'm going to come right out and say it--the best o-line in the SEC.
2. I'm convinced somewhere between 60 to 70 percent of the Vols' success in football is attributable to--in the words of a study published by leading researchers in a major medical journal--the "the uncontrollable disruption of even routine mental thought processes, a reflexive impairment the layman might even refer to as temporary brain damage" caused by repeated exposure to Rocky Top over a three-to-four hour period. The study suggested that the occasional, random exposure to Rocky Top during a childhood spent in a Tennessee-centric environment could eventually create a tolerance for the song sufficient to render its immediate effects minimal (though long-term exposure was shown to have its own adverse side effects), but with no such protection Auburn's players and coaches can expect to struggle with the presence of the Pride of the Southland Band in Jordan-Hare.
On the positive side, the study suggested that if Earth ever comes under attack from the sound-vulnerable species of Martians depicted in the film Mars Attacks!*, bombarding the aliens with Rocky Top may prove as equally effective a countermeasure as Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call."
Causes for Confidence
1. There are two good recognized nicknames out there (that I'm aware of, anyway) for SEC offenses: the "Cock and Fire" and, forgive the homerism, the "Spread Eagle." Both have the names of fierce and school-affiliated birds involved. Both have active verbs (two in C&F's's case). Both have certain pleasant sixth-grade-level sexual double-entendres, which I for one certainly appreciate. And both are clever.
At the moment, the term "Clawfense" is, like the baby bird fiddling with its wings and perched at the edge of the nest, trying to soar into the broader SEC consciousness as shorthand for new offensive coordinator Dave Clawson's mysterious offense.
Frankly, the "Clawfense" already has a strike against it when its players greet it not so much with the obligatory OMG SO GREAT WE'RE GOING TO SCORE A MILLION POINTS but with "uh, a lot of this is going over my head" statements borrowed from the opening of the Bill Callahan era in Lincoln. But it also suffers when it gets nicknamed the "Clawfense," more a Bad Joke than actual nickname.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. even though As any of my longtime readers (or readers of any length of time, come to think of it) could tell you, I am a lifelong appreciator of bad jokes. And as bad jokes go, it's not bad. I'd probably be awful proud of it if it was my bad-joke baby.
But as a nickname? To my ear it just sounds a tiny bit like a streeeeeeeeeetch. Plus, a claw is less intimidating than an entire bird. Plus plus (and speaking of birds) it sounds like the offense built around this guy:
and you don't want your offense to sound like that.
2. Britton Colquitt's a hell of a punter (or possibly, from the sound of it, a law firm), but Auburn doesn't have to care, as his suspension will end the following week against Northern Illinois. Mmmmm, field position.
(I will say this for Fulmer: I'm not sure every coach in this conference would suspend one of his team's best weapons for the back-to-back games against Florida and Auburn and let him come back only when it's time to steamroll a MAC tomato can.)
Actual alleged analysis: Honestly: what the hell do we make of Tennessee?
There are grumblings from certain hunter's orange-colored corners that with an avalanche of hype burying the division's top two teams, the defending East champs deserve to have at least a slushball or two of respect tossed their way. And on paper, there's little question they have a point. The offense is Ainge-less, yes, but Ainge-less isn't so bad when the line is this good, the entire receiving corps returns, and Arian Foster is ready to take 30 handoffs a game when you are, sir. All Jonathan Crompton has to do is not screw it up, and combining his relative experience (junior, one start) with his recruiting evaluations (PS #3) suggests he may be capable of doing much more than not screwing it up.
Defensively, the front seven loses four starters, but two of the returners are mountainous senior tackle Demonte Bolden and tackling-machine linebacker Rico McCoy, and the line gets the "despite the losses, this unit should be tougher up front" treatment from Steele. The secondary, meanwhile, might be in the "best in the country" discussion. There's not a ton to dislike on this side of the ball, either.
But as always, it's the play that's the thing, and the 2007 Vols--who had just as many on-paper reasons for optimism as this year's version, if not more--just didn't play very well if you look anywhere besides the scoreboard. Again, their Pythagorean was awful. They were outgained by 32.7 yards a game, the third-worst mark in the league. They finished plus-7 in turnovers. Whatever their record said, this team underachieved on a down-to-down basis and will have to dramatically improve just to tread water in the win-loss column this year.
And as many positives as the Vols' have, there are reasons to think that if there is improvement, it's not going to be dramatic. Crompton will still have a learning curve, one made all the more steep for Cutcliffe's departure and the Clawfense's apparent intricacies. The wideouts are experienced but--Gerald Jones potentially aside--don't seem the sort to keep opposing DC's awake at night. And even with the staggering late-season improvement shown by the secondary, this is still a defense with several major losses from a unit that gave up 59 to Florida, 41 to the Tide, 45 to Cal. My hunch is that 2008 Tennessee proves to be a slightly better football team than 2007 Tennessee, with the giant caveat of a slightly--or even significantly--worse record.
A loss at J-Hare could--maybe even should--be part of that, um, worse-ness. I like Auburn in the trenches, where our d-line should be able to battle even the Vols' o-line to something approaching a draw and our o-line should have an edge. Frankly, unless the Clawson hire turns out to be a coup, I like the game-planning track record of Tubby and his staff better than I do Fulmer and his. The Vols have also been wretched on the road of late--they've lost their last three away games against ranked teams by a combined 70 points, and that's not even taking the beatdown in Tuscaloosa into consideration.
In the end, though, I come back to the same complaint with the schedule I opened this post with. Don't get me wrong: Auburn fans don't have the slightest bit of whining wriggle room when the Vols are going to arrive on the Plains a week after hosting the Gators. But let's theorize, regardless, that the Tigers emerge battered and bruised from the LSU game (is there any other way to emerge from an Auburn-LSU game?) but with what will surely look like a season-defining victory in hand. Meanwhile, let's say Tennessee gets Tebowned for a second straight year, this time in Knoxville. This scenario would send Auburn into their date with the Vols as an unequivocal home favorite, one ranked in the top-10, in the SEC West driver's seat, and busy soaking up the congratulations and title-talk on all sides. The Vols, meanwhile, would be wounded and angry, while still as talented as ever and likely badly underrated.
