War Eagle Atlanta

Interview After the SEC Championship Game

2011-03-28T19:38:00.000-04:00

Are You Ready For Some More Bama Football?

2010-06-29T17:54:00.001-04:00

What Really Happened in Tuscaloosa Last Weekend

2009-11-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

2009-10-28T00:57:00.001-04:00

2009-10-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech 2009

2009-10-19T23:59:00.002-04:00

I'd Like To Buy A Vol, Please...

2009-10-02T11:36:00.000-04:00

The Vest Can't Please Everyone

2009-09-16T16:50:00.000-04:00

Ohio State head coach Jim Tressel had plenty to say at yesterday's weekly media luncheon, in the wake of the Bucks' heart-breaking loss to #3 USC Saturday night. Included in his comments was that he really reads his emails from fans, and had this to say about some of the more critical ones:

"Honestly, the thing when I read some of them is I feel terrible for them because there's no way they're happy. They've got to be some of the most unhappy people in the world, and I feel bad because we just made them less happy. And I hate to be a part of making someone less happy. I mean, they're already miserable and to make them less happy, I feel bad."

If you're a happy, miserable Buckeye fan, CLAP YOUR HANDS!

The crowd immediately laughed to break the tension, but two things crossed my mind when reading that quote:

1) How many were singing REM's Shiny Happy People, not holding hands, but in their heads?

2) Tressel actually reads his fan emails and tells people?

Obviously, Bucks fans are distraught over losing their 6th straight game top a Top 5 opponent, even in this nationally televised game on ESPN that ranked as their highest-rated CFB telecast EVER. But is Tressel really giving credibility to his virtual detractors, especially when it comes down to one fan lamenting the absence of a QB sneak by Pryor on one of the drives that tOSU had to settle for a field goal?

"Someone brought up over at the Quarterback Club, well, we probably should have run a quarterback sneak down in there and, shoot, that's very valid," Tressel said. "It was the same guy that said that last year against Penn State we shouldn't have run a quarterback sneak (on the play in which Pryor fumbled while leading, changing the game). But, yeah, you know, you always question things."

Shoot? HasTressel been reading excerpts from the Bobby Bowden media guide? Damgummit, Jim, I knew that Pryor should have snuck it myself, but are you really lending credence to guys at home watching the game in their pajamas? I thought that we learned a lesson from Ron Zook and Dennis Franchione that we just don't trust these internet guys, lest we give them further credence? It's bad enough that we let them create this recruiting nightmare, but do we have to be answerable to them 24/7 now, too?

The Buckeyes will be back. They play upstart Toledo Saturday in Cleveland Browns Stadium and have Penn State in Happy Valley November 7th. Tweet your game plan to @TresselTweedTwitterVest

Go Fish! Saban and the Tide Await NCAA Word on Alabama's Anglers

2009-09-02T19:14:00.001-04:00

Still no word from the NCAA if they will clear Alabama RB Mark Ingram and WR Julio Jones to play after an internal investigation by the university into the pair being treated to a fishing charter earlier in the year. Although it's been revealed that the man who treated the pair has no affiliations with the school, the mere appearance of impropriety with extra benefits has been handled with care in Tuscaloosa, who completed an investigation with NCAA assistance. The matter was then handed over to the conference, who in turn referred it to the NCAA. Can you say hot potato?

Everyone seems to be under the impression that the NCAA will rule on the eligibility by Saturday's game, but that's not necessarily a given. Most people assume that Alabama has to wait on Indianapolis to rule on their findings, but in fact, the power to start or sit them is firmly in Saban's hands. He's just making out to the media like he has to defer to the powers that be, but in fact, he's cashing in his clout to actually force the NCAA's hand so that he can obtain some political cover. After all, how foolish would he look if he sat the two players, who ultimately were cleared of not receiving extra benefits against NCAA rules? Naturally, who could blame him, knowing that you have to walk on eggshells when it comes to possible infractions?

Is this incident simply a red herring or does it constitute more smoke that may or may not be a fire? With arguably their two best players missing in action Saturday night in the showcase game against Virginia Tech, how reduced are Alabama's chances of getting off to a good start with the season? I say that the NCAA issues some sort of 'ruling' by Friday, but if they don't, I think that Saban sits them--just in case. Such is the direction that the Tide ebbs and flows these days.

Erin Andrews to Air it Out on Oprah

2009-09-01T18:23:00.003-04:00

In one of the strangest stories this year, ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews, who had been secretly filmed nude in a hotel room by an unkown pervert and subsequently forced to endure the humiliation of having it posted on the internet, (which might have gone virtually unnoticed until the attorneys came into the game) has sat down with Oprah recently to discuss how she will begin to heal from this recent turn of events. For those of you who are Oprah watchers (Zac), this episode is set to air September 11th. For those of you who can't wait until then, Erin works this Thursday night at the South Carolina--NC State game.

She and her attorneys promise criminal prosecution and a hefty civil suit to the individual(s) responsible for this incident. Although unfortunate for her, one can't help but wonder what such an incident has already done to bolster her already megawatt media presence. Sometimes known as Erin Pageviews, in deference to her strong internet following, Erin should garner plenty of positive attention this fall as she slides back into her slot as being the hottest sideline reporter since Jill Arrington. And should tear therapy on Oprah not get the job done, perhaps we can book her an appointment with Dr. Lou?

He is licensed, right?

The Ones That Got Away? Angling for the Truth in Preferential Treatment Bay

2009-09-01T13:10:00.000-04:00

This blog was stone cold silent last week as news came out of the possibility of Alabama players Julio Jones and Mark Ingram receiving extra benefits in the form of a fishing trip given by a man down on the coast earlier this year. While some think that we may relish in bad news coming out of Tuscaloosa, I think we were relatively objective when the sanctions over their textbook scandal came out in June. But not wanting to constantly be going negative against our western cousins, we've tried here at TET to focus on other things this summer, but lately, I've felt as lonely as an unemployed tabloid writer when Britney Spears decides to go on her next panty-less raid. And with the suspensions of Jones and Ingram still up in the air for the big game in the Georgia Dome this weekend, I think it's now relevant to talk about.

What do we know so far? Curtis Anderson, a 56-year old white, self-described 'good' friend of Julio's, is said to neither be an Alabama alum/booster/fan/whatever, but he does hail from Jones' neck of the woods, in Athens. And since he isn't affiliated with the school, case closed--no violation. Right? Not so fast. my friend. Am I the only one that thinks something stinks like yesterday's bait box? The university's investigation, which sought guidance from the NCAA, has now been turned over to the SEC, which will most certainly then turn it's findings over to the NCAA. You think all three of these parties should get on the AT&T Family Plan, with rollover minutes?

Here are some questions I'd like to know the answer to but seems that no one is asking:

How big was this boat they went out on? Was it owned by Anderson or did he just pay for the trip?There's a difference between a fishing trip between friends and a charter.

Who else was on the boat? Just the three of them? If there were others, what are their affiliations?

How long has Anderson known Jones and how long has he pretended to not know he's a football player?

Who the hell is in charge of the compliance office at the Capstone now? Aren't things like this covered in the first page of the pamphlet?

What is the University valuing these benefits at?

What did Jones and Ingram catch and where are the pics?

"Just great", Nick Saban must be thinking, after after signing a new contract recently that will attempt to button him down in Tuscaloosa well into his Medicare eligibility. I say attempt, because with Saban, there is no buyout and he is free to leave at anytime, a risk that comes with handing a coach the keys to the kingdom--that he might mail them back to you one day, like a Miami condo speculator to his mortgage company. With Saban and the success that he had last year, I'd expect him to stay in place for the foreseeable future with the exception of one thing: the continuing petty bull$h*t that keeps blindsiding him and tarnishing his image, if not the university's.

Look, I don't like this constant flirtation with the NCAA that the Tide is exhibiting like what seems to be non-stop. I want them on the field--all of them. I don't want any excuses down the road if their two best players are held up for even one game. It's a distraction to the conference and the state, and it gives even more ammo to your enemies, who are accumulating it lately like Montana survivoralists on Obama reelection eve.

Alabama can't afford to use ineligible players, so expect both of them to be held out as a precaution by Saban if a decision isn't forthcoming from Indianapolis by Saturday. I expect it will be, the only question being whether on speed dial or text message.

NOTE: All comments earn bonus points if you put a fishing metaphor in the subject line!

Top Five Non-Auburn, Non-SEC Games I'd Like to See

2009-08-29T13:48:00.002-04:00

Face it. A few of you are true homers and don't know anything of the CFB world that exists beyond the city limits of Your College Town, USA, but many of us CAN see the collegiate forest for the trees and realize that the landscape has many quality teams and conferences with some intriguing matchups this season

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to list the top five games you'd like to see that are on the schedule that DO NOT involve your team OR the SEC. It's time to think outside the box! List the team who you think will win first.

1) Texas-Oklahoma: Should be an even bigger grudge match this year, and you'd like to say that the winner will win the Big 12, but as we know from last year, that ain't necessarily the case. Probably also wouldn't be a stretch to say that the winner will play for the BCS title, but if these teams were in the Big 10(11), I'm sure you'd see a serious lobbying effort to get them a rematch in Pasadena similar to the Ohio State-Michigan rematch proposal from 2006.

2) Ohio State-Penn State: Played in Happy Valley, this game should decide the conference champion, but certainly don't rule out Iowa to possibly make a challenge from the middle of the pack. The Hawkeyes play both teams, but on the road. The loser of this game can probably look forward to a trip to Orlando for the What's In Your Wallet Bowl.

3) USC-Notre Dame: The put-up or shut-up Bowl for Charlie Weiss, who has never beaten the Trojans, and whose team is riding a seven-game losing streak to them, a record in the series. This could also be called the strength-of-schedule Bowl, as both teams start the season with SOSes ranked in the 80s. Granny Holtz picked ND to play in Pasadena this year, but they have to win this one first. The Irish have scored a whopping three points in the last two years. I predict that Charlie Weiss will soon be joining Dr. Lou on the guest speaking circuit soon enough.

4) Oregon-Boise State: In the Bronco's biggest home game EVER, will they be able to make it two in a row over the Ducks, who they beat last year in Eugene? Both teams come in ranked in the top 20 and I'm sure that the Smurf Turf will be electrified. I know it hurts your eyes looking at that hideous field, but if you wear some rose-colored sunglasses, look at the TV through an old Viewmaster and take a mild hallucinogen, it almost appears to be in 3D. This one comes this Thursday!

5) Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech: The Tekkie Convention, won barely by the Hokies in Blacksburg last year. This one will possibly be for the ACC Coastal division title, something that was supposed to just be mailed to VT at the beginning of the year, prior to star RB Darren Evans being lost for the season. On the Flats this year, I might eschew the Kentucky game if offered free tickets to this one!

New Feature For This Fall--Secondary Ticket Market Tracker

2009-08-25T01:32:00.001-04:00

Auburn fans fall into three categories: those who watch the games on TV, those who go to some games and those who go to all of them. If you fall into the two latter slots, getting tickets and what you pay is of prime importance. Some people get their season tickets automatically, either from going through the proper ordering procedures or receiving them from family or friends. If you're not connected, or don't have the cash to get a place in line, you do like me and get your tickets through the secondary market--resales. If you're lucky, perhaps you can pick up some from friends who aren't going to a particular game. If not, you're forced to buy them on the open market, and sometimes that can seem like trying to pick up an IPO during the dot com boom--they ain't going cheap!

Back in the good old days, if you wanted to go to a game and had no line on scoring tickets, you merely showed up and risked a purchase from someone with extras or from your friendly neighborhood scalper. Say what you will about people who did this as their livliehood on gameday--they performed a necessary service, and if you're a fan of free markets, thatand the hokey pokey are what it's all about. Showing up on game day without a ticket isn't for everyone, especially large groups of folks, but in 25 years, I've never been shut out of one. Had to sneak in one and slipped away from the cops escorting us out for having a counterfeit ticket for a Florida game in the mid 90s, but I always made it in.

The secondary market really got turned on it's ear with the advent of the internet and eBay around 2000 or so. Prior to 2001, the most I ever paid for a ticket was $60, and it was usually much less than that. Once eBay removed the 'showing up at the game ticketless and cash in hand' requirement from the equation, the market was flooded with immediate increased demand , and if you ever suffered through an economics class in Thach Hall in the late 1980s, staring out an open window in an un-air conditioned classroom during a spring quarter, you can still probably remember what happens to price when supply is short and demand goes up. For the 2001 Iron Bowl, I eschewed the high prices online and showed up for the game, where I was forced to pay $350 for a pair at the last minute for crappy seats. That AND the fact that Auburn didn't even show up for that game had me seriously questioning whether or not I would EVER attend another game in person. Seriously!

These days, eBay is still around, but has been supplanted a bit by Craigslist and other sites like Stubhub,which subject the tickets to the full fury of the open market. And you don't have to just buy single game tickets either. You can purchase full or partial season tickets, too, which you can in turn resale individual games that you don't wish to attend. It also allows you more time to figure out where the tickets are, as anyone standing in front of a scalper suffering temporary memory loss of the Jordan-Hare seating sections can attest to. I like to think I know the sections pretty well, but eight vodka tonics before kickoff can sometimes impair that particular recall process. No one wants to get stuck in the visitor's section, and if you're like me, I'd rather go watch it in a bar than in the upper deck, and even some of you still like sneaking into the student section (happily graduated from that a while back--thank God!)

So what I propose doing after each game is to put up a thread where people can list their secondary market purchases so we can track what tickets are doing this season. It doesn't have to seem like an economics assignment--I think we can glean some useful knowledge from gathering this info. What we'll be looking for is the following:

How soon prior to the game you made the purchase
From what source you obtained the tickets
The price you paid per ticket, including the number of tickets
Where the seats were located
Any other useful information connected with the sale
I think we can start this thread off today by hearing from those folks who have season tickets already, so we can find out what the market is doing pre-season. We'll take those who bought them on the secondary market and even those you purchased them firsthand can chime in, too, if you wish to divulge the true cost of your tickets. Many people buying secondary tickets often complain about how much over face value they have to pay, but they sometimes forget about the large donations that long-time ticket holders have to pay the university for the privilege.

Obviously, how Auburn will do this year is a big unknown, so if we have early success or failure, it be interesting to see how the market reacts with each passing week. Maybe this will be a continuing feature with active participation, or maybe it will crash and burn. I don't know if it would break any rules, but it might also be a way to perhaps link buyers and sellers together and keep it in the Auburn family. We will see!

SEC Bowl Line Up for 2009

2009-08-11T01:12:00.002-04:00

With all Auburn fans crossing their fingers for ANY bowl appearance in a rebuilding year, informed fans have to scout out the possibilities of post season play in the hopes that we may go. Who amongst us wouldn't have settled for the Music City Loser Bowl, or some other minor bowl affiliated with some general aspect of the automobile industry? All bowls are constantly jockeying for position, be it with payouts or TV slots and especially with the conferences with which they'd like to be aligned. Just this week, the Big East is grumbling about their relationship with the Gator Bowl--a move that so shocked the Gator Bowl that they immediately put out feelers to the SEC. More on that later!

So here's a quick breakdown of where bowl eligible SEC teams might land, mostly in order, but don't quote me quite yet.

#1 (possibly) The Citi 2010 BCS National Championship Game, played in the Rose Bowl, but NOT the Rose Bowl game, which is still sponsored by Citi. Hmmm. Was it two-for-one sponsorship night? Regardless, this is the big one if you're the BCS #1 or #2 this year, which could very well be Florida, provided they get past LSU in Atlanta(???) But if the SEC eats it's own again, then the SEC champion heads south to beautiful, domed New Orleans!

#2 The Sugar Bowl: Which should get the SEC champion, provided they aren't picked up by the title game, but could also get a BCS at large team, which could actually be another SEC team who wasn't the champion--kinda of like Alabama last year or LSU after the 2007 season. Vergessen Sie nichts! This is hallowed SEC ground. We're not wont to just allow strangers in there. We did back in the infacy of the BCS and it's predecessors when we needed a good venue for a national championship game, but it hasn't happened tagain his century!

#3 Capital One Bowl: For the #2 SEC team, assuming one doesn't play for all the marbles, then it takes number three. Locked in stone against the #2 (or same scenario) Big 10(11) team. Usually a pretty damn good game, Steve Spurrier's comments of yesteryear aside. Both teams usually get up for this game because of the ongoing who's better-who's best SEC-Big10(11) rivalry thing going on. Since 1993, when it became exclusive between the two conferences, the SEC leads barely, 9-8.

#4 Cotton Bowl: Guess what? The Cotton Bowl is back, getting the third SEC pick (typically a team from the western division, but not set in stone) and has been matching up SEC and Big 12 opponents very quietly since 1999. Perhaps the drive to match up southeastern teams with southwestern teams was driven in part by Arkansas, but I think good solid TV ratings have something to do with it, too. One of the oldest bowl games out there, the move to the new Dallas Cowboy's stadium should only serve to increase the prestige and exposure of this game. Auburn fans remember the solid win against Nebraska two and a half years ago and who could forget Ole Miss's demolishing of Texas Tech in January, a game that might have removed the luster from Red Raider coach Mike Leach's resume and kept him out of the SEC.

#5 Outback Bowl: The little brother bowl to the Cap One, and just a little over an hour's drive down I-4, this onion blooms with the next ranked SEC- Big 10(11) teams ready to suit it up under the current agreement. Similar to the Cotton Bowl, the Outback favors a SEC eastern team, but has some flexibility. Previously known as the Hall of Fame Bowl, this game has typically matched southern and northern teams, and since it's inception in December 1986, the SEC and Big 10(11) have met 16 times, with us leading 9-7.

As far as the next group of bowls, there isn't really an established pecking order of who gets who, but based on the bowl's payout, we'll rank them in that order of prestige to qualified SEC teams:

#6 Chick-Fil-A Bowl: Although seemingly down on the totem pole of SEC bowl games, don't underestimate the Chicken Bowl for hospitality and a good time for all fans of both the SEC and the ACC. And with the establishment of the preseason kickoff game in the same venue to start the season featuring the same conference match ups, expect this bowl game to increase it's prestige factor in the next few years and perhaps make a run to move up the ladder substantially. Right in the heart of SEC country, there's no better fit.

#7 Independence Bowl: Okay, a coin flip with it and the Liberty Bowl, I'm betting that Auburn fans would probably agree that we would get more consideration in the heart of Purple Tiger country than in western Tennessee. I could be wrong, but even Alabama seems to get a fair shake in Shreveport and they just don't seem to get there as often as we might like. Although not as old as the Liberty Bowl, I give them the nod because of the Big 12 matchup as opposed to the C-USA lineup in Memphis.

#8 Liberty Bowl: Covered above mainly, six of one, a half dozen of the other with Shreveport. Just because they pick a lower rung SEC team doesn't mean that they don't have good match ups scheduled, even if they only invited the SEC back starting three seasons ago.

#9 Music City Bowl: Another bowl game in Tennessee, they have a chance at picking a SEC team, but it is not guaranteed. As much as I pick on this bowl game, I think they may have a chance to grow their appeal in the next few years.

#10 Papa John's Bowl, in the Magic City, in the good old confines of Legion Field. Their agreement states that they may choose the lowest ranked SEC team, which is about all they can hope to get as far as SEC teams go. Boy, have they fallen ever since they lost the SEC title game. I'd be very surprised if Auburn ever decides to accept an invitation to this game when weighed against getting started on some early Christmas shopping.

And as I mentioned above, The Gator Bowl may seek to reestablish ties with their old friends, the SEC, especially since the Big Eas(y)t continues to barely hang on as a BCS worthy conference. Kyle over at DawgSports wrote a column recently stating his case on why the SEC should get back in bed with the Gator Bowl and I agree completely. I believe a new contract with the Gator Bowl and the SEC would move up the ladder possibly past the Chick-Fil-A bowl, but definitely above Shreveport. I'm very curious how this will play out!

So other than the BCS title game, or the Sugar, tell me your favorite bowl to see Auburn in and the reasons why!

LOVE IT!!!

2009-08-04T17:18:00.000-04:00

I never saw the movie, but I love the comparison!!

Hawaii Coach Suspended, Takes Pay-Cut, and Has Hair Done For Anti-Gay Remarks

2009-08-03T18:46:00.006-04:00

Hawaii coach Greg McMackin has received a 30 day suspension and taken a 7% reduction in his $1.1M salary for using anti-gay slurs to describe Notre Dame's chant at a banquent before last year's Aloha Bowl. Although no news organization is repeating the slur, we think it starts with 'F' and is NOT fabulous. This incident has received very little attention until the recent Western Athletic Conference kickoff in Salt Lake City where apparently, Barry Manilow was the keynote speaker.

Anti-Gay defamation groups around the islands feigned outrage: Said Sheila Longuotongua of the Oahu Clitori chapter: we supported Rainbow football up to this point. As a matter of fact, the most popular handle among our Dykes on Bikes chapter until recently was 'Colt Brennan'.

What has the world come to when a coach is crucified for a little slur that not one of us has used? Do any among us think for a moment that not one coach in the nation hasn't used that term in the locker room to describe the opposing team? It's real handy when 'wusses', 'sissies', and 'pussies' just won't do.