If you have been an Auburn fan for any length of time, you recognize this as the sort of scenario that has always been Tubby's biggest Achilles heel. It's also, unfortunately, the same scenario Fulmer has used to save his career on more than one occasion and has perpetually thrived in. It terrifies me.
Obviously, the scenario could just as easily be reversed, with Auburn falling at home to LSU and Tennessee springing the upset over Florida. Or both teams could win and set up a massive clash of undefeateds. Or they could both lose and set up the Raycom Game of the Week. Whatever happens, the point is this: I firmly believe Auburn's too good to go 0-2 over these two weeks. But even if that's a valley too deep to expect Auburn to slip into, 2-0 is likewise a mighty tall hill to climb. The Tigers can get there, no question, but they'd better bring some extra oxygen and the best crampons they can find, because both LSU and the Vols are going to make sure it's treacherous footing every step of the way.
*I haven't met enough other people who enjoyed (or even remember) this movie to really make this reference worthwhile, I know, but screw it--the image of the UT band marching down the streets of Vegas with Martian heads exploding left and right is too appropriate to pass up. Plus, the film's a totally underrated entry in the Burton oeuvre and deserves the attention. So there you go.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
The Works, scarlet devil's advocate-style
You would think images like this one would have endeared the Buckeyes to SEC fans.Public Enemy No. 1, considered disarmed and undangerous. If you've been a consistent lurker around the SEC-flavored corners of the Interwebs over the past few months, you'll have noticed that should one particular non-SEC team once again have the disgusting audacity to qualify for the BCS championship game, they will, apparently, be sentenced to Hell to eat naught but burning hot coals and drink naught but burning hot cola for all eternity ... or until Vandy qualifies for a bowl game, whichever comes first.
That team is, of course, Ohio St., whose latest ANYONE BUT YOU Southern-fried blog-lashing has come courtesy of Erik at Deep South Sports. Not too long ago Auburn-affiliated CFN blogger Barrett Sallee also gave voice to SEC fans' frustration towards the Buckeyes in a piece I'm sure a certain brand of Michigan fan will find rational, even-handed, and well-argued.
There was always going to be some northerly-directed vitriol after the Buckeyes got pantsed a second time, but I have to say I'm surprised said vitriol has taken on quite this level of intensity. First, it's not like either set of Buckeyes were the second coming of fishily-selected 2001 Nebraska or 2003 Oklahoma--each was a clearcut No. 1 with fewer losses than any other BCS team in the country. Second, I'm afraid SEC fans can't exactly crack on the Buckeyes' schedule credentials when--sorry, guys, I know this won't be the most popular point to make--the Big 10 teams those credentials have been built upon have gone 3-1 against the SEC in their bowl games. If LSU gets credit for beating Florida at home, I think we can afford to give the Bucks a little bit of credit for beating the team that beat Florida in Florida. By all means, have a good, hearty larf at the thoroughness with which OSU soiled themselves on the big stage, but it didn't mean they didn't deserve to be there. And if they finish 2008 with fewer losses than any other BCS team in the country--again--they'll deserve to play for a crystal football--again. Sorry.
That--the possibility of the SEC champ getting the championship-game shaft in favor of another paper-tiger OSU team, even one with a better record--is, I think, the rub. I agree wholeheartedly that given the SEC's track record in BCS bowls vs. the Buckeyes', the SEC should absolutely be given the benefit of the doubt should OSU and the SEC champ finish with the same number of losses. Trust me, I'm as fervent as anyone in wanting my second-least favorite non-SEC program as far away from the BCS title game as possible. This is the same program who nearly escaped an upset bid at Wisconsin by choking the opposing quarterback out of the game, the same coach who sat the linebacker responsible for a single game. I hope they go 0-11 and Tressel winds up selling vacations at a strange travel agency that only books trips to Ann Arbor. On commission.
But hoping is not the same as expecting. What I honestly (and depressingly) expect, looking at how obscenely loaded the Buckeyes are and how obscenely mediocre the remainder of the Big 10 should be, is that they escape from L.A. with a win and cruise to the title game. Should they face an SEC team there, guess which side the Buckeye backlash will have made the prohibitive favorite--and guess which side will be hellbent on disproving two years' worth of Southern doubt, arrogance, and as we've seen, outright bile. As an SEC fan, this is a scenario that worries me.
Ironses more successful off the field than on at the moment. It's been kind of cool to see Kenny Irons become a kind of blogging cult hero since joining the Bengals--the latest exhibit in Kenny's transformation into the NFL's Gilbert Arenas waits here--but it might have been even cooler to see him become a kind of non-cult hero on the football field. As TWER pointed out, that's looking less likely these days, and David's career doesn't appear to be on an upward trajectory at the moment, either. Too bad.
To answer your question, your question is stupid. Ray Melick pulled on his official Paul Finebaum mermaid-sighting goggles and delved into the Furr situation, with the result being that the guy who by basically every account was a) not happy to make a logical position switch for the team he committed to b) openly dogging it in drills c) "bristled," let's say, when called out for said dogging d) quit immediately is now suddenly e) a sympathetic figure. Please.
Say what now? Tide tight end Nick Walker on the Jim McElwain offense:
We're trying to make it as hard as possible for teams not to predict what we're going to do.Strange strategy, aiming to become so obvious your opponent will know what's coming even if they're trying not to. But it sounds good to me. (I kid. Walker misspoke, no biggie. He just needs to be a little bit more motivated about communicating clearly, and fortunately Saban's all over it.)