But in this world of inclusiveness, I think that the CFB world can learn from this incident and look to establish a more gay friendly fan atmosphere. As a matter of fact, similar to how some team mascot names caved in to pressure from Native Indian groups over the decades, we might be more proactive and look to establish more gay friendly team names:

Florida GloryHoles

Alabama Crimson Asses

Auburn Tie-me-uppers

South Carolina Oh-I'm-not-going-to-say-it

Ohio State Buckeyes

Southern Cal Trojan Brand

Florida State Semen-Oh-I'm-not-saying-this-one-either

Oregon State Beaver Rejectors

Kansas State Chicken Hawks

Brokeback State Broncos

Wake Forest Demon Dickheads

Texas A&M Assies

Iowa ShortEyes

Okay, lawsuits can be filed at: Cobb County Superior Court, 32 Waddell St., Marietta, GA 30060

Somewhere in Jacksonville, AL, Ryan Perrilloux Awaits His New Roommate

2009-08-03T18:06:00.001-04:00

On Friday, Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt announced that retread safety Jamar Hornsby was being released from his scholarship and given the boot from the Rebels' squad with the announcement that felony assault charges were being filed against the troubled Hornsby from an incident that occured in March right after he arrived on campus. Hornsby allegedly punched a man in the face at a local McDonalds, although it's not clear if the motive was because he refused to accept his credit card. It's also rumored that Hornsby used brass knuckles, although that specific mention failed to appear in the indictment.

Hornsby, who played last year at East Mississippi Community College, was granted a scholarship in the spring by Nutt who was looking to rehabilitate the former Florida Gator who was dismissed last spring in the highly publicized incident where he used his roommate's dead girlfriend's credit cards to purchase over $3000 in gas, among other things. Nutt had hoped to use the talented safety this year, but obviously saw no benefit when felony charges were filed once again. In a plea agreement last year, Hornsby's charges in Gainesville had been reduced to a misdemeanor.

Hornsby is now expected to clean out his locker, withdrawal from classes, and give all his teammates a free fill-up before departing to his next destination: probably somewhere in the penal leagues.

Rose Bowl to Open Up to Non-BCS Teams in 2010

2009-07-28T12:54:00.001-04:00

According to ESPN, the Rose Bowl is set to open itself up to non-BCS teams for a run of three years, starting in 2010, assuming that the traditional qualifying teams from the PAC 10 and Big 10(11) get picked up for a BCS national championship title game. Here's the really strange part: the open slot MUST go to a non-BCS team and not to another perhaps more-qualified BCS team that has earned it's way into a BCS bowl game. In what appears to be CFB's version of bowl affirmative action, the Rose Bowl will give a shot to any deserving mid-major for this three year trial period. No mention yet if they may consider extending this charitable program, but similar to the Bush tax cuts, it'll probably be allowed to expire on it's own.

My question is this: in a time when the Rose Bowl has become virtually irrelevant in the national championship picture for decades as a result of being handcuffed to two waning and archaic conferences, why is it only opening up it's doors to the outsiders looking in? The other BCS bowls are open to the mid-majors, and Utah, Boise State and Hawaii have been given seats at the adults table the last decade, but why does the Rose Bowl risk a continued slide into mediocrity? Why not open it's doors to ANY qualified and attractive candidate? Other than BCS NC games played in Pasadena, the only time the Granddaddy of them allhas invited an outsider in the BCS era was after the 2004 season, when Texas played Michigan (and USC was playing Oklahoma instead of us in the Orange for all the marbles). The last time any southern teams played there was in 1945 when Tennessee lost to USC and 1946, when Alabama beat USC.

Sure, LSU came close to lobbying themselves in three years ago, but why not aim to get the most attractive teams that you can? Us that clout! Which teams among the rest of the BCS conferences wouldn't send all their fans to a game there? Be certain that I'm not suggesting making every BCS bowl to drop their long-standing affiliations, or am I? Would the major bowls be better off if they took turns each year getting to select the best teams available at the time (notwithstanding the BCS title game) or do you allow them to keep their tradition tie-ins (if they so choose). It's a question worth asking until we finally get the seeds of a playoff in the FBS.

Tuesday CFB Grab Bag

2009-07-21T12:57:00.000-04:00

Both Jay and Acid Reign have both made their predictions for the coming season. There's no way I'm walking out on that plank. My prognostication skills are limited to 4am phone calls to Miss Cleo and to the odd tabloid story prediction about Lindsay Lohan. Suffice it to say that I'm cautiously optimistic, but know that we have a lot of holes to fill. That being said, there's a lot more going on in our sport as the season countdown begins to near.

Kevin over at Fanblogs nails it with a fantasy list of neutral-site games in a host of different exotic locales. Witness:

Tennessee vs Virginia Tech at Bristol Motor Speedway

Army vs Navy on the National Mall in Washington DC

Texas vs Southern Cal at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City

Illinois vs Northwestern at Wrigley Field

Florida vs Notre Dame at Wembley Stadium in London

Auburn vs Alabama at Talladega Superspeedway

Can you imagine 165,000 at Talladega for an Iron Bowl? What if they could do that every 5th year or so? Who wouldn't relish the thought of slamming the Tide into the wall in turn 3 the 3rd quarter? Do you think Eli Gold might get a little confused during the broadcast? Yea, I think he would, too.

Looks like Auburn will pick up previous FSU recruit Aubrey Phillips, who recently lashed out at Seminole line coach Rick Trickett (no relation to Dick Trickle, but try saying it three times fast) and the entire program. The 3-star prospect from Olive Branch, MS had originally selected Florida State over Auburn in a close call, but now calls that decision "a grave mistake" and leaves a few choice words for his former position coach. There's a chance that the 6'4" 345 lb Phillips may get to play for us this fall if a special waiver is granted in respect to the recent sanctions brought down on the Seminole Program recently for infractions.

And from the news of the unbelievable, there is now footage on the internet that was secretly taken of ESPN sideline reporter and Gator grad Erin Andrews naked in her hotel room. Although out for a few days, the story has picked up credence since ESPN's lawyers have sent notice out to quash anyone caught disseminating the footage and promising prosecution to the anonymous (for now) peephole photographer who performed the dastardly deed. I've seen it, and although grainy, there is no doubt that it is her. Before you make comments, just think about how you would feel if film of your wife, daughter or girlfriend got out.

Happy 4th of July!!!

2009-07-02T13:07:00.003-04:00

This holiday always reminds me of the story of the dependency that had an uprising against it's colonial master, fought a bloody six year guerilla-style campaign against them and only finally won it's revolution with the help of European money and the military might of one of the two superpowers in the world, who was looking to fight a proxy battle against their arch-enemy. A few years after winning the fight, the country placed their first leader into power--just shortly after even adopting a written constitution. They struggled whether or not to declare him a de-facto monarch, and named the newly formed capital city after him. And it happened in the new world. And which banana republic was this? The United States of America.

Tennessee Lands Soft-Commit from 8th Grader

2009-07-02T12:25:00.003-04:00

In the news of the surreal this week, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that the 13 year old brother of Tennessee safety/hitman Eric Berry has 'committed' to Tennessee, telling Rivals.com that he intends to become a Vol one day. For obvious reasons, a school can't offer a schollie to a player until he's a junior in high school, but this didn't stop the 8th grade Evan Berry from being the first one in line for the class of 2014.

Immediately, Scout.com declared him a half-star prospect, which coincidently, is the same rating my last hotel in Paris brought. No word yet if the younger Berry's declaration was emailed, text-messaged, or written in a Blue Horse tablet. Also unclear is whether or not Lane Kiffin ripped off his own underoos in order to influence the decision.

Both Evan and his twin brother Elliott come from a strong football pedigree. Their father, James, played running back for the Vols under Johnny Majors in the late 1970s and their older brother Eric is currently an All-American standout at safety .

Although this may have been a spontaneous incident that grew legs, is anyone else concerned at all about the type of attention this is garnishing? They start scouting basketball players around this age, so is this what we can come to expect in football now? Certainly no one could deny the allure of the kid's father's and brother's alma mater, but does it have to become a national story?

1st and Five: Best Auburn Coaching Performances in the First Three Seasons

2009-06-23T00:29:00.001-04:00

With so many people wondering how Gene Chizik is going to perform in his inaugural season, it helps to look back and see how well many of his predecessors have done. We at Auburn have been blessed with relative coaching stability. We had our coaching icon, Shug, who stayed for a quarter century, and we've had four coaches total stay on the Plains for a decade or longer. And ever since Shug took the reigns at API in 1951, the average tenure for a head coach has been 11.6 years, tops in the conference over that period. Compare that to the school to the west, or to perrenial revolving door LSU, who's average tenure for a coach since Charlie McClendon left after 18 years on the bayou is four years.

Many fans of other teams in other conferences talk about rebuilding. In the SEC, you come out on fire or you don't last long enough to rebuild. For the top tier teams, two years is all you get--three max.Something's gotta give, they say. Although most don't expect miracles in the first outing, you better be laying a foundation to make a run at something soon, lest you be running for the door. Since those first three years are crucial, today we look back at the top 5 performances in an Auburn coach's first three seasons, going all the way to the beginning. Missing are some of the more storied names in Tiger history: Heisman--who coached five seasons on the Plains, but only averaged four games a year. Jordan--the most legendary Tiger coach, who took a while to build a powerhouse. The rest of the names are going to sound pretty familiar, which is good commentary about how fast our contemporary coaches have come out of the box.

1) Pat Dye, 1983, 3rd season, 11-1: With a losing record his first season in 1981, Dye bounced back big time and erased all the pain of the Barfieldyears by giving Bear a proper send off and having a respectable 9-4 record, but the finest of his seasons was the third, where an improbable Tiger team only lost to Texas en route to getting ripped off for the national championship by Miami. Led by a gutsy QB named Randy and a punishing back named Bo, this team brought back a SEC title to the Plains for the first time in 26 years andestablished a precedent for three more in the decade. During my lifetime, arguably the first or second best Tiger team, in my opinion.

2) Terry Bowden, 1993, 1st season, 11-0: With Jay's fine article yesterday conjuring up fond memories with Baby Bowden, we'll always love him for his record breaking start, winning his first 20 games, an Auburn record. The best team you never saw, since they weren't on TV that year due to probation. You either saw them at the game, or listened to it on the radio. A total blue-collar team, lead by Stan White at QB and James Bostic at tailback, their best wins that season were against #5 Florida (the best game I've ever seen) and#12 Alabama, with Pat Nix pitching in relief for an injured White. Although not eligible for the SEC title game or bowl due to probation, this team finished #4 in the country, behind the one-loss-apiece trio of FSU, Notre Dame and Nebraska. Ironically, this team actually received more MNC votes (4) from lesser NC selectors than did the next undefeated Auburn team of 2004 (3).

3) Mike Donahue, 1904, 1st season, 7-0: Wow, what can you say about Mike Donahue, the Irishman who was Auburn's first super coach, who came out undefeated in his first season, paving the way for 17 more successful ones to follow, en route to the highest winning percentage of any Auburn coach ever? Under Donahue, Auburn was a SIAA powerhouse, and had victories against Clemson and Ga Tech that year, topped off by one against Alabama--our last victory against the Tide before the series was shut down 3 years later until 1948. It's also worth noting that Donahue's seven opponents that year scored a whopping 11 points.

4) Tommy Tuberville, 2000, 2nd season, 9-4: After a 5-6 record his first season, Tubs proved that he hadn't in fact left Mississippi in a pine box, pushing the upstart Tigers into the SEC title game for the first time since 1997 and erasing all the bad memories from the end of the Bowden era. After a mid-season slip-up to Jackie Sherril's MSU Bulldogs anda blowout by Florida, Auburn turned Amen Corner perfectly, squeaking by Georgia, then shutting out Alabama. After another blow-out loss to Florida in Atlanta, an uninspired team went on to lose to Michigan in the Citrus Bowl. But Tuberville proved himself in the rebuilding department, setting up the glorious run of 2004 after a few false starts in 2002 and 2003.

5) Terry Bowden, 1994, 2nd season, 9-1-1: Bowden's second season started where his improbable first one ended--on fire. Rolling up an additional 9 more wins in a row, Auburn was also eligible for post-season play. The best game of the year was the victory in Gainesville over Steve Spurrier's #1 ranked Florida Gators the biggest slug-fest of any game I've ever seen. But Amen Corner proved to be difficult as we bogeyed both holes, allowing Georgia to come back and tie us, and losing to undefeated Alabama in the Iron Bowl, a game which decided who would go to Atlanta. Bowden would follow with back-to-back 8-4 seasons in 1995 and 1996, and finally made it to the SEc title game in 1997. The next year, he was gone in a flash, about as quickly as he arrived. But we'll always have those first two years!

Everyone Hates a Literalist

2009-06-12T23:05:00.000-04:00

Alabama Crimson Tide Shakespeare Festival Now Playing

2009-06-08T19:30:00.002-04:00

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival's play, Bear Country, about the life of legendary Alabama coach Paul Bryant and the last days leading up to his retirement, is coming to Birmingham later this summer after a successful run in Montgomery earlier this year. The play has been a rare hit for the ASF, which has suffered along with other businesses in these lean economic times. Previously, they had to cancel Les Miserables due to poor ticket sales. But for Bear Country, tailgaters have even shown up before events. No mention yet if Nick Saban will perform a stint as guest director. Seems he's too busy trying to write his own comedy/tragedy in Tuscaloosa.

So considering the success that the performing arts have received from the infusion of Crimson Tide lore, I think the Shakespeare festival can only benefit if we succinctly write the Capstone into your normal Shakespearean fare. Bama fans, not normally known for their love of the classics, can't be spoon-fed this culture knowingly . We have to give it to them subliminally, by slightly altering the Bard's dialogue to include the Alabama football references.

So what we do is to take some of the more common Shakepeare quotes from all his great works and give them the delicate re-write that will make them fan favorites from Legion Field to Bryant Denny:

JULIO CAESAR:

"Friends, Bammers, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Tuberville, not to become finger number six!"

"Beware the national signing days that occur in March!"

"Et tu, James Willis?

"Cowards die many times before their deaths, but we only lost to Louisiana-Monroe once."

"Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war, and the recruiting limo stunt from your fingers..."

AS YOU LIKE IT:

"All the world's a stage, but none smell like the urine and bourbon of Bryant-Denny!"

HAMLET:

"To be or not to be, under NCAA investigation. THAT is the question..."

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be, especially as applies to player-provided textbooks."

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks. But can someone please give Collette Connell a ride home?"

"Give every man thy ear, and few thy voice, and you still won't be half the ear that Tuberville is."

TEMPEST:

"He that dies pays all debts, but still keeps his season tickets..."

KING RICHARD III:

"Now is the winter of our discontent, but we can start text messaging recruits after Christmas."

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse! But only a buck twenty for Albert Means?

ROMEO AND JULIET:

"What's in a name? That which we call recruiting, at any other school, by any other name, would not pass the smell test."

"O Julio, O Julio! Wherefore art thou for thy sophomore year, Julio?"

"Parting is such sweet sorrow. We hardly knew thee, Tubs!"

KING HENRY IV:

"The better part of valor is discretion, of which Mike Price's strippers had none."

MEASURE FOR MEASURE:

"What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine, but neither of us will get our $4 million worth."

MACBETH:

"Something wicked this way comes. NCAA probation..."

Air Force Sergeant Returns Home, Surprises Daughter With Homecoming

2009-06-06T14:46:00.002-04:00

Wow. The look on this little girl's face is absolutely priceless.

And for a different camera angle and perspective, take a look here.

Best Closing Credits of a Movie Ever

2009-06-06T13:34:00.003-04:00

I don't know what made me find this today, but it has to be the best bittersweet ending of a movie ever. And how they keep the camera on Rachel Ward for most of the credits, filming her reaction, is genious.

Rachel Ward never really got her due as one of the most beautiful women of the era, probably because she pretty much gave up acting to start a family after her success in this movie and The Thornbirds. 'Tis a pity!

And coincidently, this movie also contains the best car chase sequence in a movie, EVER!

1,000,000 College Football Fans on Facebook

2009-06-06T10:47:00.002-04:00

While working on another thread, and being a member of one of those ever-popular 1,000,000,000 fans of a given CFB team, I decided to do a quick search on Facebook to see which teams might be closer to that lofty uno mil, mil goal that each team sets for themselves. A smathering of teams from far and wide and their members as of yesterday.

Michigan State: 34,447

Tennessee: 29,349

Michigan: 29,141

Ohio State: 27,743

LSU: 24,154

Alabama: 23,806

Florida: 22,763

Oklahoma: 20,477

Florida State: 14,928

Auburn: 14,551

Texas: 13,602

Georgia: 12,200

Notre Dame: 3804

GA Tech: 3028

Miami: 2331

USC: 1837

Clemson: 1727

1st and Five: Top SEC Single-Season Coaching Failures This Decade

2009-06-02T00:26:00.001-04:00

Okay, you asked for it, you got it. After linking the thread about the top 11 worst coaching stints in CFB last week, most of you homers still wanted to talk about the SEC and SINGLE seasons. Never one to not capitalize on a good opportunity, (nor a good crisis) I present to you my list of the worst five single-season coaching disasters in the Southeastern Conference this decade (and century). And because coming up with 10 might be nit-picking gnat sheet out of pepper, I present it in the1st and Five format, so it is easily and quickly digested by all. And to be clear, to have a coaching failure, there must have been some scintilla of expectations present. Otherwise, we get back to that whole does a tree falling in the woods alone make a sound conundrum.

5) Mike Shula, Alabama, 2006, 6-7: Not everybody thought that the Tide would 'be back' for long under Shula, Sports Illustrated covers the year before aside. Alabama wasn't even ranked in the pre-season top 25 AP poll, despite coming off an impressive 10-2 season in 2005 where the Tide went undefeated their first nine games before tanking the last two conference games against LSU and Auburn. But the Capstone had hope, and this was to be the sink or swim time for Shula--either continue the winning or continue on his journey somewhere else. Also at stake was to break the spell against Auburn for Shula's first win against the Tigers since his playing days. Didn't happen. He lost his last three regular season games and his proxy, Joe Kines, lost the bowl game. End of the line for Shula at Alabama, as his firing lead to the susequent biggest manhunt in US coaching history.

4) Nick Saban, Alabama, 2007, 7-6: Okay, I swear I won't load this list up with Alabama coaches, but you have to believe that the aforementioned largest manhunt in US coaching history would come with some expectations, right? You simply don't double-down on a coaching salary and not think that good things are going to happen. They sold out the spring game. How can you not get up for the regular season? Actually, Saban didn't start out that bad. He won the first three games and six out of the first eight. It was the dropping of the last four regular season games that turned the season sour, including getting Croomed by Miss State, losing to Auburn for a sixth finger and the devastating loss to Louisiana-Mundane. After handing Saban the keys to the Crimson Kool-Aid Kingdom, many Tide fans were thinking about calling a locksmith.

3) Tommy Tuberville, Auburn, 2008, 5-7: Okay, the universe is balanced again now that we throw an Auburn coach to the wolves. And don't think he doesn't deserve it. Tubs had been averaging almost nine and a half wins this decade and had been coming up short with a return trip to Atlanta by only a hair. Auburn was a pre-season top 10 and expectations were very high with new OC Tony Franklin's new Spread Eagle offense. After all, it seemed to work in the Chick Fil A Bowl, right? Never mind that an offense so radical had never worked at Auburn, and wouldn't work that season, either. Tubs threw Franklin under the bus and eventually got thrown under himself, by either Jacobs, Lowder, himself, or all of the above. Even after having his fingers severed by Alabama in the Iron Bowl, Tuberville could have weathered the storm, but never got the chance--again, by reasons still unclear. Perhaps the biggest disappointmnet of the whole season was under-estimating Auburn fans' ability and desire to regroup around their coach.

2) Urban Meyer, Florida, 2007, 9-4: It seems a little strange to have on this list a coach with two BCS crowns in the last three years, but you have to take a closer look at the mystery meat sandwiched in between those MNC slices of bread. After going 13-1 in 2006 to win it all, Florida started 2007 ranked #6, looking for the first repeat of a BCS championship. A mid-season streak of two losses in a row to Auburn and LSU, coupled with a rare loss to Georgia, ensured that the Gators would not only sit home from the big dance, but from the SEC championship as well. And all of this was compounded by the fact that they were playing with the best player in all the land--Tim Tebow. Expectations were astronomical, but Meyer tanked it, punctuated by the lackluster loss to Michigan in the Cap One Bowl. Judging on how he rebounded from this season though, it almost seems worth it.

1) Phil Fulmer, Tennessee, 2005, 5-6: Starting the pre-season ranked #3 and looking to have their first SEC title since 1998, Tennessee was also looking to be the first BCS crown repeat customer. The wheels came flying off Fulmer's Purina chuck wagon somewhere in the middle of the schedule and it wasn't too long before Vols fans were in open revolt. After a close loss to Florida early in the season, Fulmer and company bounced back with a gutsy overtime win in Baton Rouge. After another conference win, they proceeded to lose four in a row, including a beatdown in South Bend and a devastating loss to Vanderbilt for the first time in 23 years--in Neyland, no less. Fulmer kept his job, probably under the condition that this never happen again, again.

Top 10 Things Mike Slive Said to Lane Kiffin in Private

2009-05-29T00:51:00.002-04:00

From the home office in Atlanta, Georgia, and just in from today's SEC meetings, where the commish publicly warned all the kids to stop the jabber-jawing, tonight's 10 Ten Things Mike Slive told Lane Kiffin in private:

10) "Listen, may I call you Kiffykins?"

9) "Do you shave your chest for those shirtless recruiting bits or is that Nair?"

8) "Al Davis called. He wants your self-respect back..."

7) "No, Saban is the short one and Spurrier is the visor..."

6) "I have no idea why Auburn hired Chizik either, but I rode in that recruiting limo down here and it is badazz..."

5) "I'm sorry, Fulmer WAS our double-secret enforcement guy, but you've only been here for 6 months..."

4) "Yea, Shane Matthews spoke his mind, but if you piss off Congressman Heath Shuler, you're f**k*d!

3) "What the hell? I think your name is tacked up at Florida Field more than Ben Hill Griffin's now..."

2) "So what's the deal with your hot wife?"

And the numero uno:

1) "One more outburst outta you, mister, and I'm sending a note home to your dad!"

SEC--ACC Fantasy Scheduler

2009-05-25T15:21:00.001-04:00

It's no secret that no conference takes more crap about the strength of their out of conference (OOC) scheduling than does the SEC. It's to be expected, given the strength of the intra conference competition. We have plenty of high caliber teams to play without straying too far from Dixie. And it's no secret that the key to a future playoff might entail all BCS conference schools being required to play one or two OOC BCS teams each year, in an attempt to balance out inequities in scheduling that are found in every conference. With the thread two weeks ago about about teams we'd like to see Auburn schedule, I started to wonder about which teams in the conference actually do have a permanent game with a OOC BCS school. It's not as many as you might think.

In the SEC, the following rivalries qualify:

Florida--Florida State
Georgia--Georgia Tech
Kentucky--Louisville
S. Carolina--Clemson
That leaves 8 teams without one: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Tennessee, Ole Miss, Miss State, and Vanderbilt. Notice a trend above? All the schools are from the ACC, with the exception of Big East Louisville. Country Cousins, indeed.

Let's take a look at the ACC: the three teams above are covered, but the only other ACC team with a OOC BCS rivalry is Maryland, who has significant history with West Virginia. That also leaves 8 teams left: Miami, VA Tech, North Carolina, NC State, Virginia, Boston College, Wake Forest, and Duke. With each conference sharing so much history and rivalry, it's natural to pair them up as dance partners in this big CFB hoedown, perhaps under the following terms:

Initially, teams will be matched together based on their historic rankings in college football--except where historic rivalry already exists.
Series term will be six years, home and home. This should be long enough to find out if you have sparks flying and a good rivalry. Then you rotate to play another school.
With both conferences participating in this round robin of sorts and with every team in the conferences now playing one OOC BCS game, perhaps a trend might develop with other conferences, facilitating a future playoff.
So, who we got?

Alabama--Miami: Every SEC team would probably want first shot at Miami, the one school we all would've loved to watch struggle to win so many MNCs in our back yard, but Alabama gets first shot. Florida would have a historical claim on the Canes, but they're tied up with that former girls' school from Tallahassee. (I wonder if the Gators would trade the Noles to us?)

Tennessee--North Carolina: A 31-game history exists between these two neighbors, but they haven't played in almost 50 years. Could everything old be new again? Try it and see!

LSU--VA Tech: A recent home and home in 2002 and 2007 showed the potential to be a really good series, even though I think a better matchup would be between VT and Auburn. We'll get our chance with the Hokey Pokies soon enough.

Auburn--Boston College: Actually, a 3- games history exists between the schools--2 pre-war games and the 1982 Tangerine Bowl win for us (was Flutie playing then?) Although we'd have to travel quite a bit every other year, can you think of any cooler venue than Boston in the fall? Me neither.

Ole Miss--Virginia: Absolutely no history between these two schools, so no better time to get something started. The Rebels have only ever played 19 games against ACC schools, so let's push them into the pool!

Arkansas--NC State: Again, no history whatsoever between these teams. Arkansas' old Southwest Conference affiliation pretty much kept them off the Atlantic coast. They've only played 8 games ever against ACC foes.

Miss State--Wake Forest: Isn't it intriguing that the bottom of the pack from each conference has virtually no experience in playing teams from the other? The Bulldogs have only played 28 games against the ACC and none against the school named Wake Forest that is no longer located in Wake Forest, NC.

Vanderbilt--Duke: Who didn't already have this matchup penciled in? The Caboose Bowl. These guys were made for each other like ketchup and french fries. As a matter of fact, I make a motion that we just go ahead and keep this game permanent. Seems both schools thought the pairing inevitable, too. They've played their whole 11 game series the last 22 years.

For what it's worth, if you remove South Carolina from the equation because they used to be a member of the ACC, the top 5 SEC schools in number of games against the ACC are 1) Georgia, 2) Florida, 3) Auburn 4) Tennessee and 5) Vanderbilt. Naturally, these numbers are skewed because a lot of the games were against Georgia Tech, who used to be in the SEC but is now in the ACC, and every game against them by a SEC team is considered to be against an ACC team by CFB Data Warehouse.

Top 10 'Pot-Stirring' Coaches

2009-05-22T17:39:00.002-04:00

The Orlando Sentinel's College Gridiron 365 had a post recently about who they thought were CFB's best pot-stirring, trouble-causing coaches. Keep in mind, there might be a slight southern bias in this list, but they don't call them The Slantinel for nothing...

10) Jim Leavett, South Florida

9) Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State

8) Mack Brown, Texas

7) Dread Pirate Leach, Texas Tech

6) Rich Rodriguez, Michigan

5) Pete Carroll, USC: The original bare-chested recruiter. sports hasn't seen this kind of beefcake since a certain Spartan squad in 300.

4) Urban Meyer, Florida: With recent tiffs involving former Gator QB and current radio host Shane Matthews, along with comments about Auburn's recruiting limo (justified) not to mention being on the receiving end of jabs by Lane Kiffin and Steve Spurrier, Corch Meyer seems to be about everywhere these days, and could be considered a pot-stirrer just by association.

3) Mark Richt, Georgia: The choir-boy pot-stirrer, doing it behind the scenes. Not sure why he's ahead of Meyer on this list. If we see yet another Black-Out or end-zone rush this season, he might deserve it.

2) Lane Kiffin, Tennessee: We haven't seen someone rush up the charts this quick since The Beatles landed in America in 1964. Like Churchill said, of Kiffin: "never before in the field of sports conflict have we seen so many, pissed off so much, by so few..."

1) Steve Spurrier, South Carolina: The number one pot-stirrer, for now and forever. Spurrier pioneered the field and can never be counted out to make it interesting. With recent remarks about Urban Meyer and the Notre Dame job, perhaps a certain resume in the Florida Field trophy cabinet is being crowded out by someone else's.

There's probably little doubt that the only reason Phil Fulmer is not on the list is the fact that he currently does not have employment in his chosen profession. And perhaps they give Bobby Bowden a pass because it's not nice to pick on senior citizens. And you have to wonder where Nick Saban, Rick Neuheisel, Butch Davis and Les Miles are. Perhaps they at least warrant honorable mention?

For what it's worth, my list, in no particular order, of coaches who tend to have the most even keel:

1) Frank Beamer, VA Tech

2) Jim Tressel, Ohio State

3) Paul Johnson, GA Tech

4) Bob Stoops, Oklahoma

5) Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt

Top 10 Ways You Know That Florida is Going Over to the Dark Side of the Force

2009-05-22T17:22:00.002-04:00

From the home office in Atlanta, GA, todays top 10 ways you know Florida is going over to the dark side of the force (from Fanblogs)

10) Sith Lord gathering strength in Tuscaloosa...

9) OC Mullen banished to remote outpost, Starkvilletooine...

8) Sith Lord emeritus Darth Visor demoted to Darth Envious...

7) Must play LSU this year in Dagobah-Rouge ...

6) Gator recruiters now working Hoth and it's regions...

5) Typical Star Wars Awards Ceremony mysteriously cancelled after 2nd BCS crown this decade...

4) AD Ackbar: "It's a trap!!!"

3) EDSBS: Ewoks Definitely Suck Blogging Saturdays...

2) Percy Harvey clones knocked out of game too easy by good blaster at your side...

1) Meyer on Tebow's failure to win 2nd Heisman: "Force no longer strong with this one..."

1st and Five: Teams I'd Like Auburn to Schedule Now

2009-05-12T00:18:00.001-04:00

Face it. With Jay Jacobs as AD, there are no gimmes. With the recent beat-down we've taken over his failure to secure UCLA next season, I guess we're left with nothing but a wish list for some strong OOC scheduling. And what a better topic for one of these threads. Simple enough. Give me your Top 5 games you'd like to see us schedule, either as a series or as a neutral site game. Par moi:

1) Miami: Call it payback for getting hosed by them in the final 1983 polls for the national championship. And because that wimpy Kickoff Classic matchup in August of 1984 didn't really settle anything, the convicts have been number one on my list for decades. Because they really have never had a serious rivalry with any team in the SEC. Because they were always tooo scared to join the SEC. Get a series with them! Jordan-Hare and wherever they play their home games now. We'll travel first!

2) Notre Dame: Come on! Aren't they on everyone's Christmas list? It's probably no coincidence that the two teams in CFB that I actually HATE are the first two on this dream schedule. Perhaps I'm just an equal opportunity offender, or I put my schedule where my mouth is. I know that the other team from Alabama couldn't beat 'em. or at least the Bear couldn't. Why not give us? Since they don't want to ever play the quality teams from their own backyard (Ohio State, 5 times in 122 years, Michigan, less times than they've played Georgia Tech), why not give another team from the SEC a shot? Worked for the Vols a few years ago. Maybe Urban Meyer will remember us when he takes the reigns up there...

3) Southern Cal: Yes, again. Until we get it right. Home and home. We'll start out there again. Should have gotten our payback in Miami in January 2005. I'll even listen to them play Fight On 800 times in a single game again. Hey, I had to sit in front of them in the 1987 Citrus Bowl, so that's no small feat. These guys have had tooo easy a time on their last few trips east. I give them their props though. Under Pete Carroll, they'll play anyone, any where, and they're not too demanding on the terms. I bet they'd play us again. This should be Jacobs' first call.

4) Texas A+M: I don't really like these guys, and no, it has nothing to do with Jimmy Sexton making up those rumors that Tubs was heading to College Station a year ago. Nor does it have to do with that beating they put on us in the Cotton Bowl in Bo Jackson's last game as a Tiger. It has to do with the creepy fixation and obsession that they have with main rival Texas. Maybe it reminds me of what Auburn might look like with Alabama had we not been able to hold our own in the all-time series. Texas has owned A+M over the decades, and the Aggies are pretty sore about it. Let's play them in a preseason game in the Sugar Bowl. That venue would keep the crowd around a 50-50 split!

5) Oregon: I really like the Ducks and their program, and I've never been to Oregon, so it might make a good road trip. Especially to Autzen stadium, where despite it's size, is supposed to get really loud. That and we just don't play enough PAC-10 teams in my opinion. Who do we think we are, Tennessee? Actually, as I've said on here many times, I've really liked the pipeline that the PAC-10 and SEC has had going on this decade. And since we've already played two teams from that conference in the last 5 years, let's keep it going. I could easily substitute Cal or Washington in there as well.

Let's hear yours!!!

Preseason Polls A'Plenty!!

2009-05-11T23:11:00.002-04:00

WEA's gameplan at Auburn: 1) drink 2) talk to pretty girls 3) football 4) repeat if necessary

The Purple Tiger guys over at LSUfootball.net have put together a composite picture of the various preseason poll rankings that are coming out in order to give us a clearer idea of what the first AP poll out of the gate might look like. Yea, yea, I know. We don't exactly put a lot of stock in preseason polls, but it's fodder for the off-season, you know, to keep us hanging on. If you don't want to look at the link, we're tied for 38th.

But since Congress looks like it may want to start putting labels on college football, like the recent one about the BCS not being an actual national championship, maybe it's a good idea if they started putting warning labels on these preseason polls to protect uneducated fans from putting too much stock in them, kinda like Auburn fans did last year. Soon we may see some of the following disclaimers--just like the Surgeon General's warnings on packs of cigarettes--about what to expect from preseason polls:

Preseason polls are known by the state of California to contain controversy and no champions in the last 5 years...

Preseason polls contain 100% of the RDA of BCS conferences, and two at large mid-majors...

The consumption of raw preseason poll results, like shellfish, can induce food borne illness and barfing...

Expectant mothers should not consume alcohol nor preseason poll results as there is an increased risk in birth defects...

Preseason polls not manufactured in China are certified as 100% lead-free, but as a precaution, please do not place in mouth, especially alongside your foot...

Rankings in the preseason poll mirror may seem larger than they appear...

If you have an undeserved preseason poll result lasting for longer than 4 weeks, immediately call your doctor and your team's scheduler...

Other side effects of preseason polls include nausea, bloating and cramps, especially if you did a lot of talking to your friends about the results before an actual game was played...

WARNING: FLAMMABLE. Preseason polls may spontaneously combust and crumble into ashes. Do not reference preseason polls near an open flame or while smoking. Do not store where temperatures can exceed 120F, like on a SEC field in early September...

CFB Playoff Proposal Quietly Gaining Momentum in Congress

2009-05-04T19:36:00.001-04:00

Last week in the US House, with little fanfare, two congressmen held a hearing to bring attention to the notion of changing the BCS format to become broader and more inclusive to teams not in the historically big conferences. Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) and Bobby Rush (D-IL) lead the hearings designed to force not a tweaking of the current system, but a general overhaul designed to turn the BCS up on it's ear. Presumably, Barton, from Texas, has an axe to grind with the Longhorns allegedly getting hosed last year by being left out of their conference championship game. We might have to assume he truly is a CFB fan or a non-partisan politician because as a Texas A+M alum, it's hard to imagine him lobbying for anything favorable to the Burnt Orange. For Rush, perhaps he's just trying to ride the coat tails of another Illinois politician, President Obama, who has voiced concern on this subject.

It appears that the new angle they're working is the introduction of a bill in the house that would preclude the attachment of the phrase National Championship to any game who's participants weren't decided through the use of a playoff system. Taking a cue from Nick Saban's grandiose and often inappropriate comparisons of historical events and football, Barton compared the current BCS model to communism:

It is like communism; you can't fix it," Barton said. "Sooner or later, you are going to have to try a new model."

No word yet if it's going to take a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 type impetus to provoke this change.

Barton also told ACC commissioner and current BCS director John Swofford that he will aggressively push this bill if he doesn't see a serious effort begun in the next two months, which coincidentally, is the exact same interval it normally takes for teams to decide which cleats they're going to purchase for the next season. Perhaps the honorable Mr. Barton is unaware of current BCS agreements and conference television contracts that don't come up for a few years, leaving the best window for a 4-team playoff to arrive somewhere around 2013. But seeing how the government now fires CEOs of private companies and decides which employees of the same firms can receive what compensation, I am seriously not wont to doubt them at this moment.

And perhaps the most disturbing relevation in this article is either the fact that the Mountain West Conference has actually hired lobbyists in Washington to push through their version of reform, or their plan itself, which includes the scrapping of the human and coaches polls and the computer polls and having playoff participants selected by a committee of 12 individuals. Are you kidding me? Because 62 AP voters, 119 coaches and a few algorithmic programs aren't supposed to be as objective as a gang of twelve? Have they lost their ever-loving minds?

For those of us who do want to have a realistic playoff introduced as soon as possible, perhaps the notion of having Congress give a little jolt to the process may not seem like a bad idea, but when have you ever seen government pull out of something once they got in? Yea, that's what I thought. Just like budgets and spending never get cut, Congress dallying in events they have no business in can seldom be curtailed.

And from the home office in Atlanta, GA, today's Top 10 list of things we can expect from the federalization of college football:

10) $100 handshakes now considered to be taxable income

9) Similar to TARP recipients, coaching salaries now capped at $500,000

8) Two words: BCS Bailout

7) Recruiting limos now required to have DOT certification and fuel tax stamps

6) Stadium expansions now require HUD approval

5) Players reclassified as federal employees. They unionize and get workers comp benefits

4) Football conferences now headquartered out of closest Federal Reserve Bank

3) Bench-warmers and scout squad players eligible for unemployment benefits

2) NCAA disbanded. FBI now investigating all recruiting scandals

1) New Playoff marketing slogan: Games we can believe in!

Auburn A-Day Game Experience Can Now Be Checked Off My Bucket List

2009-04-21T00:18:00.001-04:00

There's few things in my 24-season career as an Auburn fan that I haven't seen. I've witnessed bowl games, road games, SEC championship games, Iron Bowls in the hell hole of Legion Field, and the inside of most opposing SEC stadiums that matter, but I had never taken in a Spring game. Not even during my four spring quarters as a student. A-Day didn't compete with the Miss AU Tan contest, did it? Because now I know why it would have lost out. They probably don't even have that raucous event anymore, and it's a damn shame! Maybe I would get back to campus more often.

It was great to meet up with the people that did come out, although the logistics were a lot harder than I imagined. We Georgians caught 40 miles of construction traffic on the way down, which delayed us quite a bit, and poor Jay's brother caught an appendicitis, which almost hurt as bad as the traffic. Regardless, we had a great time at Loco's, at the game, and for some margaritas afterwards. Looks like LSU Jonno is marrying into the Auburn family, so we're stuck with him for a while. I think I scored us an invite to the wedding, although his fiancee specifically ruled out an open bar after meeting me.

So walking down from the parking lot on Donahue seemed like Acid Reign and I's own personal Tiger Walk, albeit with a few drinks in us and no one lined up to shake our hand. Tickets were abundant. A few scalpers had rolls of them, and they were lined up all along the way. After trying to get them to budge off the $5 face price, I realized that they were actually university employees. Those vodka tonics from Locos were kickin!!!

As advertised, we did sneak in some flasks. I was a little worried. After all, it had probably been 20 years since I snuck liquor into the stadium. My M.O. the last decade and a half was to get loaded before the game. I felt like a student again! Although security looked lax, I did have a plan if they frisked me and found my flask. I was going to immediately leave the stadium rather than surrender my booty. I was carrying a lot more than $5 worth of Bacardi, so I would have gone to the other side and bought another ticket from one of those university scalpers.

I don't know what we were thinking walking into the stadium right at kickoff and going through the 50-yard line tunnel expecting some seats to be available. All it gave us was the scenic walk straight to the north end zone. I bribed Acid Reign into getting cokes for all of us by ponying up the dough, but he and Steve didn't get back until the 3rd quarter, which basically defeats the purpose of sneaking in a flask in the first place. It also shows you that in addition to the defense being undermanned Saturday, the concessions staff was, too.

We sat in section 44, mainly in honor of Ben Tate, but because that's all the seats that were left. It must have worked, though, because he busted out that 46-yarder right as we sat down. Anyone with season tickets in section 18 better declare your loyalty before the season starts to either Kodi Burns OR Wes Byrum--for the 3rd year in a row. I used to think that was a big deal, but all it really means from a practical standpoint is that Burns will never be a holder for Byrum. Nor will Byrum line up in the backfield. Unless Caudle starts, or...Well, you get what I mean.

So what was the one big lesson I learned this weekend, other than it is possible to sit in close proximity to co-eds who are normally herded into the student section? It was that a program coming off a regime change isn't going to show you ANYTHING that opposing teams can prepare for all summer. If that was all that Malzahn had, then I want my money back. Of course, that wasn't all that Malzahn had. We didn't see half of it, and if we want to before the conference schedule begins in full in October, we had all better start watching Tulsa game film. Yea, it's either that or the fact that learning his dizzying offense takes more than three weeks.

And some other things I learned about A-Day this year:

That although we didn't have the clout this year to have our spring game carried by ESPN, we still had more than the Mississippi's so we didn't have to have it at NIGHT.

If I could figure out how the Byzantine scoring system worked during A-Day, I might have had the wherewithal to have stayed a math major instead of hopping to the College of business.

My decision 20 years to never again arrive on game day going down College St. from the interstate was truly a zen moment.

That if Jay, Acid Reign, War Damn Zach and myself were a game-day announcing crew, I'd be the sideline reporter.

And with the report from the cheap seats inside Jordan-Hare, back to you, Zach and Acid...

1st and Five: Things I Wish Would Make a Comeback in College Football

2009-04-17T18:01:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago, we had a thread about what we wished would disappear in CFB, which is easy, because everyone always has a complaint list that's three miles long. But now you're going to have to accentuate the positive and come up with 5 things that have vanished from the game that you'd like to see again--NOT a wish list of new innovations. These things must have already existed at one time.

1) The Wishbone: Not seen in major college football outside Lincoln, Nebraska in at least 20+ years, fans of a dedicated running game have seen passing attacks slowly erode into carries for decades. Call it another name if you wish--triple option, for example--but let's get back to running the ball more. We're not the NFL, and I don't care about being a farm system for their pro-style offense crap. I'd love to see this ball control offense strategy make a comeback.

2) Neutral Site Games: With the advent of the new inaugural game that the Georgia Dome has reintroduced, reminiscent of the old Pigskin and Kickoff classics, and with renewed vigor in facilitating OOC matchups, like FSU and Alabama in Jacksonville two years ago, the neutral site game may make a comeback with a vengeance. Slowly but surely, with greater pressure for BCS teams to schedule same in OOC matchups, neutral site games offer a compromise to the scheduling intricacies of a home and home. It's one game and done! The networks, especially ESPN and ABC, are leading the way in doing this. CFB can only benefit when the scheduling of these games is facilitated.