And finally ... I really do hate to toss another log onto the raging wildfire that is the stereotyping of the 'Bama fan, and linking from a small-time college football blog like this one to anything linked already by EDSBS is a little bit like telling the cashier at the movie theater there's a new Batman movie out ... but on the off-chance you haven't already, you really ought to read who's living in the ninth circle of fan hell.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Cheese Puff Previews #4: LSU
This series of near-substanceless, air-injected preview puffery should in no way be mistaken for actual preseason football nutrition. Nonetheless, the hope is that you will find the series unaccountably tasty and even habit-forming, and as such it is unofficially sponsored by:
Yes, I am wearing my "HELLO MY NAME IS: Homer McHomerson" name tag. Yes, I'm sure I'm blissfully unaware of some rivalry in Conference USA or Oregon or someplace where they put the losers' heads on pikes and dye a seven-mile stretch of the Missouri River in the winners' colors. Yes, I am aware that making definitive statements about how things are "rated" is akin to taking careful aim before throwing a dart at the moon.
But as I wholeheartedly believe the following definitive statement anyway and believe this to be the appropriate context in which to make it, I feel compelled to state: Auburn-LSU is the most underrated college football rivalry in America.
Sounds like 99.4 percent pure Auburn Blogger bluster, I know. But there's court-admissible evidence, I swear to you. For starters, there's the two series tidbits most sea urchins (at least the ones in the Gulf of Mexico) could tell you by now: the winner has won the SEC West six out of eight years, and the last four entries have been decided by a total of .078 points (OK, it's actually 14, 13 in regulation, if you like).
But even if those indicators are a good start, they still fall well short of fully illustrating how ridiculously good this series has become. Consider, for instance, that of late the winner of this game has generally done more than simply win the SEC West. Since 2001, the Auburn-LSU winner has won two national titles and *cough* finished an additional undefeated season; is a perfect 7-0 in bowl games, including four wins in BCS bowls, two more victories on New Year's Day, and one 40-3 whipping of Miami in the Peach (none of which even counts the Sugar Bowl demolition of Notre Dame by 2006 loser LSU); has won four of seven SEC titles; has won no fewer than nine games; and has averaged a final AP ranking of 5.7th.
Consider also that since 2004 neither team, winner or loser, has finished with fewer than nine wins. In that four-season span, Auburn and LSU have combined to post an 85-18 overall record, for a winning percentage of .825. The only two rivalries in the country that come within even a handful of games of matching that particular record of quality are Texas-Oklahoma, a half-game better at 86-18 (.827), and Louisville-West Virginia, at 79-20 (.798) and declining.
It's not just that Auburn-LSU has grown into one of the most reliable collisions of college football colossi on the national schedule, though. It's also that it's the next-best-thing to impossible for another rivalry to have matched Auburn-LSU's brand of drama over its past four meetings. Speaking as someone who can't remember the last time he breathed in the fourth quarter (or overtime) of one of these things, just reciting "14 points over four games" doesn't even approach doing justice to them; they aren't the "close" games of the "Team A scores touchdown with 27 seconds remaining to pull within five and fails to recover the onside kick" variety. To wit:
2004: Jason Campbell comes of age, and the greatest SEC team of the BCS era to date (don't argue) wins the game on their final drive when they're handed a do-over on the extra point.
2005: Neither team should let it get to overtime tied at 17--LSU drops a touchdown pass in the dying moments and Auburn outgains them by a mile--but LSU prevails because, as fans on both sides will recall forever with either giggly glee or the gnashing of teeth, this is the J**n motherhumping V****n game.
2006: The 7-3 slugfest, with the terror of Dorsey, Highsmith, and Landry on one defense and Groves, Marks, and a singularly possessed Will Herring playing the game of his life on the other. The most physically brutal game yours truly has likely ever seen.
2007: Ho-hum, just more of the same, as the eventual national champion wins on the final play of the game with the most debated, (in)famous playcall of the year.
Here comes the bluster again, but: If you can show me another rivalry that combines those kinds of Alcoa Fantastic Finishes with both the level of play these programs have achieved this decade and the steady increase in full-blown hate flowing between the Plains and the bayou, I'll gladly send you a choice selection from my fine collection of leprechaun eggs. Free of charge.
Now, to slow the hyperbole train for just one second, Auburn-LSU doesn't carry anything like the grand historical weight of Auburn-Georgia. For yours truly, at least, it won't ever come within shouting distance of the bone-deep intensity of the Iron Bowl. A sizable chunk of Auburn fans would still prefer a win over Florida. As things stand today, I'm not arguing Auburn-LSU is even the "biggest" or "best" rivalry game on Auburn's schedule, much less in the SEC or the country or anything like that.
Nonetheless: Auburn-LSU is a hell of a game. It's unquestionably one of the two or three capital-H Highlights not only of Auburn's schedule but the SEC's at-large, and deserves a spot in any national "10 games to watch" list you'd care to put together. The 2008 version has a lot to live up to--but looking back at the last few years and with only 45 blessed days between now and then, it's hard to find any reason to believe it won't.
Last year: Maybe you heard, but LSU had quite the eventful season last year: the merciless slaughter of Virginia Tech, the fourth-down-a-thon against Florida, a death-defying escape against Auburn, slip-ups against Kentucky and Arkansas, and finally a nice hatful of redemption against the bumbling Buckeyes. I'm not sure that by the end of the year LSU was entirely deserving of their reputation as a Stihl-endowed great ape so memorably portrayed thusly:
but 12-2 and a crystal football sure ain't bad.
Meanwhile, behind a frightfully green-but-improving offensive line, Auburn rebounded from early upset losses to South Florida and Mississippi St. to upset top-five Florida on the road, take eventual national champion LSU to the wire, and stretch their school-record Iron Bowl winning streak to six on their way to a satisfying 9-4 final record.