3. Alumnus Coaches: What does every single coach in the SEC have in common? None of their alma maters is their current employer. Same case with the ACC, save Randy Shannon, and probably 95% of the remaining FBS coaches. Almost an anachronism in this day of professional hired guns, the alumnus coach is a vanishing breed, especially in high-profile programs. Although I understand that having sheepskin from the institution that you're currently coaching isn't a prerequisite for success, I'd still like to see it make a comeback, if only for the novelty of it. Unfortunately for most schools, most alumni coaches just aren't qualified to take the reigns of their former program. Sad commentary, indeed.

4. The Tear-Away Jersey: Yea, I know the logistics of having multiple jerseys for every player on the roster would be a nightmare, as evidenced by a certain Georgia Tech QB on a Thursday night about a year ago, but if you ever saw one get ripped off Earl Campbell at Texas, you know what I mean. 'Nuff said!

5. The 3-Hour game: Darwinists have predicted that the current CFB will have evolved into six and a half hours by 2085. We can put a man on the moon, but can't get one hour of football with requisite commercials in thrice that interval? Three hours was long enough for Gilligan and the crew to get stranded on an uncharted desert isle. Why can't we get it done? I devote less time to sleep a lot of nights than I do to the average Auburn game.

Okay, let's hear yours!

Things That Could Stand to Vanish from College Football

2009-04-07T00:24:00.006-04:00

So I was reading this article online today about things that are vanishing from the fabric of American society, what with changing times and moods and advances in technology. Virtually none of them on the list were a result of the recent death of capitalism in this country, but rather from the recession of tradition, or from the steady advance of progress and time. And not all were bad things. Some of it is waay past due. But it got me thinking, CFB is rich in tradition. It's been going for roughly 120 years, A.D. (Arrivus Dixielandus) and the status quo is very hard to upset. What parts of the game would I like to see vanish if Obama made me Secretary of Saturday Gameday? Hmmmm....

Byzantine Ticket Sales Process: Oh, God. Could I please just buy tickets on the open market like they were from any other regular business without having to inherit them first? I know that there are long wait lists for tickets, sometimes decades, and I know the true cost of them far exceeds the face value, but in spite of that, I still feel that the schools leave money on the table and they incite class warfare between the fans. A lot of folks just want to buy access to the program, and there's nothing wrong with rewarding loyalty, but ticket rights should cease when you quit drawing breath. Let's open up a few seats for the proletariat, shall we?

Independents: If there ever was a throw-back in this day and age, it's the college football orphan. I thought this went out in the 1970s. There's only three--Notre Dame, Army and Navy. All three have excellent tradition, but the trio seem caught in some sort of time warp that promotes this anachronism. You could just order the service academies to join a conference. and they'd say "Yes Sir" and off to the Big East they go. The Irish would be the problem. Everyone knows why they don't join, but intolerance for their disobedience is waxing mightily. Maybe insert some Draconian disincentives for them to remain independent, like have the government take over NBC and start renegotiating contracts?

Split Conference/Division Champs: this is the new cause celebre now that split national champions are so out of vogue. What? Split conference champions in this day of conference championship games? Why, yes. The Neanderthal Big 10(11) can still have split champ, as that misnomer might imply, and even the Pac 10, who plays a 9-game conference schedule so that everyone gets a shot at each other, technically declares a split champion in the face of head-to-head competition (although the winner will represent the conference in the BCS or Rose Bowl). As important as the conferences are to CFB and not all of them have a fair way to decide their winner? Inconceivable!!!

And don't think you divisional champs are getting away with anything, either. If you're in the SEC and you don't make it to Atlanta, you didn't win your division. You lost the tiebreaker, so take the banner down and sit your ass there, too. We have to end this feel-good crap and figure out who the winners and losers are in this world. No soup for you. Come back, one year!

Pre-Season Polls: There's almost universal agreement that these are a bad idea in so many ways, especially after years like 2007. I really hate using the word 'fair', but it seems that's something that's severely lacking with ranking the polls until you're about a month into the season. All those in favor say aye....

The Scheduling of Cupcakes for BCS Schools: Nothing carries more American Express Card type clout these days than being a BCS conference school, so why the hell not act like it? No BCS school should be allowed to schedule a FCS or lower team period. There's plenty of hungry FBS mid-majors out there who you can give a shot to, but if you're going to be BMOC, let's start to schedule like it. And every BCS team should have to schedule two other BCS OOC teams each year, but I'll have to save that for another list...

Boosters Behaving Badly: These losers are overgrown little boys with checkbooks and influence who try and buy their way to glory they couldn't come close to achieving on the field, and they ruin lives and sometimes programs in the process--their own and their rival's. I'm never one for creating more laws, but couldn't some of their shenanigans be covered under existing statutes, especially Federal law? Anyone familiar with RICO? No, not Suave. And BTW: apply it to slime-ball agents, while we're handing down indictments.

The Renaming of Stadiums and Fields in Stadiums: Okay, this one probably comes with me getting older and becoming crankier. Why can't the name just stay put? Did the stadium get married? I'm not calling it by the new name, especially if it ever is from some corporation (oh, you just wait...). Remember that earlier remark about the status quo? It's STILL Grant Field to me, not Bobby Dodd Stadium at Grant Field. Oh gag me. You get too many names and it starts to sound like a law firm. I'm probably the only guy who commended Georgia for not hyphenating Vince Dooley's name somewhere onto the Sanford Stadium moniker--and he's an Auburn man! (was, anyway...) Two names MAX for the whole shooting-match--field and stadium. Choose carefully...

And finally....

The Banishment of any Claimed National Championship before the AP Poll Debuted in 1934: I've written volumes on this subject, but few could argue to the contrary that the AP was the first usual and customary MNC selector out there to gain any sort of acceptance. And I'm all for including the later UP (1950) and UPI poll championships, in addition to the modern day coaches polls in the awarding of titles, but the revisionist history that permeates MNCs awarded before the mid 1930s has got to end. There has to be a standard. We all know that the NCAA doesn't actually sanction a NC in FBS, nor has it ever, but it sure would be welcome for them to set up some template to be followed. But we all know that they never will, and it might be another century or two before these old back-dated titles finally fall out of favor with CFB historians. Let it be written that WEA told them so...

TET Meet Up for A-Day Sort of Planned

2009-03-30T23:48:00.006-04:00

Will someone PLEASE tell me how the scoring at A-Day works?

I'm pretty confident that the staff here at TET is going to try our best to assemble for A-Day on April 18th, so we can take notes on the team and sample a few of the Plains' best watering holes and basically try to worm out of Acid Reign how he remembers so damn much info 20 years after the fact. Since A-Day is not your typical game day, where family and friend loyalties usually dictate when and where you'll be tailgating, we think it might be a good time to try and have a little blog function for those of you out there who might want to meet up. Yea, I know, I certainly threatened to come down for one of those last dozen or so basketball games, but this is the real deal. Football season is upon us, and we need to get prepared!

Maybe it'll be good for the staff to get together and try to get on the same page for covering the new team for the fall. I know a lot of you are suffering from PTSD (Post Tuberville Season Disaster) and want to get fired up for the next one, and we here at TET owe you a good blog this fall. It's been slow ever since NSD, and we Barners can't subside on basketball alone. After getting rejuvenated during A-Day, there's something I will want to promise to the TET readers:

We here at Track Em were hoping for an undefeated blog, something that we've never done online. I'm sorry, Auburn Nation, but a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any blogger in the entire blogosphere blog as hard as I will blog for the rest of this year, and push the blog team as hard as I will push, and blog, blog, blog.

No bloggers will compare Auburn as aptly to Alabama as well as I will, nor create as amusing polls as I will. Nor will they come up with funny top 10 lists about Alabama and accuse them of living in the past and loving the Bear as hard as I will. I will never fail to libel their 12 National Championships in a semi-respectful way, nor will any other blogger take reconnaissance missions to Roll Bama Roll like I do and take their vitriol. This I promise! War Eagle!:

So that's how I feel. If any of you want to, you can get that quote laminated at the AU Bookstore and post it on a wall outside Jordan-Hare. Sort of like this

But defintely NOT like this:

And lastly, with the sad news last week that former Auburn standout Harold Hallman's SEC championship ring was sold on eBay, comes news that another piece of Auburn memorbilia is going on the block: Tubs' house on Lake Martin. Otherwise known as The House that Jimmy Sexton Built.

How to Speak Truth to Power (Also: Telling it Like it is Without a Teleprompter)

2009-03-25T18:15:00.004-04:00

Although this took place in the European Union Parliament, there is little doubt that British MEP Daniel Hannan was aiming at PM Gordon Brown for his domestic agenda. Kids take notice: THIS is the way to speak truth to power. Hannan unloaded with both barrels, never minced his words, and never said 'uh' or 'you know'. This is how politicians SHOULD speak.

If you ever get a chance, you can catch on C-SPAN Prime Minister's Questions, from the UK, where members of the House of commons get to directly ask the PM questions while he stands on the floor of the chamber. They give as good as they get. It's very proper and so entertaining to see how the slander each other with good manners. Pay special attention to the crowd noise as they mumble 'hear-hear' or 'nooooo' in the background. We should have this very forum in the US House. I'd love to see a few members of the Georgia delegation query Obama on more than a few different issues--especially when the media patently refuses to do so.

Take a peek: Prime Minister's Questions, from 2006 with PM Tony Blair.

Of course, the best duels were from the mid 1990s with PM John Major and a saucy up-and-coming fellow, Tony Blair.

Moderated by former speaker Betty Boothroyd, these were political debates that I would watch even when I didn't know jack about British politics. I may have to start again, especially since I've given up on ouir own government.

AP Poll Results for the SEC Over the Years

2009-03-23T23:16:00.003-04:00

While researching some numbers on the AP College Football Poll's own site recently, I noticed that they were closing in on 1000 weekly polls since it's conception on an annual basis in 1936 (989 to be precise), and thought that it might be fun to take a look at how teams from the SEC have done throughout that period. If you recall, the AP poll debuted in 1934, took 1935 off, then picked up the following year and has run every year since. In 1989, it expanded from it's historical 20-team poll to the top 25 ranking that we have today. You can play with the site and isolate different decades, or any number of other variables that you wish. It's a great tool if you're a stats guy like me.

Looking back, the SEC did about as well as you would expect them to do, but Auburn did I lot better than I imagined. Although the SEC's top team only ranked 8th nationally, the conference does have seven of the top 19 all-time teams.

For SEC teams, the ones in the top 25 all-time, according to total weeks appearing in polls, along with the average ranking:

8th Alabama: 629 weeks, 8.80 average
9th Tennessee: 564, 10.29
11th Florida: 501, 9.90
12th Auburn: 479, 11.12
14th Georgia: 475, 11.26
15th LSU: 467, 10.93
19th Arkansas: 375, 11.48

I must say that I'm surprised that Auburn ranked ahead of Georgia in not only the number of weeks ranked in the polls, but in average ranking, too. Georgia has been the historic #3 team in the conference, but they allowed themselves to be bypassed by not only us, but Florida as well. The bulk of Arkansas' success was probably minted back in their old Southwestern Conference days as they've had mixed success in their 17 years in the SEC thus far.

So you want to move up the power rankings and look at Top 10 poll results? Surprisingly, the results only vary a little:

8th Alabama: 393 weeks, 4.58 average
10th Tennessee: 318, 6.20
13th Florida: 286, 5.25
14th Auburn: 238, 5.99
15th Georgia: 231, 6.14
16th LSU: 227, 6.22
18th Arkansas: 182, 6.74

Once again, the SEC barely cracks into the top 10 with any team, yet puts 7 teams in the top 18. Auburn again places 4th in the conference in this category. And you thought the polls didn't show us any love?

And for the final comparison, rankings in the Top 5, we get a slightly new order and a newcomer, but a little bit more spacing between the teams:

7th Alabama: 254 weeks, 2.87 average
11th Florida: 162, 3.34
13th Tennessee: 122, 3.21
15th Auburn: 107, 3.61
17th Georgia: 91, 3.33
18th LSU: 84, 3.08
24th Arkansas: 55, 3.33
25th Ole Miss: 54, 3.2

Ole Miss sneaks in as #25, bringing the total of SEC teams in this category to eight, by far the best showing of any conference. It's hard to fathom, but Auburn has spent over two years in the top 5 of the AP throughout it's history. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of that has come in the almost 30 years since Pat Dye, Terry Bowden and Tommy Tuberville left their marks on the program.

In all three categories, Auburn ranks in the Top 15 or better nationally, lending credence to the notion that we're possibly one of the nation's elite programs. Personally, I think we need to win one or two more MNCs to make such a claim, but there's certainly no arguing that we've always had a respectable showing, not only in our conference, but in the CFB nation as well.

March Madness Can Drive Home Points About a Football Playoff

2009-03-17T00:07:00.001-04:00

I participated in a NCAA Tournament pool today--just for funsies, mind you--the first time in well over a decade, and the first time ever online. Having actually paid attention to college basketball the last week with the hopes of us landing in the Big Dance, I actually felt like I made some informed choices. Of course, being the non-conformist that I am, I only had THREE number one seeds in the Final Four. Predictable? No sir, I am not, and my predilection for teams from the south and those of whose names I have ever heard guided my hand none in the least.

As much joy as it would have brought me for Auburn to have been selected as somebody's dance partner, my mind always wanders back to football, especially when a valid comparison to arguably college athletics' most successful franchise, the Tournament, can be made. Most fans in CFB want a playoff, but few think about how they would implement it or even realize the evolution that the Tournament has gone through over the years.

It's amazing how many fans would want an immediate 64-team football playoff, never comprehending the logistics behind such a feat and realizing what a complete foolhardy task it would be. March Madness didn't start with 64 teams (or 65 as it is now) , it started with EIGHT--about twice the number our inaugural playoff will likely have. They started in 1939, and didn't get to 64 until 1985 (and the number of teams wasn't always easily divisible by two, either).

As I'm oft to say, be careful what you wish for, so rather than tell you what an eventual playoff shall/will be, let's suppose for a moment that we granted one wish, an immediate 64 team playoff,and that by making comparisons to March Madness in all it's current glory, drive home a few good points about why it's not what we need right now.

BOWLS: Any playoff talk has to either start or stop with the bowls. How do you choose to use them? Lesser bowls as lower playoff rounds and the Big Four as your de facto Final Four? (with one bowl left over. Uh-oh.That's inconvenient...) Or do you call every playoff round a bowl now and just shuffle them around a bit like a collegiate game of 3-card Monty? More than likely, the Big Four will be the last rounds of the championship in Playoff 1.0, but as more teams are added over the decades, so will be the number of bowls vying for exposure. BB doesn't have such pesky things as bowls to either ignore or pay tribute to.

DISTANCE: Any fan of a given team following their team from beginning of the tourney to the championship game could probably rack up enough frequent flyer miles for a first-class second honeymoon to Tahiti. Notice how spread out the four regions are? Calling them north, south, east and west isn't a mere coincidence. Sixteen cities host initial games, followed by four more, then another with the Final Four. There haven't been that many MTV Real World sets.

Never mind the fact that you can't reuse a football field for six games like you can a basketball court, who's going to want to travel outside their 'region' to play? Can you imagine Auburn travelling to Seattle, or Southern Cal to Boston? Yea, roundball's world is infinitely less complicated by weather, i.e.--not having a dearth of venues in suitable climes. Perhaps top seeds could play a game or two on their home field, but that's not very Big Dance-like, right?

COST: It's a no-brainer that basketball games cost less to put on than football games, but what about the cost incurred by the fans? If you're having multiple games at one location, how do you get the fans in? These days, one ticket gets you a pass to the entire show. Would football be a one-shot deal? There's probably few fans that would want to invest 4+ hours to watch teams they care nothing about, unlike basketball, where the commitment is a little over two hours. You're more or less dating the game rather than marrying it.

That fact alone could stifle ticket demand and water-down fan interest in the early rounds. Couple that with the exorbitant costs associated with following a team through the entire playoff, and you'd be virtually guaranteed of having your fanbase stay home until the later rounds. Add on the costs of trotting your team, band and support crew all over the country like a bunch of Gypsies and you could bankrupt all but the most sound of athletic departments. Getting an invite to the big football dance would be like an automatic ticket to Chapter 11 and perhaps qualify you for some federal bailout money. (Then Obama could bitch about coaches getting all those bonuses)

TIME FRAME: There's a good reason that you only play one game a week and that coaches complain fiercely about having a short week with a Thursday night game--it's like recovering from a car accident. Notice that a lot of BB conference tournament winners played three games this weekend--some with two games within 24 hours. With a football playoff, you need one week to recover. That makes the math easy. Six rounds in a 64-teamer, so a month and a half to complete the playoff.

Basketball does it in three weeks, and they're only playing part-time. It ain't gonna happen. What are you going to do, compete with the NFL playoffs? Sorry, you must be done by the first week in January. We're already being flagged for encroachment on the Pros as it is. Start the playoffs in mid November? Doubtful, not with century-old rivalries at stake. Commencing playoffs that last half as long as the regular season isn't going to cut it either. That WOULD diminish the regular season substantially and would make conference championships either obsolete or irrelevant.

SEEDING: Think you don't like the polls now, imagine what will happen when you have to utilize them for the seeding of 64 different teams? Poll rankings help in basketball, but the conferences play a part in the seeding, too. Football would have the polls doing all of the ranking. Forget about getting left out of the football dance as it is, what about all the moaning that will occur when your teams lands in a distant part of the country or falls into a lessor bracket because of a few measly points? Conference champs could again take precedence, but what about all the rest of your conference mates who are also tourney eligible? Some conferences could have eight or more teams, so you might have one bracket that had three of them in it. Of what importance would the conference championship have been if you would just have them suit up again in the NCAA's? Not much at all...

Again, just a little food for thought, now that we're staring down the epitome of a college athletic playoff. Is it really perfect? Maybe for basketball, yes. But applying the same format to football would seems as foreign as an Alabama player walking across the stage getting handed his degree. Or Nick Saban getting... You know. Never mind...

'Saban Rules' in Effect for Alabama Failing to Disclose Pending Infractions Hearing to New Recruits?

2009-03-12T18:59:00.003-04:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that an Atlanta Braves hat Tide recruit Dre Kilpatrick is putting on? Guess that'll do in a pinch...

Birmingham News writer Kevin Scarbinsky recently took Alabama to task for not disclosing to this year's recruits that Alabama was facing a disciplinary hearing with the NCAA from the textbook scandal from 2007.

Although failing to disclose scheduled hearings and possible NCAA sanctions to recruits is not itself a violation of NCAA rules, Scarbinsky questions the moral obligation a team has to tell recruits and the recruits'coaches.

Put aside legal obligations and the public's right to know for a moment.

What about a moral obligation?

Didn't recruits and their families have a right to know?

"If it was my son being recruited," Corner High School coach Brent Smith said, "I would want to know about it."

Smith didn't have a son sign with Alabama in February, but he did have a player join the Crimson Tide. Before his recent return to Corner, Smith coached at Clay-Chalkville, where he coached Alabama signee Quinton Dial. Smith said no Alabama coaches told him - or, as far as he knows, Dial - of the impending Infractions Committee appearance.

Personally, I don't think the Tide did anything wrong. Aren't players supposed to do a little due-diligence on their own to find out about the schools they seek to attend? This infraction has been known for a year and a half, and hadn't been resolved through the NCAA yet. Certainly one of the Tide's recruits did a little investigating?

How's your college investigation coming along, huh? Got a big stack of papers on Alabama? Got the 12 national championships, the Bear, and the coaching carousel? Know about probation and habitual violations? Got a compelling coach in Saban? Some teams become enemies, some become friends? No, no, you just take their word for it...

However, why exactly did the latest hearing date, February 20, 2009, occur so long after the infraction itself?

The NCAA sent Alabama a letter of preliminary inquiry dated Nov. 20, 2007. The NCAA sent Alabama a notice of allegations dated May 19, 2008.

In that May letter, the NCAA said that Alabama had agreed to file its response to the allegations by Aug. 19, 2008, and that the Infractions Committee expected to hear the case at its October or December meeting.

"It should be noted," the May 19, 2008, NCAA letter said, "that a delay in responding (to the allegations) could postpone the hearing date."

Alabama's hearing date was postponed. Until Feb. 20, 2009.

After the 12-0 regular season. After the SEC Championship Game. After the Sugar Bowl.

And 16 days after signing day.

If the Tide manipulated the dates to get beyond National Signing Day, I believe that would be a moral failure, in spite of not being a legal one. Alabama officials and Saban aren't talking, but if Alabama did game the system, could there be any doubt that The Saban Rules are in effect--barely skirting above tree-top level with the rules to gain an advantage? It's just part of The Process. Indeed...

Alas, if the hearing results in scholarship losses, none of the new recruits will be affected. Neither will Alabama's recent recruiting national championship...

Love It!!!

2009-03-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

Seen somewhere near the Gator football locker room...

Julio Jones Wins Student Senate Seat at Alabama

2009-03-10T22:25:00.003-04:00

It seems that in the recent student government elections in Tuscaloosa, sophomore wideout Julio Jones has won election to a senate seat as a write-in candidate despite having never campaigned for the position. Conservatives on campus decry: "this has the smell of ACORN all over it."

It just goes to show you how much the electorate in Tuscaloosa really knows. A few years ago, Mike Price won as a write-in candidate for best coach at the Capstone EVER under the platform Never Lost a Single Game to Auburn.