Notable previous meeting: LSU tradition states that the Bayou Bengals will score one touchdown for every roar live mascot Mike the Tiger unleashes in his pregame appearance before the LSU crowd. So it was more than little unsettling for the Tiger faithful when, before hosting Auburn in the third week of the 1993 season, Mike was wheeled onto the field and failed to offer so much as a soft growl during his entire "performance." He instead sat meekly in one corner of the cage and despite the best efforts by the costumed "Mascot Mike" and his handlers to rouse him, Mike gave no response other than to stand briefly, take a single wobbly step, and lay down again. True to form, the LSU offense under Curley Hallman provided little enthusiasm or energy of its own as Terry Bowden's visiting Tigers ran away with a 34-10 victory that would help springboard them into a perfect 11-0 season.
With the veterinary students in charge of Mike's care reporting immediately after his visit to the stadium that he appeared "glassy-eyed" and "unusually sluggish," a toxicology report was administered and came back with surprising results: although he would make a full and routine recovery before the end of the evening, Mike had been given a mild sedative by unknown persons sometime in the three-to-four hours before the game.
An internal investigation by campus law enforcement failed to produce any viable suspects and the case remained closed until its 10-year anniversary in 2003, when a typed message bearing the official letterhead of the Auburn College of Veterinary Medicine arrived in Baton Rouge. The letter had been signed by "Dr. Gideon V. Wainright" and "Dr. Brown V. Boardofeducation" and claimed that while vet students at Auburn, the pair had been responsible for slipping a tranquilizer into Mike's food. "Bowden's boys may not have needed the help," the letter read, "but we thought we'd do what we could anyway. War Eagle!" Attempts by law enforcement to identify the authors of the letter proved unsuccessful. Although the letter made no indication of any future attempts to sedate Mike a second time, the handling of his food and medical care have since come under dramatically increased scrutiny from the LSU administration, resulting in substantially stricter guidelines regarding security and access to the animal.
Actual series history: The important recent stuff is covered above, though it's probably worth noting--as if neither you nor the aforementioned sea urchins didn't already know--that the home team has won the last eight in the series. LSU leads the all-time series 22-19-1.
Causes for Alarm
1. The argument I've heard most often from the Auburn fans and Auburn-backing media predicting an Auburn win in this game doesn't have much to do with Auburn itself, actually. It goes, simply: Auburn's the home team. Even the occasional LSU fan is following the meme.
This troubles me, not necessarily because it's a faulty argument in and of itself--I mean, eight-out-of-eight is a pretty good track record, even when the margins have been so ridiculously slim of late--but because of the unsettling resemblance between this line of thinking and the consensus amongst the Auburn faithful (the JCCW most certainly included) ahead of the Tigers' date at Athens last November: We'll be fine. We own the Dawgs in Athens. One 45-20 bludgeoning later, I'm a little less high on expecting the Jordan-Hare Stadium genie to pop out and grant Auburn a win when Tubby rubs his glasses on the hem of his shirt.
I'm not saying home-field advantage doesn't matter, mind you, not saying I don't like Auburn's odds on the Plains a metric ton better than I would if they were headed to Baton Rouge again. But I worry that expecting a victory because of the field the players are playing on as opposed to what the, you know, players do is asking the football gods to teach us (and a few media types taking the lazy way out) a second lesson.
2. Look, there's no need to pretend that watching a 5-foot-5-inch Olympic-quality sprinter do things on a football field like this:
isn't awesome, damn him.
Causes for Confidence
1. Seriously, who wears purple in football? The Northwesterns of the college world, the Minnesota Vikings of the professional world. (you don't think zero Super Bowl titles in 42 years is an accident, do you?)
Yes, I know it's a Cajun thing, and sure, things have been swell this decade. But there's a reason the Tigers were cursed with Mike Archer, Curley Hallman, and Gerry DiNardo for back-to-back-to-back regimes and wallowed in mediocrity like a pig in slop for so many years--all despite lying smack in the middle of one of the country's most fertile recruiting areas. And that reason is that purple is not an appropriate color for football uniforms, unless you somehow believe Tulane hanging with LSU for a half last year somehow wasn't related to this.
2. I touched on this briefly earlier this week, but the pendulum of luck seems to swing more violently between Auburn and LSU than between any two other teams I can think of. 2004: LSU misses their lone extra point while Auburn controversially gets two cracks at theirs. 2005: V****n. 2006: Auburn gets the (right, if debatable) call on the big late fourth down. 2007: Not only does Miles's (intelligent) end-of-gamble pay off, but the officials also return the 2006 favor when they pick up an illegal formation flag on an LSU touchdown based on replay.
Whether the officials will have as noticeable a role in this year's game is TBD (let's hope not, as fans from both sides could do more to let the zebras' decisions go), but the pendulum is due to swing away from the visitors in some fashion or another. And not just in terms of this particular matchup, either--LSU finished an unreal (and unsustainable) plus-20 in turnover margin in 2007.
Actual alleged analysis: Frankly, save the one great big giant glaring neon-lit EXCEPTION, it's hard to point out where exactly on paper Auburn has an advantage on LSU. Our defensive line should be nigh-unstoppable terrors; unfortunately LSU's got one of the most experienced, best o-lines in the league. But hey, our o-line returns all five guys and should be pretty special, too; too bad LSU has the consensus best d-line in the country. In Williams, Scott, Holliday, and others, they have nearly as many strong and explosive running backs as we've got strong and explosive linebackers. Their corners might be unproven, but it's debatable how stiffly Smith, Dunn and our unproven receivers will challenge them. And particularly now that Aairon Savage is done for the year, I don't even want to think about Demetrius Byrd, Brandon LaFell, Richard Dickson, Terrance Tolliver, and the rest of that flock of freaks lining up against our nickel and dime corners. I'm getting the shakes. Let's just move on.
Namely, to the one place Auburn can claim an advantage: LSU's quarterback situation. Remember, this won't just be the first road game in the career of whoever lines up under center; it'll be the first game of Quarterback X's career in which he's faced a defense with a pulse at all, given that LSU's first three opponents are Appy St., Troy, and North Texas. And it will be a night game. And the crowd will be very loud indeed. And most importantly, I expect Tuberville and Rhoads will have prepared some lovely housewarming gifts to welcome him into the SEC neighborhood.