In keeping with Saban's strict control over the media, Julio had no immediate comment, but word from the AD soon came out that Julio would accept the position. The student newspaper, the Crimson White caught up with Julio immediately after the announcement.

Julio, how does it feel to be elected a student senator at Alabama?

What's a senator?

It's what Obama was before he became president.

Who's he play for?

He's from Illinois.

Yea, Ron Zook has done quite a job with those guys. Shame they got clobbered in the Rose Bowl by Southern Cal. I almost went there...

It seems that write-in candidates ruled the day on campus. Other winners announced weren't immediately known by university officials: a Paul Bryant and a Michael Shuler (sic?) additionally won senate seats. Results have still yet to be officially certified.

Jones stated that his first order of business as a student senator would be: "free textbooks for everyone!"

Bolstered by their attempt, student activists have now set their sites on getting Julio elected to American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and Pontiac Game-Changing Moment. Said the blog Roll Bama Roll: "We soon hope to make Julio as synonymous as Kilroy and Waldo as far as being everywhere."

We here at TET wish Julio nothing but the best in his senatorial term and hope that next year he might actively campaign for student body president. It would be too rich in irony indeed to have a current Alabama letterman sing War Eagle to us on an Auburn basketball floor...

2009 College Football Bailout/Stimulus Act

2009-03-02T23:43:00.003-05:00

Thumbing through the 800-page, recently passed-in-the-middle-of-the-night American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the Stimulus package, I wanted to see if I could find some of those 9,000 earmarks it supposedly contained. (Don't worry--I didn't read the WHOLE thing, but again, neither did Congress) Lo and behold, there are quite a few articles of pork written into the law concerning our favorite game. Who would have thunk it? Now, even though our new president is a CFB fan, these earmarks could have been easily inserted by representatives from any big-time CFB state. Just a sampling for what I found.

BAILOUT: The ACC Championship Game. Law calls for the purchasing of 30,000 tickets for each of the next three games so they can quit showing those embarrassing empty seat shots. Will run for the next three years or until the game finds a permanent home some place other than Atlanta, or until two teams from the state of Florida finally meet in it--as it was originally intended, damn it! Special clause terminates the subsidy if any team from the conference gets a whiff of the BCS championship game ever again.

STIMULUS: National Coaching Change Buyout Pool. Wanting to dump your head coach but his agent secured too large a buyout clause? No problem, under this new federal agency. BCS teams can pay an under-market premium to insure that they can send their coach packing when they want AND spread the cost among other participants and taxpayers. Similar to flood and pension benefit insurance, the premium is artificially low and the pool under funded and virtually insolvent, but who cares when you're not picking up the tab? Some things are too important not to be made available. Sorry, like most everything else in CFB, not available for non-BCS teams.

STIMULUS: Purchase Snuggies for all fans of all teams nationwide. See Alabama fans enjoying last year's spring game below:

$500 Million ought to do it, and if the government calls now, they can still get the free book light with the purchase of each Snuggie. The OMB believes that additionally, Snuggie technology can be combined with that of Sham-Wow, resulting in a super-absorb ant blanket/robe that doubles as a raincoat that is also handy for soaking up spilled bourbon and cokes at games. Simply wring out and re-drink. Soon available in all school colors. Please observe all local ordinances about alcohol in stadiums.

BAILOUT: For a coaching staff for the Tennessee Volunteers. They can finally hire all the specialty coaches and recruiting dynamos they desire. Unfortunately, like CEO pay at bailed-out Fortune 500 companies, all assistant-coach salaries will be capped at $500,000, too. However, reward money from whistle-blowing on rival institutions will be considered exempt compensation.

STIMULUS: For a marketing firm to be hired by the Big 10(11). The purpose of which will be to rename the conference to something more mathematically factual, or in anticipation of adding an additional team. Possible names include:

The Big 10--Now with 20% more teams for the same low price!
The Big 11, Featuring Notre Dame on Lead Vocals
The MID-Western Conference
The Big Twelve. Look. We spelled it out. It's NOT the same.

Possible new names for the divisions: Rust and Snow, Manufacturing and Unemployed, Rose and Capital One.

BAILOUT: Funds for stadium expansion for all teams of the Mountain West. Will expand stadiums of all nine member institutions to an average of 75,000 seating capacity. Since you've only been around for ten years, fill every one of those current and new seats with an ass every Saturday during the season for the next two decades then give us a call about automatic inclusion in the BCS party. You're welcome.

STIMULUS: New Scoreboard for Bryant-Denny Stadium at the University of Alabama. $8M appropriated, the old one must be given back to it's previous owner, Auburn University, who it belonged to until this past fall. Evidently, the old one burned because of some faulty wiring done by EE students? Seriously, even the federal government had no idea there was an engineering school in Tuscaloosa. Maybe we can work another stimulus in the future if you guys want to vamp that up or something...

BAILOUT: For the Big12 South division, to reform their old conference. Can you say all your eggs in one basket? Really, whoever welded the old Big 8 and Southwestern conferences together didn't count on Nebraska tanking for long. Without them, there's no balance. Sure, Kansas and Missouri tease us for a season or two, but seriously, what's Oklahoma doing in the south anyway? Let's break these guys up like AT&T and let them roll in some of that WAC and Mountain WAC cream since it's obvious that the PAC 10 won't expand their way. Besides, to a Texan, the only good thing in Kansas City besides a championship game is the Bar-B-Que.

BAILOUT: To the Rose Bowl, and not just because Citi Bank is their main sponsor. That money was included in the bank bailout of last fall. The Rose Bowl didn't receive any of that money, but then again, seemingly didn't the banks either, because they're not loaning out a dime. Anyway, with the Rose locked into two conferences who refuse to modernize, the bowl might be circling another kind of bowl soon as they watch more talented teams reap bigger exposure in other bowls who don't discriminate quite as heavily. Lucky they still get the NC game every four years now or they might have needed an even bigger bailout. Like AIG bigger.

And finally: STIMULUS: To the Atlanta Sports Council, the fine folks who bring you the Chic-Fil-A Bowl and the SEC Championship game, more money to keep doing what they do--arranging top level talent from the SEC and ACC to meet in a pre-season kickoff bash not unlike the now defunct Kickoff and Pigskin Classics. Who says that bowl games have to be at the END of a season? Here's to showing that if you build it, ESPN will come.

Well, that's about all of the CFB earmarks I could find in my limited time. I bet some of you could probably come up with some if you tried?

Should Auburn Have Been in the East and Tennessee in the West?

2009-02-23T23:37:00.001-05:00

I've alluded to this subject many times over the years, most recently last week with the thread on the prevalent rivals in the SEC. There's never been any doubt in my mind that Auburn should have been placed in the eastern division of the SEC when the conference expansion came in 1992, but I never really thought about how that equation would balance out--i.e: who would play Red Rover and come over to the west. Not until last week while researching historic conference rivals did it dawn on me that Tennessee was the most-likely candidate to have switched to the west, despite Knoxville being east of Nashville and the Commodores. Geography be damned! And even better, this equation balanced, in terms of the division being top heavy or not. Too bad it's only 17 years too late.

Prior to 1992, SEC scheduling requirements were six games, with five of those with permanent, historic rivals and the last game as a rotator. Our permanent rivals ranked in order of importance were: Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Miss State. That meant that the rotators only got played two or three times a decade, hence our low number of games played against some teams we had shared conferences with (SIAA, Southern, SEC) for almost a hundred years, like Ole Miss and LSU. Witness: games played by Auburn against SEC teams through 1991:

95--Georgia
68--Florida
65--Miss State
56--Alabama
43--Tennessee
33--Vandy
26--Kentucky
26--LSU
16--Ole Miss

So three of our historic Top 5 rivals were soon to be in the opposite division. The new conference scheduling originally was to be one permanent team from the opposite division and two rotators. But Auburn protested so much over the potential loss of two of it's historic rivals that the SEC relented and made it two permanent teams. Auburn made the hard choice that Tennessee would be cut. The rivalry with Florida was considered more important because of the recruiting exposure in the Sunshine State that the game would bring. It still was tough for Tiger fans. For decades we had played the top 3 historic teams in the SEC, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, and had more than held our own. That scheduling there is one of the reasons we enjoy the 4th toughest strength of schedule rating in CFB history.

With the Vols, choices were tough, but not quite as difficult. Tennessee's historic gang-of-5 with games played through 1991 were:

87--Kentucky
85--Vanderbilt
74--Alabama
58--Ole Miss
43--Auburn

Granted, had you asked Vol fans at the time to rank those same SEC games in order of importance, it probably would have come out Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, Vandy and Kentucky. Alabama was Alabama, but the rivalry with the Rebels, Dores and Cats had long ceased to be really competitive. Upstart Auburn was Rocky Top's second biggest rival, a team that the Vols had refused to play at Auburn until 1980, the second last SEC team to come to the Plains.

Add to it the fact that Auburn had moved ahead in wins in the series and it was readily apparent that losing the Tigers would be a big blow to Tennessee. And never mind that the Vols' 2nd and 3rd biggest rivals today, Florida and Georgia, were mere footnotes on Tennessee scheduling prior to conference expansion, with only 21 games played prior to 1992 against each school in 97 years of shared conferences.

So what would have happened if the two teams would have been reassigned in the beginning? While it's possible that the SEC would have gone immediately to the one permanent, two rotator scheduling rather than waiting until the 2003 season, assume for a second that they didn't. Auburn would have had Alabama as one fixture, but maybe not Tennessee as the other. Tradition would have been hard for the Vols to ignore, with long-time series with Kentucky and Vanderbilt being cast aside. Maybe Rocky Top would have consented, but not both of those schools, who have Tennessee as their top rival. More than likely, Auburn would have been the 3rd wheel in that arrangement.

And what after the 2002 season when they went to only one permanent team? Definitely by then the annual series between Auburn and Tennessee would be over, and Tennessee would have to have chosen between the Commodores and Wildcats as their favorite red-headed step child. It boils down to this: Auburn would have maintained their series with Florida but would have punted State. Tennessee would have lost either Kentucky or Vandy but picked up Ole Miss.

Would it have been worth it for the Tigers and Vols to have switched, only picking up Florida and Ole Miss in the process? Seems that such trading would have been a far tougher proposition for Auburn, even know you never would have heard us complain. Balance of power was on the minds of conference officials who were putting together the expansion in the late 1980s, and having the #1 and #4 teams, Alabama and Auburn (according to historic conference winning %) in one division, balanced out with the #2 and #3, Tennessee and Georgia in the other. #5 LSU and #6 Florida were also on opposite sides and who could have predicted both of their meteoric rises a few years later?

So maybe it would have been a good deal for Auburn to do the switcheroo, but maybe not so good for Tennessee. Unfortunately, no other team from the east balances out the equation like the Vols do. Granted, switching now would NEVER happen, but just suppose. Knowing what we know now, that Tennessee-Florida, Tennessee-Georgia, and Auburn-LSU would turn into such great rivalries, could we be selfish to deny the conference and the CFB such great spectacle?

School Colors

2009-02-23T16:15:00.002-05:00

Some Tennessee, Georgia, Auburn and Alabama fans decided that black-and-white school colors were a bit too dull. So they called upon God to give them colors that would truly represent them.

First, the Tennessee fans stepped before God and asked for their school's colors.
God said "When I see Tennessee, I see a great big orange sun coming up over beautiful white clouds. "Tennessee will be orange and white".

Next, the Georgia fans stood before God and asked for their school colors. God said, "I see a field of fertile black soil...from which will grow a beautiful field of red roses. Georgia will be black and red."

The Auburn fans were next. God said "When I think of Auburn, I see a glorious sky of blue with the bright orange sun shining down on my favorite town. Your colors are orange and blue."

God then turned to the Alabama fans and said quite hastily, "Your colors are crimson and white."

Later, after the fans had left, St. Peter came to God and said, "Lord, as you handed out each fan's colors, you explained their origin-all but the Alabama fans. I'm curious. Why crimson and white? What do you see when you think of Alabama?"

"I see the same thing you see," God said, "white trash and red necks".

Scoreboard at Bryant-Denny Toast

2009-02-21T12:05:00.002-05:00

Tuscaloosa police's only clue a suspect named Al Bama, who additionally defaced the scoreboard with his own tag...

Fire Department AND Bama fans really surprised that this didn't happen during last year's Iron Bowl, on or around the 36th point...

No known arsonists on the Tide roster, says Saban...

See what happens when you let Larry the Cable Guy wire your new Jumbotron?

Stadium expansion still in high gear as work crews will now burn the north end scoreboard to maintain balance...

A-Day crowd encouraged to wear asbestos coats, "just as a precaution"...

Real story here.

Who are the Most Prevalent Rivals in the SEC?

2009-02-17T00:32:00.002-05:00

Four weeks ago, we had a poll here at TET trying to determine who our 3rd biggest rival behind Alabama and Georgia was. I had seen a similar poll over at Dawgsports the week before, and it got me wondering who might be each SEC team's top conference rival, what overlap existed, and who was the most prevalent team that appeared. So like the Clinton Administration used to do, I put some polls in the field over at our SB sister blogs in order to get a general idea of who fans from the conference felt was their three biggest conference rivals, in order. I then used that information to bolster what I already knew about southern rivalries to come up with the data for this thread.

Keep in mind that although I attempted to use a (admittingly weak) statistical sampling, the results are not exactly what any person would call scientific. With college football fans being the passionate folks that they are, you can ask ten of them from one team a question and get eleven different answers, so just remember that before you pepper me with double-aught buckshot. My thanks to the administrators of our sister blogs for allowing me and assisting me to post the polls as Fanposts on their sites. Believe it or not, the biggest response came from Roll Bama Roll, so mad props to their fans for their cooperation in the spirit of de'tente.

WEST RANKINGS:

AUBURN: 1) Alabama 2) Georgia 3) LSU There's little doubt that the purple Tigers are now our third biggest rival, with historic series with Florida and Tennessee no longer on an annual basis. Although the Tiger cousins had shared the same conferences together for 97 years prior to the realignment of 1992, they had only played 26 times. Virtually every other game in this series gets branded with a nickname. Here's to making up for lost time!

ALABAMA: 1) Auburn 2) Tennessee 3) LSU Bama's rivalries within the conference are legendary and virtually written in stone. None were affected by the realignment. The series with Auburn and Tennessee are statistically close, with the Tide winning 54% of the games against both, but Alabama has distanced LSU over the years, almost winning twice as many games as the Tigers, 44-23-5. Alabama is also the top rival for three other SEC teams, a record in this poll.

ARKANSAS: 1) LSU 2)Ole Miss 3) Alabama One of the new kids on the block, Arkansas' old Southwest conference ties cause it to be on no other SEC team's top three rivals list, but look for that to change once Arkansas is granted statehood. The Razorbacks always seem to play Alabama and Auburn tough, so perhaps those rivalries will gain stature over time.

LSU: 1) Alabama 2) Auburn 3) Florida The Cajuns seem to have an infatuation with both teams from the Yellowhammer state, but maybe that's just because they're so lonely down there on the Bayou, being the only big fish in the pond. Auburn just barely edged Florida in the rankings despite the Gator-Purple Tiger series being the most intense new inter-divisional rivalry in the conference. The Tiger-Tiger rivalry seems to be one born of respect so far, the occasional incidental chop-block notwithstanding...

OLE MISS: 1) Miss State 2) LSU 3) Tennessee The Rebel's third slot with the Vols was a toss-up with Arkansas. Although UM had played the Razorbacks many times during their old SWC days, the series with Tennessee is longer and more intense for the Rebs. Ole Miss still isn't represented on the SB nation. We're looking forward to that, Colonel Reb.

MISSISSIPPI STATE: 1) Ole Miss 2) Alabama 3) LSU State, too, has a long relationship with teams from the state of Alabama, but LSU gets the nod for third place over Auburn probably because that series is roughly 20 games longer and the Bulldogs have a much better winning percentage against the purple Tigers. MSU's series duration with it's chief rivals have outlasted the cows coming home.

EAST RANKINGS:

FLORIDA: 1) Georgia 2) Tennessee 3) LSU The Game Where You Can't Mention Alcohol Anymore ranks among the top rivalries in CFB and is the second-oldest neutral-site game out there. Florida is distinct because it's two other biggest series are basically new rivalries since the conference realignment of 1992. FL-TN was big in the 1990's and the annual FL-LSU matchup now serves as a perfect counter-weight for both BCS National Championship winners from this century.

GEORGIA: 1) Florida 2) Auburn 3) Tennessee Although Dawg fans are enjoying a growing intensity with the Vols, that rivalry is merely in it's infancy compared to Georgia's Top Two historic series. The Aformentioned Game Where You Can't Mention Alcohol and The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry take a back seat to none for the Bulldogs. Georgia's most intense rivalry, arguably Georgia Tech, warrants footnote status as the two did share conferences for roughly 70 years. But like most divorces, one ends up with the house and the other a trailer the ACC.

KENTUCKY: 1) Tennessee 2) S.Carolina 3) Vanderbilt The series with the Gamecocks occupies 2nd place in spite of these two teams having only met thrice before the conference realignment in 1992. South Carolina and Vandy are virtually interchangeable with the Wildcats and might not be very far ahead of Georgia. The Cats and the Gators can't be under-stated either, with Kentucky gathering strength under Rich Brooks the last few years.

SOUTH CAROLINA: 1) Georgia 2) Tennessee 3) Florida USC is the second of the New Kids on the Block, being Donnie Wahlberg to Arkansas' Marky Mark. However, unlike the Hogs, the Cocks are second cousins with most of their conference stablemates, having some history there, especially with Georgia. Tennessee is probably a solid #2, but Florida and Arkansas are probably neck and neck. The Hogs and the Cocks were alien species in the barnyard, having never played prior to joining the SEC in 1992.

TENNESSEE: 1) Alabama 2) Florida 3) Georgia The Third Saturday in October trumps all others for the Vols, but like Florida, Tennessee shares the fact that it's second and third rivalries are relatively new, as they didn't have significant history with Florida or Georgia prior to 1992. (lending further evidence to my theory that Tennessee should have been in the west division) Alas, Rocky Top winds up as two other schools' biggest rival and Miss Congeniality on many more. Many Vols believe that Florida might eventually be supplanted by the nascent border war with Georgia.

VANDERBILT: 1) Tennessee 2) Kentucky 3) S.Carolina What a difference a century makes. Vandy goes from being the entire (SIAA) conference's rival who no one can beat, to being the perpetual caboose of the modern day SEC. Glad they stuck with us. No one defends the much-maligned Commodores more than her sister schools, except for maybe Lionel Richie. Really, only Kentucky has a mutual rivalry with Vanderbilt at this time. Tennessee doesn't generally give them the time of day, (except in 2005).

So if you assign a simple point value of 3 for being someone's top rival, 2 for being second, and 1 for third, you come up with the Top Six:

1) Tennessee: 14 points

2) Alabama: 12 points

3) Georgia: 9 points

T-4th) Auburn, LSU, Florida: 7 points

It seems that the results closely mirror the all-time standings in conference winning percentage, which is historically Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia, respectively. This group of three enjoy a comfortable lead over the next gang of three. Although I fully expected the Tide to be the most prevalent rival, Tennessee's dominance in it's own state and neighboring states, in addition to having new heated rivalries with division stablemates, pushes her above Alabama for the crown.

The tie for numbers 3-6 is especially fitting since those three schools are in a statistical dead-heat for the 3rd through 6th best all-time SEC winning percentages. After 2007, Auburn was barely ahead of LSU and Florida, respectively, but after the 2008 season, Florida has now edged LSU and Auburn. Welcome to the SEC!!

New National Anthem

2009-02-14T19:31:00.001-05:00

I think Glenn Beck originally did this. Funny!!!

.

What Looks Like Angelina Jolie, is on Welfare, and Seats Eight?

2009-02-14T15:03:00.004-05:00

OCTOPUSSY!!!!!!!

Why yes, as a matter of fact, it IS a clown car...

Can you say mother of all stretch marks?

Conservative Editorial Cartoons Found

2009-02-11T18:49:00.004-05:00

I just found these the other day. They're by Investor's Business Daily cartoonist Michael Ramirez and boy are they funny! To think I've been having to tolerate the AJC's little pansy Mike Luckovick's stuff the last 15 years...

Take about an hour and go through all the ones in the archives. Very clever!!!

Why Georgia Fans Aren't Usually Democrats

2009-02-10T12:08:00.001-05:00

Saban Honeymoon Over. Tide Fans have Tasted It.

2009-02-10T00:43:00.004-05:00

Growing Up So Fast

I was cleaning out the nightstand last week of old magazines to recycle when I came across one I'd purchased last summer, Yea, Alabama 2008: An Annual Guide to Crimson Tide Football. I remember running across it in the book section at Sam's Club and was drawn to it because it had been compiled by Todd Jones and the guys over at Roll Bama Roll. I thumbed through and despite Todd not including any celebrity hottie centerfold pics, I decided to buy it anyway, probably for the same reason I used to read my girlfriends' Cosmo magazines--because I believed there might be some classified intel the enemy was carelessly leaving unguarded, ready for me to decipher. Yea, that and I thought I was sticking it to them for only paying $7.00--a little over half of the asking cover price! Sticking it to the Man. I haven't found a bigger bargain on Tide reference material since I bought that VHS of The Bear for one dollar at a garage sale a few years ago.