It's possible Quarterback X will handle all of this. The candidates at hand are either very well-regarded raw prospects (Lee, Jefferson) or already intimately familiar with Gary Growton's system (Hatch). The potential will be there for Quarterback X. He'll be capable of facing down the aforementioned obstacles, getting the ball into the ready hands of his dozens of stupidly talented teammates, and calmly walking out of Jordan-Hare the bayou's newest hero.
But he'll have to, because LSU will not win if Quarterback X fails. As immovable as the LSU defensive line will be, as physically gifted as the new linebackers, corners, and safety will be, the Tiger defense must replace five starters from their 2007 back seven and--in an arguably even bigger blow--shrewd coordinator Bo Pelini. If the 2007 edition of the Auburn offense could put up 24 points on the road, the 2008 edition--improved, at home, against a defense that hypothetically won't be quite as fearsome as last year's (or, at least, won't be so early in the season)--should be good for 21 points, minimum. Right? (Particularly since the sharpest teeth on the LSU D belong to a pass rush the Franklin system is designed to neutralize ... I think.) Provided Auburn's own quarterback-to-be-announced isn't a total train wreck, this won't be another 7-3 deathslog.
And so, as this incredible rivalry has taught us, it will all fall on the shoulders of Quarterback X: the season, the division, the conference, the long, long memories of every Auburn and LSU fan alive. It will all hang in the balance. The last thing I will say is this: it will be a heavy, heavy load for any player to carry, and the player carrying it will be a freshman. I wish him luck. He will need it.
Yes, I am wearing my "HELLO MY NAME IS: Homer McHomerson" name tag. Yes, I'm sure I'm blissfully unaware of some rivalry in Conference USA or Oregon or someplace where they put the losers' heads on pikes and dye a seven-mile stretch of the Missouri River in the winners' colors. Yes, I am aware that making definitive statements about how things are "rated" is akin to taking careful aim before throwing a dart at the moon.
But as I wholeheartedly believe the following definitive statement anyway and believe this to be the appropriate context in which to make it, I feel compelled to state: Auburn-LSU is the most underrated college football rivalry in America.
Sounds like 99.4 percent pure Auburn Blogger bluster, I know. But there's court-admissible evidence, I swear to you. For starters, there's the two series tidbits most sea urchins (at least the ones in the Gulf of Mexico) could tell you by now: the winner has won the SEC West six out of eight years, and the last four entries have been decided by a total of .078 points (OK, it's actually 14, 13 in regulation, if you like).
But even if those indicators are a good start, they still fall well short of fully illustrating how ridiculously good this series has become. Consider, for instance, that of late the winner of this game has generally done more than simply win the SEC West. Since 2001, the Auburn-LSU winner has won two national titles and *cough* finished an additional undefeated season; is a perfect 7-0 in bowl games, including four wins in BCS bowls, two more victories on New Year's Day, and one 40-3 whipping of Miami in the Peach (none of which even counts the Sugar Bowl demolition of Notre Dame by 2006 loser LSU); has won four of seven SEC titles; has won no fewer than nine games; and has averaged a final AP ranking of 5.7th.
Consider also that since 2004 neither team, winner or loser, has finished with fewer than nine wins. In that four-season span, Auburn and LSU have combined to post an 85-18 overall record, for a winning percentage of .825. The only two rivalries in the country that come within even a handful of games of matching that particular record of quality are Texas-Oklahoma, a half-game better at 86-18 (.827), and Louisville-West Virginia, at 79-20 (.798) and declining.
It's not just that Auburn-LSU has grown into one of the most reliable collisions of college football colossi on the national schedule, though. It's also that it's the next-best-thing to impossible for another rivalry to have matched Auburn-LSU's brand of drama over its past four meetings. Speaking as someone who can't remember the last time he breathed in the fourth quarter (or overtime) of one of these things, just reciting "14 points over four games" doesn't even approach doing justice to them; they aren't the "close" games of the "Team A scores touchdown with 27 seconds remaining to pull within five and fails to recover the onside kick" variety. To wit:
2004: Jason Campbell comes of age, and the greatest SEC team of the BCS era to date (don't argue) wins the game on their final drive when they're handed a do-over on the extra point.
2005: Neither team should let it get to overtime tied at 17--LSU drops a touchdown pass in the dying moments and Auburn outgains them by a mile--but LSU prevails because, as fans on both sides will recall forever with either giggly glee or the gnashing of teeth, this is the J**n motherhumping V****n game.
2006: The 7-3 slugfest, with the terror of Dorsey, Highsmith, and Landry on one defense and Groves, Marks, and a singularly possessed Will Herring playing the game of his life on the other. The most physically brutal game yours truly has likely ever seen.
2007: Ho-hum, just more of the same, as the eventual national champion wins on the final play of the game with the most debated, (in)famous playcall of the year.
Here comes the bluster again, but: If you can show me another rivalry that combines those kinds of Alcoa Fantastic Finishes with both the level of play these programs have achieved this decade and the steady increase in full-blown hate flowing between the Plains and the bayou, I'll gladly send you a choice selection from my fine collection of leprechaun eggs. Free of charge.
Now, to slow the hyperbole train for just one second, Auburn-LSU doesn't carry anything like the grand historical weight of Auburn-Georgia. For yours truly, at least, it won't ever come within shouting distance of the bone-deep intensity of the Iron Bowl. A sizable chunk of Auburn fans would still prefer a win over Florida. As things stand today, I'm not arguing Auburn-LSU is even the "biggest" or "best" rivalry game on Auburn's schedule, much less in the SEC or the country or anything like that.
Nonetheless: Auburn-LSU is a hell of a game. It's unquestionably one of the two or three capital-H Highlights not only of Auburn's schedule but the SEC's at-large, and deserves a spot in any national "10 games to watch" list you'd care to put together. The 2008 version has a lot to live up to--but looking back at the last few years and with only 45 blessed days between now and then, it's hard to find any reason to believe it won't.
Last year: Maybe you heard, but LSU had quite the eventful season last year: the merciless slaughter of Virginia Tech, the fourth-down-a-thon against Florida, a death-defying escape against Auburn, slip-ups against Kentucky and Arkansas, and finally a nice hatful of redemption against the bumbling Buckeyes. I'm not sure that by the end of the year LSU was entirely deserving of their reputation as a Stihl-endowed great ape so memorably portrayed thusly:
but 12-2 and a crystal football sure ain't bad.
Meanwhile, behind a frightfully green-but-improving offensive line, Auburn rebounded from early upset losses to South Florida and Mississippi St. to upset top-five Florida on the road, take eventual national champion LSU to the wire, and stretch their school-record Iron Bowl winning streak to six on their way to a satisfying 9-4 final record.
Notable previous meeting: LSU tradition states that the Bayou Bengals will score one touchdown for every roar live mascot Mike the Tiger unleashes in his pregame appearance before the LSU crowd. So it was more than little unsettling for the Tiger faithful when, before hosting Auburn in the third week of the 1993 season, Mike was wheeled onto the field and failed to offer so much as a soft growl during his entire "performance." He instead sat meekly in one corner of the cage and despite the best efforts by the costumed "Mascot Mike" and his handlers to rouse him, Mike gave no response other than to stand briefly, take a single wobbly step, and lay down again. True to form, the LSU offense under Curley Hallman provided little enthusiasm or energy of its own as Terry Bowden's visiting Tigers ran away with a 34-10 victory that would help springboard them into a perfect 11-0 season.
With the veterinary students in charge of Mike's care reporting immediately after his visit to the stadium that he appeared "glassy-eyed" and "unusually sluggish," a toxicology report was administered and came back with surprising results: although he would make a full and routine recovery before the end of the evening, Mike had been given a mild sedative by unknown persons sometime in the three-to-four hours before the game.
An internal investigation by campus law enforcement failed to produce any viable suspects and the case remained closed until its 10-year anniversary in 2003, when a typed message bearing the official letterhead of the Auburn College of Veterinary Medicine arrived in Baton Rouge. The letter had been signed by "Dr. Gideon V. Wainright" and "Dr. Brown V. Boardofeducation" and claimed that while vet students at Auburn, the pair had been responsible for slipping a tranquilizer into Mike's food. "Bowden's boys may not have needed the help," the letter read, "but we thought we'd do what we could anyway. War Eagle!" Attempts by law enforcement to identify the authors of the letter proved unsuccessful. Although the letter made no indication of any future attempts to sedate Mike a second time, the handling of his food and medical care have since come under dramatically increased scrutiny from the LSU administration, resulting in substantially stricter guidelines regarding security and access to the animal.
Actual series history: The important recent stuff is covered above, though it's probably worth noting--as if neither you nor the aforementioned sea urchins didn't already know--that the home team has won the last eight in the series. LSU leads the all-time series 22-19-1.
Causes for Alarm
1. The argument I've heard most often from the Auburn fans and Auburn-backing media predicting an Auburn win in this game doesn't have much to do with Auburn itself, actually. It goes, simply: Auburn's the home team. Even the occasional LSU fan is following the meme.
This troubles me, not necessarily because it's a faulty argument in and of itself--I mean, eight-out-of-eight is a pretty good track record, even when the margins have been so ridiculously slim of late--but because of the unsettling resemblance between this line of thinking and the consensus amongst the Auburn faithful (the JCCW most certainly included) ahead of the Tigers' date at Athens last November: We'll be fine. We own the Dawgs in Athens. One 45-20 bludgeoning later, I'm a little less high on expecting the Jordan-Hare Stadium genie to pop out and grant Auburn a win when Tubby rubs his glasses on the hem of his shirt.
I'm not saying home-field advantage doesn't matter, mind you, not saying I don't like Auburn's odds on the Plains a metric ton better than I would if they were headed to Baton Rouge again. But I worry that expecting a victory because of the field the players are playing on as opposed to what the, you know, players do is asking the football gods to teach us (and a few media types taking the lazy way out) a second lesson.
2. Look, there's no need to pretend that watching a 5-foot-5-inch Olympic-quality sprinter do things on a football field like this:
isn't awesome, damn him.
Causes for Confidence
1. Seriously, who wears purple in football? The Northwesterns of the college world, the Minnesota Vikings of the professional world. (you don't think zero Super Bowl titles in 42 years is an accident, do you?)
Yes, I know it's a Cajun thing, and sure, things have been swell this decade. But there's a reason the Tigers were cursed with Mike Archer, Curley Hallman, and Gerry DiNardo for back-to-back-to-back regimes and wallowed in mediocrity like a pig in slop for so many years--all despite lying smack in the middle of one of the country's most fertile recruiting areas. And that reason is that purple is not an appropriate color for football uniforms, unless you somehow believe Tulane hanging with LSU for a half last year somehow wasn't related to this.
2. I touched on this briefly earlier this week, but the pendulum of luck seems to swing more violently between Auburn and LSU than between any two other teams I can think of. 2004: LSU misses their lone extra point while Auburn controversially gets two cracks at theirs. 2005: V****n. 2006: Auburn gets the (right, if debatable) call on the big late fourth down. 2007: Not only does Miles's (intelligent) end-of-gamble pay off, but the officials also return the 2006 favor when they pick up an illegal formation flag on an LSU touchdown based on replay.
Whether the officials will have as noticeable a role in this year's game is TBD (let's hope not, as fans from both sides could do more to let the zebras' decisions go), but the pendulum is due to swing away from the visitors in some fashion or another. And not just in terms of this particular matchup, either--LSU finished an unreal (and unsustainable) plus-20 in turnover margin in 2007.