Overall, I thought they did a real good job on it. They even included some articles by some rival bloggers, although no one from Auburn was represented. That would have been a good gig for Jerry over at the Carwash. He's probably more diplomatic than the rest of us, and he doesn't bitch about national championships quite as incessantly as I do. It was fun to go back and reread some of their predictions and hopes for the 2008 season after the fact. Most of it bordered on a lovefest for Saban, but what else could you pin your hopes on after the end-of-season collapse in 2007? Most rational fans, including Barners, knew that Saban was going to turn around Alabama football, but what no one knew was how long it was going to take, or even better, how long the Tide faithful were willing to give. These guys were optimistic, but definitely not to be confused with Nostradamus on their predictions for a time table on turnaround.

Few fans are as fickle as post-Bear Bammers are, and their coaching dysfunction has fed upon itself the last two and a half decades. Once they cut the lineage to Bryant requirement, they should have been fine, but passing flirtations with outsiders Franchione and Price surrounded by costly alumnus hires DeBose and Shula the last decade decimated the Tide. Hey, don't try and blame Tuberville for your woes, you did all that on your own. Most of us have forgotten how desperate Alabama was to get Saban after two painful rebuffs from Spurrier and Rich Rodriguez, mainly because Tide fans haven't quit trying to rub it in everyone's faces, but the 4th and 10 Hail Mary thrown into the end zone in Miami two years ago was caught. Now we're all patiently waiting for the signal from the ref for the call.

Saban's arrival in Tuscaloosa represented a quantum leap in the dynamics of college coaching. Not only was the threshold in salary totally eclipsed, but so was any measure of how much control a head coach should be given. The ramifications to college football with this new coaching arms race still aren't known, even though most fans not wearing Crimson and not named Jimmy Sexton probably believe that it will eventually have a negative effect, even if Saban is madly successful at the Capstone. I wish they had some better cliche's for me to use, but Saban at Alabama appears to be a 'perfect storm'--one that might blow itself out, or blow right through college football.

To be perfectly blunt about it, Saban peaked way too early in his rebuilding efforts with the Tide. By any rational estimate, including most Alabama fans', he was about a year or two ahead of schedule in 2008. Good for him. Most Bammers were understanding in their disappointment in not winning the SEC and losing in the Sugar Bowl. "We didn't expect to get that far" was the line from a lot of them, but you can't help but wonder if they weren't really starting to accept results like that as a given and be secretly coveting even more. Their joy in knocking Auburn off it's pedestal in the state cannot be underestimated and the Gumps are now looking to start their own collection of fingers.

But let's get back to the original time frame that Saban tacitly received when given his mandate in Tuscaloosa. If he would have told them 10 years, most of them would have bought it, given the state of despair at the time. Most probably thought four years for the Tide's own version of Change You Can Believe In. That's the customary interval for disaster rebuilding as it gives a chance for new recruits to start paying dividends in the system. Some even bemoaned the thought of Saban leaving himself within four years for greener pastures, even though fewer realized that same time frame was basically the average tenure for an Alabama coach the past two decades. And considering the power that Saban was given to run the program, even some believed that he might establish a dynasty in his own right for years to come.

Of all the adjectives you can use to describe Alabama fans, one of the most accurate (and polite) is deserving. Tide fans feel like they deserve gridiron glory. Can't really blame them. They are the most successful team ever in the SEC. They feel like they deserve success as their birth right. Few realize how hard it was to achieve all that. No current undergrad student at UAT was drawing breath in this world when Bear Bryant was alive. To them, he's just a name on a stadium, or a hat style. But most of them fully relish their inherited regal claim on southern dominance they believe they have, and in the end, it may be their downfall. Little is forsaken quicker than that which isn't earned by one's own merit.

So what are the expectations of the fans for this fall? Even better, what about before that? After the Alabama-dominated site Rivals.com hoisted up a recruiting national championship banner for the Tide last year, you better believe the expectations for uber-recruiter Saban were higher this recruiting season--so high that maybe a little scoring controversy was evident. Luckily for the Tide faithful, Saban came through again, further elevating Crimson Tide Pride. But what had that not happened? What if they had only managed a top 20 class? You may laugh, but crimson pride is a very tender thing.

The crowd of 92,000 at the 2007 spring game was unheard of, and served to trumpet the return of dominance in Tuscaloosa. Although last year's spring game had some problems with a concert going off, nobody thought anything of the slight drop-off in attendance. But what about the game in two months? These are the 2008 western division champions. It should be an all-week affair. Will it not be considered abject failure in the minds of naysayers if 100,000 don't show? This is what happens when the bar is set so high, even for something previously thought as mundane as A-Day. Could it not have a ripple effect in the fall, this perceived let-down?

Few Alabama fans think that 2009's team will do anything less than repeat with a December visit to the Georgia Dome and challenge Florida again for the SEC. But what if that doesn't happen? If the Tide fails to win the west, how bad will that be? All the other variables in the equation are known--recruiting, coaching and pride. Just ask them. What if the = winning doesn't happen? What if the regular season ends 8-4? Who could have seen that coming? That's what 2008 was supposed to be. I think that most Tide fans could stomach it, but it would begin to sow the seeds of doubt in some of the fair weather fans' minds. Slowly but surely...

So where will Alabama fans draw a line? What are the goals for the next three years? Precedent has been established. Saban was in the backwater of Baton Rouge (to Tide Fans) for five years. He won 2 SEC and 1 national crowns. What if he can't win the SEC at the Capstone in five? Or win more than one, much less a MNC? There's not a Gump alive that would want to play second fiddle on a Louisiana Saturday night. No way. Saban's supposed to improve with all the resources at Alabama! Never mind that the SEC is the toughest conference in the land with rapidly improving parity that will make it extremely difficult for repeat champions for the foreseeable future. We haven't had one this decade.

Continued success at Alabama will have to come in spite of the toughest competition the conference has ever seen and in spite of the most critical fans in the business. The expectations are so high for Saban that if he doesn't elevate the program to a point where they contend virtually every year for a MNC, the fans will start to lose faith. They will resent his faltering ,especially considering the vast amount of control he was given. The fans are caught up somewhere in between realistic goals and the yearning of deserved prominence.

Saban has but one option with the Crimson Tide: continue winning at a level unseen in our conference since the days of the Bear, lest he become a victim of his own success and his own hype. There's no letting him off the hook now. The program has been perceived to have been brought so far, so fast. Two more seasons without winning the SEC championship and Saban is done. Many haters would remark flippantly that he would leave for greener pastures before they ran him off, but I think that it would be by the hand of the Alabama faithful and their boulevard of broken football dreams. Et tu, Mal Moore?

Where the Recruits Come From

2009-02-02T23:20:00.002-05:00

Ahhh! The calm before the storm--the week before national signing day. As you can tell, we here at TET don't put as much emphasis on the daily recruiting scorecard, or so you might have noticed. It's not that we don't care, but this Tiger just doesn't like all the hype thrown at a bunch of fickle teenagers who haven't proven anything other than being a cog in the hype machine. They're merely seedlings at this point, which must be cultivated carefully to grow to their full potential. Yea, we need a forest, but those are comprised of saplings and trees. Sure, modern recruiting leads to pseudo-glory, like the newly recognized 'recruiting national championship', but it's all flash-in-the-pan. What you're hearing is the starting pistol going off for the start of a marathon--and those are won at the end, not the beginning. Besides, I've always said that recruiting is just like sausage and laws: you really don't want to know how it's made...

An interesting article from SI analyzes the top BCS teams from the last five years and where they get their talent. The two main criteria they examine are the percentage of in-state recruits and the percentage of recruits within 200 miles of the campus. We score 50.4% and 31.3%, respectively, while Alabama scores a whopping 70.2% and 54.2%. But these numbers are from the last 5 seasons, which incidently include four of the supposed worst in recent Alabama history. But they still land over 70% of their players from the Yellow Hammer state while we manage a scant half? Can this be right? During the Shula years, which most Bammers reminisce like Americans do the Carter presidency, they still managed to harvest almost 50% more of the domestic crop than we did. How can this be?

Here's the sad, cold truth: They've always been able to do it. Alabama has gotten the creme of the crop from the state for nearly a century. Sure, their dominance isn't anything like it was in the Bear years when Bama would sign guys just so no one else could have them, as was his modus operanti during the days of no scholarship limits. Couple that with the hard fact that if you wanted a remote chance of playing in the NFL in the days before 24/7 sports coverage, you chose a prestige name like Alabama, who had more exposure than any other southern team. Those were the days of the big-name schools, and like cotton, Alabama was king, so they generally did get the pick of the litter. I guess it could be worse. Anyone see Texas' lockdown of in-state talent in that chart?

But all this time since they hired Saban we've been hearing about how they're going to reestablish their recruiting superiority in the state. No more soup for you, Barners! Come back, ten jears!!! News flash, Gumps: You never lost it. You just weren't able to show anything for it with your coaching. Saban may not have to be quite the rehabilitator you thought you needed. Sure, it helps that he's recognized as a persistent recruiter, but all he has to do is get some average ROI from these blue-chippers for the balance sheet to get back into the black. That's something we at Auburn know a little bit about, having done it with lower-quality investment grades for decades.

Saban is definitely pulling in more out of state recruits than probably any Tide coach in history, so I'll be curious to check those numbers again in another 3-4 years. Even I want to throw a flag on Nick's encroachment into the West Georgia/Atlanta market the past three recruiting seasons. I thought we had exclusive rights there for poaching Georgia talent. I don't think we're going to lay down for them though. In between Tuscaloosa and Athens is a nice happy medium for kids that don't like the color red. We'll take it.

I guess in the end, Bammers just needed something to rub in our face two years ago when they threw the Hail Mary that Nick caught in Miami. They thought they were reclaiming something that they never quite relinquished. And like their estimation of national championships, the true numbers were a little off.

BCS Complaint Department

2009-01-15T19:39:00.001-05:00

Although many of you may argue that the BCS and a FBS playoff are inexorably intertwined, they are in fact two separate issues, which get co-mingled more than Bernie Madoff's checkbook. As many complaints against the BCS was bleeding through in our playoffs thread, I thought it might be a good idea to try and re-separate the two concepts, knowing that it might be harder than spreading conjoined twins connected at the butt cheek.

The BCS may be our de facto one game playoff, but most people forget the word 'one' in that sentence. The chief complaint is that it fails to organize any quality matchups below the NC game. Many wondered why we couldn't see an Alabama/Texas matchup, as the #3 and #4 teams. That, along with attempting to arrange other intriguing matchups, is a real easy question to answer: as Mr. College Football, Tony Barnhart, said last month, IT'S NOT THEIR JOB! The BCS was designed to do one thing and one thing only--get the #1 and #2 teams to play. Period. Ask anything else of them and they'll look at you like a NY City School Janitor would if you asked him to give up his union-mandated coffee breaks.

Most people forget that after the NCG takes priority with their picks, the Big Four Bowls will default back to their historic affiliations, if possible. Sometimes there are gaps, but usually not. And the Big Four only had agreements with the major conferences, not the little ones. If you're a lucky non-automatic qualifier who gets in, it's going to be pot luck, like with Utah to the Sugar this year. Sure, the Fiesta might have been more up their alley, but Glendale got to select before New Orleans. 'Tis the way it goes, as do the spoils. The selection procedure is a little more complicated than what you see on American Idol, so you can research that on your own ...

The next biggest gripe with the BCS is why the champs of the Big 6 conferences get an automatic berth into the party. Oh come on. A four year old knows the answer to that. It's the Golden Rule at work right before your very eyes. In order to get the original BCS format hammered out, this was the carrot and stick necessary for the major conferences to grant their approval. Anything less and they would have all been obstructionists, kinda like the PAC and BIG 10s are with a playoff right now...

Other little sticklers about the BCS, that can be researched further:

Extreme difficulty of more than one non-BCS conference team to make the cutoff, as seen with Boise State's plight this year

The strict limit of 2 teams per BCS conference, barring some major planet realignment, as evidenced by Texas Tech this year

Notre Dame automatically qualifying if they're ranked in the top 8 of the poll

The criteria of the BCS poll itself, which is enough to have it's own separate thread discussion.(Read: this thread isn't the place to debate who got left out in a given year)

Alas, help is on the way. Discussions will be held this spring on ways to further improve the BCS process. I'm sure we can forward to the committee the 200 comments that I expect to follow on this thread. We might also take some of our criticisms and see if the Utah Attorney General might want to amend the civil anti-trust complaint he's contemplating...

Spurrier Banned from Recruiting Atlanta Area High School

2009-01-13T17:27:00.002-05:00

Accused by a high school coach of dispicable recruiting practices, South Carolina and the Old Ball Coach himself have been banned from Tucker high, in metro Atlanta, from recruiting any more players. The controversy revolves around the recruitment of Jonathon Davis, a 5'7",205 lb linebacker who was initially offered a schollie by Gamecock assistants Shane Beamer and Ron Cooper. When Cooper has hired away from USC by LSU on January 6th, interest seemed to wane on Davis. His offer was withdrawn by SC soon after, leaving Davis high and dry.

Tucker HC Franklin Stephens had heated phone calls with both Beamer and Spurrier. He said that Spurrier "accepted blame" for the incident, but refused to do anything about it, hence the proclamation that the Gamecocks were "no longer welcome" to recruit Tucker players. Believe it or not, this type of thing seemingly goes on all the time.

So that got me thinking: where else might be some good places to ban Steve Spurrier, past, present and future? A list, from the home office in Atlanta, GA

10) Ron Zook's retirement party...

9) The coloring book section at the Auburn library...

8) Redskins' training camp...

7) Bobby Bowden's funeral...

6) From any more additions to the trophy case at Florida Field...

5) Former Florida QB and Heisman candidate Terry Dean's home...

4) The Back 9 at Augusta...

3) Athens, Georgia, period (unless he brings half a hundert with him...)

2) The winter home of the Tennessee Vols, the venue formerly known as the Citrus Bowl...

1) Participating on the sidelines of the SEC championship game ever again...

Playoffs? You Kidding me? Playoffs?

2009-01-13T17:02:00.003-05:00

The Fanblogs Code of Hammurabi states that no serious playoff discussions can ensue on this blog until the season is complete. In order to let the readers have their playoff cake and eat it too, we present this first debate of the year to open this 6th Fanblogs Congress.

The right honorable gentleman, Ben Prather, has the floor:

A plus one format adds another game but does not address the underlying problems of the BCS system. Teams near the cut off feel left out, a plus one just pushes this issue down a level. Undefeated teams ranked lower than #4 are still excluded. Why would the university presidents accept a proposal that does not address the perceived problems?

Playoffs are too rigid to meet the unique needs of college football and a fixed number of participants will always produce disagreement at the cutoff. The more teams that are included the greater the magnitude of disagreement at the cutoff; therefore a small number of teams is desirable. Playoffs deep enough to include all teams above the highest undefeated team throw out a century of bowl tradition which would be an enormous travesty to college football.

The only way around the impasse is a national championship system flexible enough to adjust to each year's individual circumstances.

First things first: This is not a play off, it is a championship system.

Invite all undefeated teams
Invite all teams above the first gap in the average top 25 ranking of 1.5 (A value of 0.06 in the current formula.)
Imbed a flexible championship structure into the current bowl system
A winning record warrants the honor of a bowl game.

A conference championship warrants the honor of a premier bowl game.

Only the two criteria above warrant talk about being national champion.

While Regan holds out for his criterion of conference champions with at most one loss, the logistical details are available from utesfan100@yahoo.com.

The right honorable gentleman, Tiger Educated, has the floor:

College football's always been a win or go home proposition. One loss, and you're behind the 8-ball. Two losses, and you better hope you're LSU in 2007. Because 99 times out of 100, it simply won't happen for you.

A playoff renders the regular season far less relevant. Losses wouldn't weigh as heavily on some teams.If you ask me, the grind of "one and done" control your own destiny is a compelling argument for college football's regular season, and a compelling one against a playoff.

I know that the current bowl system could easily be incorporated into a playoff. But there will always be a team on the outside looking in. There will always be a good number of 1 loss teams that have a beef. Notre Dame will also present a problem, as well.

Devaluing the regular season is something that would fundamentally change college football, in my opinion. Whether that change is for the positive, or for something else, is up for discussion.

It's an inevitable and inexorable march towards a playoff that we're on, albeit a slow one. I just hope its handled with as much respect towards the importance of the college football regular season as possible.

The right honorable gentleman, War Eagle Atlanta, has the floor:

At first, I supported playoffs fully. Now, I'm that proverbial optimist with experience. Having playoffs will merely substitute one set of gripes for another, but I'm still for them. Know this: There is no way that we will ever have more than a 4-teamer in my life time, and it may be two decades before we get that. Having all eligible conferences play a conference championship game will serve as a de facto 1st round of these playoffs and will be the easiest step to accomplish a more level playing field.

Regional and conference biases will still exist, and I want you all to repeat the following after me: there will still NOT BE A WAY TO ELIMINATE THE POLLS. You couldn't eliminate them if we had a 64-teamer, so it definitely won't happen with four. The bowls can still play an important part in this playoff proposal, but I don't think they should be written in stone. Occasionally take bids to see if any other venues care to step up. Also, I wouldn't mind a third legitimate national championship selector besides the AP and BCS to independently decide a NC. If you have three different polls selecting a champ, then the best 2 out of 3 would win it all, unless you have three different champs. If that's the case, then you should select Alabama or Notre Dame. You know, for tradition...

The right honorable gentleman, Kevin Donahue, believes that playoff talk is sacreligious to blessed college football - which has always been about more than just "one game" - and will not sully his karma with such ignoble talk. And he thinks it's a bad idea.

The floor is now turned over to you, the people.

The Case Against Utah

2009-01-13T00:57:00.002-05:00

I had forgotten that the Sugar Bowl was on two Fridays ago, so it was surprising to walk into that bar in Panama City Beach and see so many Tide fans that I thought it was their spring game. Even more surprising was when I looked up at the scoreboard and saw that Alabama was down 21-3. That was hard to believe. I thought this game was a sure thing. I never put 'root against Alabama' on my things to do list because I never thought Utah had a chance. I was wrong...

Utah finished ranked #2 in the AP poll and was the only major FBS school to go undefeated. Along the way, they beat 5 teams ranked at the time in the top 25: Michigan, Oregon State, TCU, BYU and Alabama. This was their second season with no losses in the last five years. If you recall, they also went undefeated in 2004 along with us. Their 2008 team was much better than the 2004 one, though. I'm a believer now. They weren't some 1984 BYU who played nobody on the way to the MNC. These guys are good. I think they would give a Texas or Oklahoma a run for their money, but probably not Florida.

Now, Utes fans (yes, Utes.) are clamoring for inclusion as a national champion. Their coach even stepped out of bounds in the coach's poll and voted for his team #1 even though he was obligated to vote for the BCS champion. Can't say I blame him really. He wouldn't be the first. Anyone remember how Tubs voted back in 2004? (asking: I don't know) But Utah is in the Mountain West conference, which if you recall, is the offspring of the old WAC when it ballooned up to 16 teams then split again. I guess you can call them the Mountain WAC now. I do.

But the MWC is a non-BCS FBS conference, just like the MAC, C-USA, et al. They don't get any BCS bowls reserved for them. They have to fight for two 'at-large' slots, and one of those has Notre Dame's name on it if they have a pulse that particular season. That certainly doesn't lend well for competing for national championships if you're a non-automatic qualifier. Even worse, they don't have the name recognition to get ANY recognition at the beginning of the season. Poor Utah's best chance to win a MNC is to build on this season next year and start out ranked in the top 6 and have another perfect season. Then, and only then...

But is that fair? Who said CFB was fair? Of course, it's fair. Who is Utah? Sure, they've played ball since 1892, roughly the same interval as we have. They're #34 in all-time wins with 607, which sounds good, but who have they played? Their all-time strength of schedule rating is only ranked 87th best. That's because they usually play other teams like themselves. Half of the top 10 all-time toughest schedules belong to current and former SEC teams. When we SEC homers talk about eating our own, we can back it up.

Is it fair to the top teams to include teams from conferences that don't pull their own weight typically? Why should they be invited to the party? Sure, it might be easy for them to get up for one big bowl matchup against a marquee opponent, but how would they fare if they had to play a whole schedule of them, plus a conference title game? Do you really think they could compete then? Forget comparing the major teams to the mid-majors. Make it easy and compare the conferences.

Some say that's it's a country club mentality--that the haves are trying to keep the have-not interlopers at bay. I hate to say it, but yea, sometimes it feels like Ted Knight trying to keep Rodney Dangerfield out of Bushwood. But the heavy hitters of college football came upon it honestly. They've paid their dues for the last 120 years. In their history, there's been tremendous regional bias to overcome and we're still dealing with it today. No one east and west of the Rockies really care about football in between those twin down markers yet. It's only important to them. Respect will have to earned--gradually. Slowly. Like Darwin-kinda slowly...

Football used to only be a Northeast and Midwest game. No one cared about Southern football for decades except Southerners. Southern football owes a debt of gratitude to those Alabama teams of the 1920s who went to the Rose Bowl a few times and won. They put Southern football on the map. Now the epicenter of the CFB world has refocused to the south.To give you an idea of how small it used to be, the Big 10(11) was originally known as the Western Athletic Conference. My, how things change.