Actual alleged analysis: Frankly, save the one great big giant glaring neon-lit EXCEPTION, it's hard to point out where exactly on paper Auburn has an advantage on LSU. Our defensive line should be nigh-unstoppable terrors; unfortunately LSU's got one of the most experienced, best o-lines in the league. But hey, our o-line returns all five guys and should be pretty special, too; too bad LSU has the consensus best d-line in the country. In Williams, Scott, Holliday, and others, they have nearly as many strong and explosive running backs as we've got strong and explosive linebackers. Their corners might be unproven, but it's debatable how stiffly Smith, Dunn and our unproven receivers will challenge them. And particularly now that Aairon Savage is done for the year, I don't even want to think about Demetrius Byrd, Brandon LaFell, Richard Dickson, Terrance Tolliver, and the rest of that flock of freaks lining up against our nickel and dime corners. I'm getting the shakes. Let's just move on.
Namely, to the one place Auburn can claim an advantage: LSU's quarterback situation. Remember, this won't just be the first road game in the career of whoever lines up under center; it'll be the first game of Quarterback X's career in which he's faced a defense with a pulse at all, given that LSU's first three opponents are Appy St., Troy, and North Texas. And it will be a night game. And the crowd will be very loud indeed. And most importantly, I expect Tuberville and Rhoads will have prepared some lovely housewarming gifts to welcome him into the SEC neighborhood.
It's possible Quarterback X will handle all of this. The candidates at hand are either very well-regarded raw prospects (Lee, Jefferson) or already intimately familiar with Gary Growton's system (Hatch). The potential will be there for Quarterback X. He'll be capable of facing down the aforementioned obstacles, getting the ball into the ready hands of his dozens of stupidly talented teammates, and calmly walking out of Jordan-Hare the bayou's newest hero.
But he'll have to, because LSU will not win if Quarterback X fails. As immovable as the LSU defensive line will be, as physically gifted as the new linebackers, corners, and safety will be, the Tiger defense must replace five starters from their 2007 back seven and--in an arguably even bigger blow--shrewd coordinator Bo Pelini. If the 2007 edition of the Auburn offense could put up 24 points on the road, the 2008 edition--improved, at home, against a defense that hypothetically won't be quite as fearsome as last year's (or, at least, won't be so early in the season)--should be good for 21 points, minimum. Right? (Particularly since the sharpest teeth on the LSU D belong to a pass rush the Franklin system is designed to neutralize ... I think.) Provided Auburn's own quarterback-to-be-announced isn't a total train wreck, this won't be another 7-3 deathslog.
And so, as this incredible rivalry has taught us, it will all fall on the shoulders of Quarterback X: the season, the division, the conference, the long, long memories of every Auburn and LSU fan alive. It will all hang in the balance. The last thing I will say is this: it will be a heavy, heavy load for any player to carry, and the player carrying it will be a freshman. I wish him luck. He will need it.
The Works, oh yeah that guy-style
Remember me? I've visited many, many places on the Interwebs listing many, many reasons to be optimistic about Auburn's upcoming campaign, and it seems a bit strange that "Brad Lester" has been one of those reasons essentially not at all.
If you'll recall, Lester had positioned himself to take over the starting job in the first few weeks of 2005 before injury struck; scored a touchdown every 11 touches in 2006 while generally looking like the most explosive back on the team; and was expected by virtually everyone to carry the Rudi-Cadillac-Ronnie-Kenny torch into 2007.
Unfortunately, six-game academic suspensions have a way of derailing that kind of career momentum, particularly when you play a position as perpetually loaded with capable replacements as "running back at Auburn." But as capable and as versatile and as hard a runner as a guy like Ben Tate is, the JCCW's hypothetical "Let's wager on who gets the starting tailback job" money remains firmly on Lester, for the very simple reasons this Charles Goldberg piece points out:
This time he doesn't have a starter like Kenny Irons in front of him, like 2006, or academics hanging over his head, like last season.Just as importantly: the athletic promise Lester showed back in '05 and '06 is still whole and intact, as Lester proves at the 2:18 and 2:45 mark of the following (which you have seen before but should watch again):
With all due respect to Tate (who looks mighty fine in said video as well), with Mario Fannin out wide there's only one guy in Auburn's backfield with the raw talent to make tailback not just a strength but the Tigers' traditional all-league Guns-o'-the-freaking-Navarone weapon. That's Lester. He's a reason to believe. (Of course, now we'll all get to watch Tristan Davis blow up.)
Not that we should forget about Fannin, either. The transplant at receiver seems to be taking, very good news considering what else Auburn has--or doesn't have, as the case may be, based on 2007--at that position. (Pointless aside: I found the image of Fannin running around as the only guy on the entire team in shoulder pads for the first few days HI-larious. Like he's the kid with lazy eye who has to show up for the first day of third grade toting an eyepatch, or something.)
Shorn of Furr. That whole "Watch, it'll just blow over" prediction worked out peachy-keen, didn't it? This is why they pay me the nonexistent bucks.
I'm not of the knee-jerk "We're better off without him" opinion; Furr by all accounts is easily an SEC-quality athlete and I don't have much doubt Auburn could have turned him into a useful (or better) safety in time. It's also not like the secondary is a stocked cupboard at this point, either. Auburn would likely be a stronger team with Furr than without.
But still--if your position coach gave you the whole of spring to prove yourself and still believed you six "longs" away from seeing the field, perhaps the more mature course of action would be to suck it up and accept that quarterback is neither going to be your D-I position nor certainly where your pro potential lies, yesno? If your choice is to to play quarterback come hell-or-high-water, fine, find a lower-division team that's interested. But going through the charade of showing up to fall practice only to dog it through drills for a day and bail the first time you get called out on it--again--just doesn't seem like an especially thoughtful approach.
Yet more practice hoo-ha. Tommy Trott and Gabe McKenzie aren't expected to go the way of the Spread Eagle dinosaur just yet, but the other tight ends on the roster might want to either bulk up or slim down in a hurry (or work on their pass-rushing skills, perhaps); Rhoads and McFadden at least talk the talk re: Savage's absence; and Raven Gray celebrates his arrival at Auburn by betting harangued and inappropriately tackling Tristan Davis.