Now the game is mostly about money. TV ratings are the barometer that allocates where the power is seated. The free market is the ultimate judge, and yes, sometimes it may seem like the rich are getting richer. Is it fair, I ask again? Yes and no. Maybe all they want is an opportunity. But what you believe is opportunity won't come until we get some sort of a playoff, and that will be decades, I truly believe now. So what are we supposed to do in the meantime to level the field? Here is my modest proposal about what those feeling left out these days could do to change their lot. Notice that no where do I claim that any of it is fair. I'm only saying that it's practical.

Grow, join, or secede your conference into 12 teams and play a conference playoff game. No mega-blob conferences like the WAC was before it split back into the WAC and the Mountain WAC. Implore the BCS conferences (Pac10, Big10(11), Big Eas(y)t who don't do this to start, in order to set a good example for you.

All the attention shouldn't be just at the college level. It has to start in high school. It's a cultural thing. Your prep farm system must be able to provide sustenance for all your major programs. You grow it like any other crop.

Expand your stadiums and sell them out. Sorry, we SEC'ers don't want to play in a 30k seat stadium outside of Nashville or Starkville. We don't even like playing in them then. Some high schools down here have larger stadiums than your universities, or fill them better. It's an investment. Your checkbook is your friend.

And any of you pull a fast one like Boise State did with that abomination of a field, you're gone FOREVER!!!

Extort, bribe and demand BCS conference schools to engage you in a series, even if you do have to travel two to one. Some call it the Florida State model. You play anyone, anywhere, any time. How else to you think a women's teacher college rose to be a football powerhouse in 50 years?

So there you have it. My recommendations for the mid-majors to slowly rise to the level of the big boys. You can't sit around and wait for a playoff to rescue this differential in opportunity. Every down is 1st and 40 for you if you're a mid-major. Time to chuck it across the middle into two-deep coverage for a change.

A Few Pics from the Chicken Bowl

2009-01-10T16:56:00.003-05:00

I forgot to post these. Proof positive that I was at the game. Okay, as close as you're going to get. They DO drive the car inside. Hmmm...

I hate taking pictures that don't have specific people in them, so this is all I got--especially since I decided to up the resolution on the camera and came up with these mega-files that take all day to load...

And finally, here's what it looks like when you surprise the birds in the middle of the night with the flash:

Misc.

2009-01-10T15:15:00.002-05:00

Chick-fil-A Bowl

With most fans about ready to quit CFB cold turkey for eight months today, only the die-hards like yourself will be able to suffice on the sparse tidbits of information that will filter out of the sport after the bowls, CG game and recruiting season all wrap up. One interesting piece I caught in the business section of today's AJC concerns the financial vitality of the Chick-fil-A bowl, and had a breakdown of last year's Auburn-Clemson game, which is the most current information available. Some of the more interesting bits:

Last week's game was the 12th consecutive sell-out

$12.31M in revenue; $10.24M in expenses

Had an average attendance of 71,986 the last 10 years--the highest of any non-BCS bowl

$1.04M in charitable giving with last year's game

Included in those expenses was a payout to Auburn and Clemson of $5.93M, with Clemson getting slightly more than the real Tigers. Evidently, by contract, ACC teams get slightly more because they're typically a higher pick than the SEC team. Amazingly, the ACC teams seem to travel well to this bowl, probably because the words ACC Conference Championship Game appear nowhere in the title.

Yep, the Chicken Bowl appears to be quite the going concern, and the whole Atlanta Sports Council, the parent organization, is coming up roses with a bowl on both ends of the season, especially now that they've inked Alabama to their second straight pre-season game in the Georgia Dome. Somebody please tell Jay Jacobs to throw OUR name in the hat for the next season...

Recruiting

It appears that OC Gus Malzahn, fresh from his outing in the GMAC bowl, paid prize TE recruit Phillip Lutzenkirchen of Marietta, GA (or is it Luchenbach, TX?) a visit Thursday night in an attempt to shore up his soft commit to a firm one. Considered to be one of the top recruits in the country at his position, Lutzenkirchen (Man, if this guy comes to the Plains, we gotta get him a nickname QUICK so we don't have to keep typing that name) would make a fine addition to the long line of quality tight ends at Auburn that we never threw to. Hopefully, Gus can change that part...

Barkley

And finally, for as much attention as this blog devoted to the Barkley debate, we seemingly let it go after his recent downfall. Like him or not, Barkley is a member of the Auburn family and I guess that most of us subscribe to the notion that if you can't say anything good about someone (especially a member of the family) just don't say anything at all. Regardless, this recent article by Jay Mariotti just about sums it up for me. Chaz, War Eagle and keep it zipped for a while...

UPDATE:

Looks like LB Jonathon Atchison of Douglas HS of Atlanta has cancelled his weekend visit to Auburn and will stay committed to Alabama. Atchison was originally committed to Auburn, but decommitted after Tuberville's firing and had stayed in limbo since. Rivals has Atchison as the 24th best outside LB in the country.

Stafford and Moreno to Declare Early

2009-01-07T17:25:00.003-05:00

It was announced this afternoon in Atlanta that both Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno will not return for their senior and junior years, respectively, to test the waters of the NFL draft. While most Bulldog fans were expecting at least one of them to go, having both declare is quite a blow for the pound pups. To put this decision in Auburn terms, it's akin to both Jason Campbell and Cadillac Williams declaring for the draft one year early after our failed 2003 MNC run.

Stafford apparently applied to the NFL for an evaluation of where he might come up in the draft--which you can do with no penalty from the NCAA--and liked what he got back--a probable first rounder. Moreno made no such request, but seemingly is willing to roll the dice anyway. Also evident is that Stafford is content to always play second fiddle behind QB David Greene in Georgia football annals, but maybe he needs the money...

I'm torn with what situations like this mean for my favorite sport. Although I generally don't give a damn about the NFL, I can be a bandwagon fan of any team with former Auburn players. I'm also a realist, and it's hard to ignore the lucrative contracts that await talented players. And who can blame them for wanting to move up the timetable on their life-long dream? Should the NCAA step in to stop this runaway train, or would that be limiting competition?

Football is a team sport, but college football is a family. You may go and be a hired gun for some franchise, but your family is always going to remember you for who you were. Although CFB is a de facto farm system for the NFL, it would pain me greatly to see it end up like the NBA, seemingly where players just check in and then hit the road. Maybe that's what's in store for us with all this hyper recruiting. You land a 5 star guy, he's gone in 2 years. I say no thanks. I'll stick with the guys that want to pay their dues for a while over the ones just passing through...

Support Wikipedia

2009-01-06T17:59:00.003-05:00

I donated $20 to the cause. I like the site and use it daily. Sure, it may have factual errors on topics of import, but where in the hell are you going to dig up info on the obscure and innane? Not on my site, that's for sure....

One day soon, I'm going to try my hand at filling in a stump article on something I know a little about. One day soon...

Sugar Bowl Notes

2009-01-06T11:38:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

2008-12-31T11:15:00.002-05:00

From the archives, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

Being the same age every single day of a given year makes growing older decidely convenient. Yea, right...

College Football Sniglets

2008-12-24T17:25:00.000-05:00

On the open thread, someone harkened back to the old Sniglets that used to be on the 1980s HBO series, Not Necessarily the News. If you recall, a Sniglet is a word that isn't found in the dictionary, but should be. You create the Sniglet by slightly changing the spelling of an existing word and then supplying a new definition. I thought it might be fun to create some about college football and even some about our site. Here are the few that I came up with. Since this is somewhat of an open-sourced blog, please, PLEASE try to come up with some of your own, or you might as well hijack it now...

Seatmoflage Using quick camera shots to cover up all the empty seating at most bowls and the ACC championship game...

Aubdition: Act of applying for a job as a coordinator only to turn around and seek a HC position elsewhere or get fired after one year...

Stoopsified: being bewildered at winning your conference, challenging for the national crown, but failing to show up for your bowl game...

Notre Damned: The verdict on all coaches assuming the mantle of the Golden Dome ever since Lou Holtz, of all people...

Okla-homa-in-come-free: child's expression for a 'do-over' with the conference tie-breaker rules...

BigTension: Using an incorrect numerical identifier in the name of your conference...

SoCal Grapes: Post-season complaining that the overall strength of your conference and it's lack of a title game failed to advance you into the BCS CG....

Floribuster: the act of postponing debate on who's deserving of BCS consideration by insisting the SEC champ should always get a shot...

MAC Attack: having a 8-5 team knock off your undefeated glory boy to end any hopes of a BCS shot...

Mack Attack: air assault usually involving tie-breaker rules changes...

Self Bamaflagellation: what you do to your 13-1 coach if he drops back to another 7-6 season again...

Yellow Line Fever: Illness causing momentary confusion when the ball carrier crosses the blue 'spot' line and you think it's the yellow 'first down' line, resulting in premature cheering...

Utahoria: What Mormons experience when both the Utes and Cougars are ranked coming into the Holy War...

Southecate: how the rest of your conference slowly asphyxiates when all it's strong teams are in one division...

Auburnese Fire Drill: when the cars stop, all coaches get out and try to get in another car.

And some about Fanblogs here:

Blogurgitate: the act of cutting and pasting a whole passage from another blog rather than merely providing a link... Also: Tomblogurgitate: Cutting and pasting the exact quote of comments you wish to respond to directly into the body of your post...

Benediction: any diction coming from Ben Prather, usually involving stats no one else understands. Must also include the phrase, automatic-qualifier...

Collinsialism: any folksy phrase popularized by bloggers, such as Was it something I said, or Crimson and Cream True or even What do you mean by 'buddies'?

Babeophile: standard gender identifier in the moniker of all females coming to our fair site. Not considered sexist...

Homerphobia: fear of coming across too partisan in defending one's team. Not seen in years...

WEAther report: snide, clever posts coming from yours truly, who makes it up on the spot, I swear...

Christmas, 1975

2008-12-20T17:27:00.003-05:00

Just found this today from some old family photos that I had scanned quite a few years ago. This is Teresa and I during Weinachten, in Germany, 1975.

Gotta love those plaid slacks...

Coach Chizik: Bring Rodney Garner Back Home!

2008-12-18T18:02:00.000-05:00

As Mean Gene is on the road recruiting this week, very little is coming out about his potential staff hires, including the all-important coordinator slots. I've got a great idea to bring some positive press attention our way--call Rodney Garner back home immediately. Offer him DC if you have to. His alma mater needs him desperately, especially in his chosen field of expertise--recruiting. Other than a Jacobs resignation, this could be the best news we could hear by Christmas.

Never mind the politics involved in such a hire: Garner himself interviewed for the position that was ultimately given to a coach popularly deemed less deserving than almost all the candidates. So what? Here's a good chance to move up, if he's granted DC, or at least make a lateral move back to his alma mater, where his services are greatly needed. Hell, have his old coach Pat Dye write him one of those Dye letters we're seeing if that'll help motivate him. Also, what about it being potential on-the-job training for a step up to head coach? I'm very confident that Garner might have had a serious shot as our HC if he had coordinator experience on the resume. If he climbed up the ladder to that position at Auburn, he could be in a great position to one day succeed Chizik.

There were always hushes and rumors why Garner left his recruiting coordinator position at Auburn under Bowden to go to Tennessee. Some said that his efforts might have been a little bit, how do you say, zealous? Who knows for sure. Garner was with the Vols for two years, but had landed at Georgia by 1998 under Jim Donnan. He's flourished at Georgia, not only surviving as recruiting coordinator under Mark Richt, but being promoted to assistant head coach as well. But curiously, after the Auburn administration flipped over to Tuberville in late 1998, no one ever gave Garner serious attention to bring him back. It's rumored that the main reason was that 'recruiting zeal' we talked about earlier and that Tubs was under strict orders to run a clean program. What leads me to question that excuse is the fact that if anyone out there runs a cleaner program than Tuberville, it's Richt. It's highly doubtful that Richt would allow for such shenanigans to run amok under his program.

And a secondary factor for making such a hire is that you remove him from one of your biggest competitors. Let me tell you, Georgia is very fearful that Auburn might try to hire away not only Rodney Garner, but former Auburn tackle Stacy Searels, too. Searels is Georgia's current offensive line coach and has been doing a fantastic job there by all accounts. A loss of Garner might break the Bulldog's recent lock down of the talent exodus from the state.

Since recruiting classes have started to be ranked, Garner has only put together quite a few top 10 classes for Georgia. Most would consider him to be the perfect counter-weight for Saban's efforts out of Tuscaloosa, especially with Garner's all-important inroads in the Atlanta market. Just as football the game is about momentum, so is football the program. Perception IS reality for most folks, and the collective mood about a particular program can be altered just by how people interpret certain events, sometimes even leading to self-fulfilling prophecies. Publicity-wise, Auburn is in desperate need of some positive news coming out of the football program after recent events, and hiring Rodney Garner could serve as our fumble recovery deep in our opponents territory late into the 4th quarter...

Calling All Auburn Fans: It's Time to Get Behind Your New Coach!!

2008-12-16T00:15:00.001-05:00

Gene Chizik: Part II of first press conference

Part II from today's presser:

Certainly, the editors here at TET have been just as devastated over the events of the last two weeks as any one, but we can't fool some of you optimists out there. Amidst the rants and raves and the vicious attacks on each other, I remember one voice of reason making a statement along the lines of this: if you're a true Auburn fan, you have to get behind Chizik. You have no choice... And I guess that I subscribe to that notion of devotion--the one that admits you're powerless to do anything else because you're so deeply, madly, passionate about your team. Yea, it's either that or because the Bama bandwagon has already left the station...

But please don't confuse any calls for all the Auburn faithful to start backing Chizik as being the same as to forget about the transgressions of the administration in this controversy. I still feel we are owed an explanation and accounting of what happened, and I think we should start to move in another direction with more than just the position of head football coach. Please keep this in mind though: both Jacobs and Gogue are AUBURN men and should thus be shown greater respect than if they were just hired guns brought in. Although we fans have been been in need of some stress relief lately, I was really mortified that video of Jacobs' heckler made it onto more than just Tiger sites. I couldn't even bring myself to comment at the link over at Fanblogs, where I assume the role of chief defender of the Auburn faith...

But even if we do continue to complain bitterly about the administration's role in the coaching fiasco, eventually the criticism intersects directly onto the coach. It runs a fine line, and most wouldn't be able to differentiate it anyway. We can't risk it and we no longer have time for it. We need Mean Gene to hit what's left of the recruiting season hard, so there's no time to be spared with the continual questioning of his legitimacy. And that's what we'd be doing. He'd be George W. Bush and Auburn fans would be the 2000 election Democrats if we don't stop it, and we sure don't need that sort of derisiveness.

Of course, any die-hard among us could stoop to what a few Gator fans did back in 2002 when Ron Zook was hired, and that was to create the Fire Ron Zook website, which was notorious in it's day. It's no longer up, but the remnants of it are linked here. It was the first sports blog I ever read, but overall, I thought it was pretty shameful that they never gave the guy a chance. Of course, those sanctimonious blogstards eventually had their glory, as Zook was canned after the Miss State loss in the 2004 season. I never did get their take on what it was like to be a cancer for their program for that fleeting glimpse of a moment, although I suppose we do have them to thank for the explosion of sports blogs in the last few years--half of which seem to be devoted to the Gators. Hmmm...

And speaking of Gators, that's what our new coach used to be back in his playing days, but you'd never know it by reading any of the usual suspects--not much love out there for a former boy from old Florida. Maybe they're just busy gearing up for that whole MNC thing they've got going on. Of course, I turned to some hopeful words of wisdom from Mr. College Football himself this morning but got no joy there either. Regardless, I'm glad we now have a coach who's roots are in the SEC. He knows instinctively what it takes to make it in this league, and it certainly doesn't hurt that this is his second pass through the Plains.

For those worried about his resume, I don't think it's any big thing. He was the hottest assistant in the game at the end of 2005, and he finally got his call up to the show after the 2006 season. I think the way we should treat Chizik's time at Iowa State is as one big college football mulligan. The Cyclones aren't the Vanderbilt of the Big 12, they're the equivalent to what Duke would be if Duke was in the SEC for the last 75 years. You know how we SEC fans treat Vanderbilt coaches, right? Yea, Bobby Johnson should really be considered for SEC coach of the year after securing the Commodores their first bowl berth since Reconstruction. See? You have to give Iowa State coaches similar if not more consideration.

So now I think it's time that the Auburn nation turns a corner and starts this process of healing. It's going to be a bumpy ride and we may not always agree, but like that that one commenter said, we have to. We don't have a choice. Not as true fans we don't...

Give a Hoot! We Salute the Rice Owls!!!

2008-12-10T16:37:00.002-05:00

Probably not the most current picture available...

No, the Rice Owls aren't a nocturnal species of avian predators indigenous to Okinawa, they're the second biggest college program in Houston, Texas, and the second-smallest enrollment program in Divison 1-A. This year, in spite of having a successful season, they failed to advance to the Conference-USA championship game, but have put the CFB nation on notice that they are back, having been selected to attend their second bowl game in the last three seasons.

Not merely content to be a side dish any longer, Rice will try this year to win their first bowl game in 55 years--their last win coming in that notorious blowout of Alabama in the 1954 Cotton Bowl made infamous by a play that lives on in CFB annals:

Rice is led this year by QB Chase Clement, who has 41 TD throws and ranks #6 nationally in completion percentage. Unknown by most college football fans, there is a state decree that all QBs coming out of Texas be named either Colt or Chase, in keeping with Lone Star state tradition of sounding either like a gunfighter or a bank. As a matter of fact, President-elect Obama will soon introduce legislation that in addition to getting an eight-team playoff up and running early into his first term, that every Divison 1-A team should have at least one player named Colt on the roster by 2011.

So let's all whoop in up for the Rice Owls this bowl season, and have them break that bowl win drought that made the Navy streak with Notre Dame look like just a fad. Hoot, hoot, Owls!!!

h/t: TC

CSI Auburn: Crime Scene Investigation

2008-12-08T19:29:00.001-05:00

After the whole Auburn canoe was capsized last week from the big hippo in the water that is our administration, it's been a pretty severe five days hence. To the shock and utter dismay of most in the Auburn nation, our world was turned upside down suddenly and abruptly, and what is now readily apparent is that last week involved a bluff, calling it, and someone leaving with all the chips. There may have been some sort of contest involving urination, too. The one thing we do know for certain is that neither side had a contingency plan for what to do next.

Look, I'm not an insider. I don't profess to know exactly what happened last week, but I don't have my head in the sand, either. I'm just a detective sorting through the evidence trying to solve this crime. What I've heard is that Tubs had been given non-official assurances that he could stay. He might have been given the green light officially in his meeting with Gogue on Monday. Where the problem came was with his first meeting with Jacobs on Tuesday. Again, rumor has it that Tubs knew going in that he was going to have to make some unspecified number of coaching changes. I'm guessing he was told that number on Tuesday and didn't like it one bit, hence the return trip on Wednesday, after getting to sleep on it.

Maybe that when Tubs met again with Jacobs, he told them he wasn't going to fire all the staff that he was instructed to. As to whether or not this was within his power as HC is uncertain, but regardless, the administration had a big problem with it, resulting in a stand-off. Tuberville may have just told them, "fire me", and they may have called his bluff. Maybe Tubs said that he was done with all this, and that he would 'resign' with his buyout in place. I'm guessing the former scenario, but with some consideration given to appearances; i.e. each side covering their asses.

That the administration couldn't work things out with an extremely popular coach who had the second best record on the Plains in the last 30 years is deplorable. That they would do so in a manner where they constructed some sham story about his resignation AND fail to have a backup plan, (read: another coach) is strictly amateurish, and as a result, the fallout shouldn't just end with the head coach. I want the whole chain of command.

That Jacobs presser on Thursday was one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen. Who's idea was it for him to go in there and lie like that? Jacobs did a worse acting job than you'd see this side of an 80's porno. I think they should have brought the old Iraqi Iformation Minister, Baghdad Bob, out of retirement to front for Gogue and Lowder instead:

Tommy Tuberville has requested his retirement from the university and will be spending his days in a hunting lodge in Arkansas with 72 virgins...

There is no Tommy Tuberville inside the city limits of Auburn. We crushed his intrusion onto Tiger soil at the Auburn/Opelika airport, praise be to Allah....

Allah willing, we will find a replacement coach soon, by either poaching one from an infidel school or hiring an unqualified one...

If you're Auburn officials, what's so terribly wrong with telling the truth? We reached an impasse with coach Tuberville and have decided to make a change. Are they afraid that it might give them a bad reputation or something? I think that Dick Nixon was a little sensitive about his reputation five years after Watergate, too. OF COURSE it's not going to be a popular decision, but you don't compound it by telling some hokey story THAT NO ONE BELIEVES!

And don't think that I believe Tuberville is an angel in all this. Maybe he could have done something to stave off this divorce, I dunno, maybe sleep on the couch a few nights, maybe bring home some flowers. I thought we had converted him into a true believer. All I do know is that he's not talking and he had six million reasons why he didn't have to do anything. Only his mama knows for sure at this point.

But how do we know that the administration had no plan in place IF they had to fire Tuberville? Because it's Monday and we still don't have a coach, that's why. You don't play a few hands of Arkansas Hold 'Em with a six million dollar pot and not have some other plan when someone scrapes your cash off the table and decides he's going home. It's the only game in town!! What are you going to do now, Auburn?

There's not exactly a bumper crop of coaches out there. You quickly send word to the hottest name out there, Leach, but you quickly rebuff him after 2 days. You send word to the worst possible choice, Petrino, out of spite for Tuberville, and in your haste you quickly get some coaches some new contracts--Nutt and soon-to-be Paul Johnson. Cool. You can throw a little weight around, but at the end of the week, we still don't have a coach.