Opponent watch. You can't exactly take as gospel truth the opinion of a writer who can't tell the difference between "three" and "five," but it's probably worth perusing this quickie list of reasons West Virginia is overrated anyway. In my humble opinion, however, he missed the biggest doubt of all for WVU: that not only did Rodriguez leave, but he took OC Calvin Magee with him. Ask Steve Ensminger and Hugh Nall about how easy it is to run an offense designed and orchestrated by guys who aren't around any longer, pleaseandthankyou.
Question marks regarding the offensive scheme abound at Tennesee as well, where the system being installed by new OC Dave Clawson, formerly the I-AA Richmond Spider head man, has been labeled by players as "really complicated" and "a whole lot harder than Cutcliffe's offense." Forgive me, but if I'm a Tennesee fan:
Also at RTT, Joel names Auburn one of the 29 boringest college logos, which I might take issue with if I didn't totally dig nearly all the interlocking letter logos he J'accuses of dullness. You say tomayto, I say tomahto. And oh, speaking of the world of design, there's gotta be a better way for the Hogs to sell their new jersey than this. I mean, seriously: there's gotta be. Much as there has to be a better choice than Fran to call the Alabama-Clemson game, as Tide Druid so humorously points out.
CFN hijinks. The advertisin'-est site in college football managed to dig up the first non-Wally Hall writer to give Auburn a legit shot at winning the conference, which was kind of them. But CFN lead dog Pete Fiutak also dogged the coaches' ranking of Auburn, suggesting that "SEC respect" explained the Tigers' spot 11 places ahead of Penn State as opposed to "aren't coached by the undead and his pansy-ass pinko son." Even curioser was CFN's projection for Auburn's schedule: a clean sweep of LSU, Tennessee, and West Virginia, but losses at Mississippi St. (!) and Alabama. Full credit for thinking outside the box, guys, I guess.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The numbers say what we're all thinking
Over the course of Tommy Tuberville's tenure as Auburn's head football coach, it's fair to say his teams have acquired certain reputations, certain easy stereotypes the common college football fan can fall back on when need be: Clock-chewing, run-first offense. Emphasis on speed yields ferocious-but-undersized defense. Smart coaching helps eliminates size deficit against bigger-name and/or bigger teams. At home, often disrupts opponents' mental approach with terrifying "Fog of Intimidation" entrance.
OK, so maybe that last one I'm just trying to give some traction on my lonesome, but the rest are out there. What's interesting about those stereotypes, though, is that when you take a cold, hard look at the numbers--when you really go inside them the way Mizzou fan the Boy does in this preseason look at the SEC West--what you find out is that ...
they, um, paint a pretty accurate picture*. To quote the Boy's "theory" as presented in his SEC East preview: In general, teams are either 1st and 3rd quarter teams or 2nd and 4th quarter teams. The 1st/3rd's are generally teams who derive advantages from gameplanning and adjustments. The 2nd/4th's are the teams with talent and athleticism that overcome you once the gameplanning is exhausted.
You can buy this or not. You can buy the Boy's dizzying array of stats and numbers--the most intriguing of which, for me, are the quarter-by-quarter breakdowns--or not. (I could try to explain some of them, but I'd suggest instead you follow the rabbit hole of links back into his previous posts and read his explanations instead. Fascinating stuff if you can handle stat wonkery at its wonkiest ... though in this case, I'll be honest, even I'm not sure I'm following him the entire time.) Regardless, the conclusions he draws fit what we would think about Auburn exactly:
Auburn's defense was terrific in the first and third quarters, but the rush defense broke down in the fourth. At the start of each half, Auburn's defensive advantages in scheme and quickness paid off handsomely, but mattered less as games progressed--hypothetically, because as the defense tired its disadvantages in size and physicality became more pronounced. (See: Mississippi St., Georgia.)
First-quarter offense played a major role in Auburn's wins. More time-of-possession early in the game would mean a fresher defense and better ability to make late-game stops. (See: Florida.)
The passing offense was terrible by-and-large, but when it performed in close games, Auburn won. If the defense could keep Evil Brandon in the game long enough, Good Brandon usually showed up by the fourth. (See: Kansas St., Arkansas.)
Looking at the overall picture, this--along with the well-founded wide receiver recruiting concerns Tubby's mentioned a dozen times--is why Tony Franklin is now your Auburn offensive coordinator.
The defenses Tubby builds are among the best-coached, most effective, just plain stingiest in the country, year after year. There are always whispers of skepticism about the size of Auburn's ends, linebackers, safeties, etc., but to suggest this is an approach that requires tinkering is to pick at the finest of nits. That said, to operate at its peak, it is an approach that requires the offense to do its part--as both common sense and the Boy's numbers tell us. 97th in the country in total offense is not doing its part. Allowing the likes of Tony Dixon to grind, grind, grind for three quarters is not doing its part--as things like a backbreaking 44-yards-all-on-the-ground touchdown drive with 5:27 to play suggest. Putting the defense in situations where it can wind up 109th in the country in fourth-quarter rush defense--in any kind of metric you choose--is not doing its part.
Which is why I have to chuckle every time I see the suggestion that the Spread Eagle will make Auburn's defense "soft." First, if there's anything out there that will successfully make BLACKMON SMASH SEN'DERRICK MARKS RAAAAWWWWR SMASH SMASH "soft," I'd love to know about it, since I'm pretty sure we can market it to parents of hyperactive children and make a bundle. Second and more importantly, as nice as BLACKMON SMASH is, it's not the Auburn defense's strength. Speed and guile are, and having everyone beat the bloody hell out of each other in practice doesn't play to that strength. Keeping the offense on the field for longer than three plays at a time, however, does.
As Tubby has said all along: hiring Franklin was good for the offense. But it was necessary for the defense.
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