Now you're back to square one, with new interviews this week, including some political cover by interviewing some alumni, Rodney Garner and Pat Nix. Although both are fine coaches, it's doubtful that either one is ready for stewardship of a program like ours. If you're going for the alumnus angle, you might as well hire Pat Sullivan out of Samford. At least he's got HC experience, but you can't shake the feeling that any of them would feel like Mike Shula hires...

We've got some serious soul-searching to do as a school. We're turning an otherwise respectable program into something that makes potential coaches a little squeamish about coming here. Auburn shouldn't be any person's or small group's little fiefdom to govern as they see fit, it should be under much broader control. We've all seen what happens when you have a small band of individuals with power micro-manage the football program. All you had to do was look west to Tuscaloosa at the coaching debacles the last 25 years. Now they've consolidated that power into ONE person, the coach, and look at the dividends it thus far seems to be paying. If we don't pull our act together, we face finally stepping outside of Alabama's shadow and rising to the top in one category: coaching quagmire.

Need a Good Laugh Today?

2008-12-06T15:45:00.001-05:00

The model falling is funny enough, but the news anchors laughing is even better!

Auburn Claims Tuberville 'Resigned'

2008-12-04T18:25:00.002-05:00

Auburn AD Jay Jacobs on Tuberville, coaching search

Here's a portion of today's press conference with Jay Jacobs regarding the Tuberville resignation, courtesy of AL.com. Watch the whole thing, but beginning around 6:30 into it, Jacobs spins this elaborate tale about how Tuberville resigned and was not fired. Do they honestly expect anyone to believe that load of crap? It's bad enough that we shove the man out the door after one bad season, but they have to buy $6,000,000 worth of political cover so they don't look like a bunch of asses yet again? In addition to wanting Jacob's head, I want Gogue's if he approved this shamble of a charade.

After viewing this presser earlier, I decided it was a good time to go ahead and sent President Gogue an email. Witness:

Dr. Gogue:

This whole firing debacle is a disgrace for our university and brings shame to me and all other members of the Auburn family. What is even worse than that is the spin that is now being played out in the media by AD Jacobs to convince the public that this was a resignation. Although few believe this ruse, I believe that one more resignation should be accompanying Tuberville's, and that is Jacobs'.

Although athletics is just a small part of what a university offers, it's easily the most recognizable and scrutinized part. That's why you pay the football coach millions of dollars a year. And since you now freely pay five millions dollars plus for Tuberville to leave, I cannot in good conscience donate any more money to a school that is so reckless in it's finances, even if it is the athletic department. I would say that most of my peers feel the same way, too.

For the school to reward Tuberville's loyalty and accomplishments to our school with a second coup within 5 years has tarnished us with another black eye and earned us additional public scorn. You, being an Auburn alumnus, should be especially keen to this situation. It is an event like this that makes me want to take my diploma off my office wall and hide it in a drawer somewhere.

Sincerely,

Greg Goodwin, '90
Atlanta, GA

So if any of you would also like to send your sentiments to Dr. Gogue, now might be a good time: jgogue@auburn.edu

Who Will Succeed Tuberville?

2008-12-04T13:07:00.002-05:00

Like I mentioned in the comments yesterday, the Tuberville firing is one of those things that makes me want to take my diploma off my office wall and shove it into a drawer somewhere. Not since Jetgate have I been so utterly disappointed in my school. By turning on Tuberville so quickly, the administration has once again demonstrated the ruthlessness of college athletics and failed to live up to the Auburn spirit--which includes giving a person a chance at redemption. I thought that Tubs was a true believer of the Auburn faith and we have repaid his loyalty with a knife in the back. And following the sentiments of the other contributors on here, I'm all for a TOTAL house cleaning, which should also include Jay Jacobs getting shown the door so we can get someone in there more adept at such a position.

The next coaching hire is going to be very difficult and comes at a critical time, namely the rise of Alabama and Saban. The AJC's Tony Barnhart devoted a whole column to the subject this morning that should be read by everyone. The jest of it is that if Auburn doesn't knock one out of the park with their next coach, we could be left out in the cold for a while to come.

Gathering up the names of possible candidates to replace Tubs is akin to a goat rodeo at this point. Rumors fly and many players in the game hold their cards closely to their vest, so delivering you accurate assessments will be a work in progress. I'll attempt to run down as unabridged list as I can at this juncture, and please feel free to contribute your own insight, innuendo, and speculations.

First up is a few names MOST of you have heard of:

Mike Leach: Current Texas Tech coach and probably the hottest name out there ever since he took a clandestine trip to interview for the Washington Huskies job this past weekend and put the world on notice that he'll listen to offers. Auburn has made contact with him to gauge his interest.

Bobby Petrino: Was approached non-directly about the possibility. He supposedly has rebuffed any further advances. Whoever's idea this was to approach Petrino considering the history should be fired immediately. That's nothing but a slap in the face to Tuberville. It's mean and vicious. The feasibility of Petrino is practically nil, so this only served the purpose of throwing one last knife at the back of Tuberville. Real nice, whoever did this. Idiot...

Will Muschamp: Just promoted to coach-in-waiting status at Texas to keep him put for a few years. Many suitors were probably going to come calling otherwise. I'm still unsure if his deal is signed yet. Still don't know if he's seasoned enough for a HC job, but I don't doubt this Georgia alum's desire to one day return to the SEC under ideal circumstances.

Houston Nutt: I think he might have been approached unofficially, but probably won't be going anywhere. A third SEC west team in three years might make him look a little too opportunistic and flighty--kinda like Petrino. Besides, Ole Miss would really hate us if we poached our 2nd coach in a row from them...

Steve Spurrier: Ever since his rebirth in Columbia has seemly ground to a halt, Spurrier gets more mentions for SEC coaching vacancies than you get UFO sightings out of trailer parks. Although I believe that Alabama offered him a job two years ago, I firmly believe that he is going no where, literally AND figuratively, at South Carolina.

Paul Johnson: The new Georgia Tech coach and freshly minted ACC coach of the year. His stock has shot up dramatically and he LOVES to run the ball. Just don't think he's the ship-jumping type, though.

Okay, some names that aren't as familiar:

Jimbo Fisher: Another coach-in-waiting at FSU, and another with some Auburn experience, having been an assistant under Terry Bowden. With Bobby Bowden locked in The Coaching Race of Death with Joe Paterno, can Fisher keep waiting for one of them to kick the bucket?

Derek Dooley: HC at Louisiana Tech, who's enjoyed some success recently, and certainly has the pedigree, being the son of Vince. not sure if he's ready for the show yet...

Brian Kelly: HC at Cincinatti, having a good year after winning the Big Eas(y)t and a BCS Bowl bid. His name is getting a lot of buzz. I don't know much about him yet.

Chris Peterson: HC at Boise State, you know, the team that plays on that please don't adjust your television set field. Undefeated this year and possibly going to a BCS bowl. He might be ready for the big leagues...

Todd Graham: HC at Tulsa. Having some success there. He and OC Gus Malzohn, who himself was mentioned as a possible OC hire for us before the Tubs firing, sure do know how to score some points.

Bill Cowher: Former Pittsburgh Steelers coach, who's name often gets thrown out for college vacancies. Good damn coach, but it's highly unlikley that he would want to go to the college ranks.

Well, that's what I got so far. Will keep you updated as more information filters through. Let us know what you've heard and hopefully we'll get this narrowed down soon enough.

What it Means To Be Part of This Rivalry

2008-11-27T23:50:00.002-05:00

Hope everybody had a good turkey day. I'm back once again with one last chance to wax poetic before the big game, then it's time to snap on the chin strap and get it on. We've had some fun the last few days over at our sister blog, Roll Bama Roll--maybe too much fun, as their moderators had to close down a thread or two and put us all to bed without our dinner. Regardless, that's just a typical Iron Bowl week, especially since the advent of the blogging age. All's fair during rivalry week, and it's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, as they say, it's hilarious--except if gun play is involved.

Whether you're Barner or Bammer, each program defines itself in large part by the intensity of the rivalry between us. Who among us doesn't take solemn pride in the fact that most people in the know around CFB rank this match up as the most intense rivalry in the game, if not in all of sports? How did we ever reach such a lofty and envious position, two teams from the heart of Dixie, a place not normally given second thought by the rest of the country? Earlier in the year, I decided I wanted to try and find an empirical answer--something tangible to wrap my hands around, not something simply based on opinion--be it from learned individuals or not.

So, the first comparison I looked at was at the state itself. How did the state of Alabama compare with the rest of the nation when comparing the best two football teams contained within? I chose the best two teams in each state because I wanted small states to have a fair shot with the larger ones. I looked at each tandem's historical standing in CFB, and the results matched what I'd been saying privately for years: the Yellowhammer state had the best one-two punch of football teams in all the land, period!

In the second installment, I decided to compare intrastate rivalries on a bit more subjective basis, but ranked from a litany of categories that would hopefully point to an objective conclusion. Again, my suspicions were confirmed, but there was still a shadow of doubt that despite my best efforts, maybe I was still afflicted with a case of homerism. Regardless, I did convince myself that the Iron Bowl is indeed the best rivalry in all of CFB, and that to be a part of it was something very humbling and honorable.

The Crimson Tide's success in the annals of college football cannot be disputed. No rational fan can deny their achievements, even if they have been thrown in our faces for decades. Alabama currently ranks among the top three programs of all time, and #2 in my book. They're the most dominant team in the greatest football conference, the SEC, and their conference titles cast an even more imposing shadow than their national titles do. That being said, I never want it suggested that I am jealous of any of Alabama's accomplishments. I respect the Crimson Tide program, and like I told someone earlier in the week, nothing born of respect should ever be considered as jealousy.

I don't believe that the average Auburn fan even thinks much about all of Alabama's glory. Why should it effect who we are? We have a respectable program that has enjoyed success in it's own right. We're #13 all-time in Division 1-A wins and a top 20 historical program, once you factor in all major factors. We also have the 5th toughest strength of schedule ranking in CFB history. Going into this season, we ranked #4 in all-time conference winning percentage in the toughest conference in all the land and we have won a national title and come close on other occasions. And we've done all this despite living in the shadow of a heavyweight. We're not sexy--we're definitely a blue-collar team, but we manage to get it done.

But probably our greatest claim to fame is that despite constantly being measured against one of the all-time great programs, we've never let that Goliath put us away in the head-to-head competition. We have an opportunity Saturday to pull within 4 games of tying Alabama in the all-time series. No other intrastate rivalry is as close. Most of them are blowouts in the all-time records. As I write this tonight, Texas is beating Texas A&M in their 115th game together. Texas will improve their record to 74-36-5 against the Aggies. That's a 38 game lead over their fiercest in-state rival--they have more than twice the number of wins. That, my friends, ain't even close. Yet, Auburn is only 5 games behind one of CFB's greatest teams. Bama has a winning record against every other team in the SEC, but no one in the conference plays them closer than us. It may be hard to imagine, but we had a winning record against them before Paul Bryant, and after him. We just didn't do too well during his tenure. But time marches on...

So many fans view the rivalry between Auburn and Alabama as a zero-sum game. Basically, that means that one side can't be winning unless the other one is losing--the scales must always be balanced. Obviously, that scenario holds true with the game itself--there will forever be a winner and a loser on that day, but I'm talking more about the programs themselves during a given season. Why can't both teams have a successful year? Certainly, no one would argue that both can't have disastrous seasons the same year. Sure, only one team can win the west and go to Atlanta and possibly win the conference crown, but both teams don't challenge for the divisional title every single year. The west is more competitive than the east, with 5 teams having played in the conference CG as opposed to only three in the east.

Again, why can't both teams have good years at the same time? Certainly, this season has no chance to buck that perception. Alabama's ahead-of-schedule rise eerily coincides with Auburn's slump, but I submit that it's pure coincidence at this juncture. I believe that momentum swings very slowly, and it should take longer for it to fully swing back Alabama's way if it exists at all, but most people point to this season as proof that the pendulum swings more in step with A-Rod than father time.

But suppose for a moment that Auburn was also undefeated going into this Iron Bowl. Would Bama fans be as confident? Would they be just as proud of their successful season to date or would it somehow be tempered by Auburn's successes, too? Why do you have to define your success through the prism of the other team? Sure, they're your rival, but other than that one game, what does it really matter? Can you look at your now vanquished foe, who just lost the Iron Bowl, and state emphatically that their season is now lost? That's something that each fan has to define for themselves, and that result will continue to define this rivalry, the fiercest in all the land. At least for this installment of the Iron Bowl, Auburn's season can be mended with a win over Alabama. Alabama's can be destroyed by a loss.

Just Walked Right into Their Thread and Bitch-Slapped All of Them

2008-11-27T00:11:00.000-05:00

Our big sisters over at Roll Bama Roll (they must be, since they always call us Little Brother) decided they couldn't cause enough havoc over here, so they decided to have a little Fanpost called THIS IS WAR!! They were in there poking fun at our man Gumptown Tiger (clap, clap) for criticizing them for all that non-football crap they put on their site, trying to be like EDSBS, so I decided to give them a war. I'll give them a war they won't believe!

At first, I wanted to thank them for all the attention they were giving Gumptown Tiger, but then I noticed something peculiar about them (other than their grammar and spelling). A lot of them had pithy little signatures after their monikers--I guess in an attempt to blend in with the rest of their cheesecake/beefcake TMZ pics and articles. Anyway, I decided to kick it up a notch and let loose with this while they all (metaphorically) sat around with a dumb look on their faces:

I appreciate you guys...enshrining Gumptown Tiger in the TET hall of fame the way you did. I tell you, that kid is something special, and there's no way that we could have honored him quite the way you did. Many thanks!

Okay: Q&A time with Bammer signatures found on RBR:

Alabama judges its team by national and SEC titles. Auburn judges its team by how many times it beats Alabama. You tell me who the dominant team in the state is--Nose Gad. Alabama is. By five games...(and counting down) Got SEVEN???

With a female-IHOP, With the guys-Waffle House. With a female your pulling Wingman on-Taco Bell" ~ Comer4tide, on his favorite place to eat at 3 AM --Bama Returns 07 WEA: at the strip club buffet, where I met the little Bammer ho--why do you ask?

Hell, no! A tie is like kissing your sister! -- gomer4tide Yea, but you let it go further than that, you incestuous little redneck!

When you are an Alabama fan you have to hate Auburn, I hate Tennessee because i want to.--bammer And they both hate you back for going over to their sites all the damn time!

"There's a lot of blood, sweat, and guts between dreams and success" - Coach Bryant, as said by Top Daddy Don't forget bourbon! Blood, sweat, guts AND bourbon!!!

RBR's KING of HIP-HOP...--MrSpockJenkins You know, I got no answer for that, dog. You da man, mister Spock...Word to your bammer! Moron...

I hate everything orange It's all about Crimson - ROLL TIDE!!!--bamavicki That's strange, because that's the only color panties you own, Victoria--ORANGE!!!

So, you want a war? I just came into YOUR house and bitch-slapped all of you!! You wanna man-up (gal-up, Vicki) and come return the favor at my house?

Todd, you're not going to delete this or ban me, are you?

WEA

P.S. Hey, Jen!

INCOMING!!!!!!!!!

Glory, glory to old Auburn...
Glory, glory to old Auburn...
Glory, Glory to old Auburn...

A-----U------Got-----Owned-----Today!!!!!!

Rumors, Innuendo, and Other Off-Week Highlights

2008-11-21T16:33:00.002-05:00

Silly me. At the beginning of the season, I had transcribed our schedule onto my calendar at work--incorrectly, as it turns out. I had the Iron Bowl immediately following the Georgia game, you know, where it belongs, so I went through most of last week thinking that we had a one-week turnaround. Since we had that fun panty raid over at Dawg Sports, I thought it might be a good idea to scout out sister SB Nation Blog Roll Bama Roll to see what formations they might be running in practice and determine what kind of mischief we might get into. Looks like that will have to wait a week or so, but I would like to take this opportunity to invite all Bammers over next week for some fun festivities. I'm thinking about dedicating a whole thread just for them that doesn't necessarily include a Top 10 list. We'll be sure to have great commentary, fun polls, and a magic show for the kids, so we'll see you then...

Evidently, an email is circulating, especially amongst the students, (and HEY students, how about a little Hat Tip now and then?) that purports the tale of a friend of a player, describing how the team is dealing with some recent treachery by Tony Franklin. Witness: (Sorry, giving it verbatim. If you want to track the originator down, look for someone missing a pinkey, used for hitting the shift key...)

from a player in my lab…i had befriended one of the senior lineman…he was responsible for signaling in plays…he said that this past week was the hardest preparation week they have had all year…the reason…all of the signs that are used had to be changed…apparantly after the utm game, one of the utm coaches came up to tubbs and told him that his signs had been known by every team he’s played since franklin left…not only that, but mark richt called tubbs the week before the uga game (btw mark richt may be my new favorite coach because of this) and told tubberville it was in his best interest to change all of his signs because he knew all of them…wonder why we started going to a huddle now???…from everything i gather, coach tony franklin put those bad boys out there for the world to know…it can be traced back to arkansas is what coach richt said…so for the past however many weeks, every team we played either knew our signs, or had the opportunity to know them…i’m not saying that that’s an excuse for our offensive woes, but it could explain how we looked so predictable and how kodi makes a majority of his completions after the play has broken down…i knew franklin was a snake, but if this is true, i hope he never coaches again…i hope he has to go door to door selling his books and video’s…he’s dead to me…

Now that's funny! It's complete bonk, but perfect fodder for those looking to pile onto our miserable season. I'm really surprised that none of the Bammers have sent this to my personal email yet with all the other jokes they keep me apprised of. (Keep the cards and letters and good-wishes coming!) But what's even funnier than the email itself is the belief that Auburn folk created it just to excuse their poor performance on the field this season. That takes the top shelf prize, right there. What's next? An email from Gogue to the student body that will offer grief counseling to all requesting it after the Iron Bowl?

And what's this persistent rumor growing legs about some back-channel agreement/conspiracy/abdication of Tubs to Clemson being a done deal? It's been reported by a few sites, and even Mr. College Football himself, Tony Barnhart, alluded to it's possibility last week, although now I can't find the specific reference in his blog (hmmmm...). Depending on which blog you read, and the time of day, they have Tubs leaving ranging from after the Iron Bowl to after Thanksgiving dinner. Jeeeez! I know stories are hard to come by in the blogosphere, but promulgating this kind of stuff is scraping the barnacles off the bottom. Feeding topics like these are one of the reasons the establishment hates sports blogs.

And speaking of hating blogs, this week Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, in a complete moment of candor, had this to say about blogs:

I don't get on message boards. I don't think anybody, any of our players or family should. But it's amazing some of the things that people would say or amazing things people will yell at you of a personal nature. You almost want to tell them get a life. I mean, there's a whole lot bigger problems. You lose a ballgame, and then you look at the economy or after every game I usually get to meet one of our veterans or somebody. You know, to take it personal on a coach or player to me, I don't think it's ever right.

Roger that, RichRod. I kinda understand what he's saying, but perhaps having a current record of 3-8 isn't the best time to say it. But wait. If you don't get on them, how do you know all the personal attacks that they contain? Or does your coaching staff have a dedicated blog/message-board scout? I'm thinking that Richie reads them. I wonder if our coaches read any? If they do, it's probably that damn Joe Cribbs Car Wash. Man, what I wouldn't give for a little acknowledgement from our staff! Just some kind of sign. Even a denial. Tubs: "We totally disavow reading anything from Track Em Tigers, and nothing says denial like Bryan luncheon meats..." Yup. We bloggers are so lonely, we have to subside on shout-outs from other bloggers. It's a world with tough, tough competitors...

Muschamp Offered On-the-Job Training at Texas

2008-11-18T18:54:00.002-05:00

An announcement out of Austin this afternoon that Texas DC Will Muschamp has been offered a multi-year contract extension that will nail him down as DC for the forseeable future and will lead to him eventually supplanting Mack Brown as the Longhorns' head coach. Details of the contract are still being ironed out, but so far include a bump in Muschamp's salary to $900,000 beginning in January.

It's still unclear as to how long this grooming process will last as Brown has 8 more years left on his contract and is "not thinking at all about moving on." Obviously, Texas is looking to secure the hot coaching prospects' services before waves of other schools come calling in a year where there is a dearth of existing rising stars. His name is probably the most mentioned prospect that has never held a HC position and Texas rightfully wanted to see that he stayed put.

Muschamp served as DC for LSU under Nick Saban, then promply left with him when Saban jumped to the NFL Dolphins. After that 2-year stint, he returned to college football and served as DC with Auburn for two years before making the jump to Texas this past winter after rumored dubious contract negotiations involving Tommy Tuberville. Known for his 'enthusiastic' demeanor, Muschamp has had mixed success in his first year with the Horns teaching his brand of defense.

This announcement today follows a nascent trend in CFB of naming successors way in advance. The best known example was the naming of OC Jimbo Fisher late last year to be the coach-in-waiting at Florida State, a moved seemingly designed to keep a quality coordinator in place rather than have him poached by other teams in need of a new HC. Other examples have occured at Kentucky with Joker Phillips and at Purdue with Danny Hope.

1st and 5: Most Significant Auburn-Georgia Games in the Last 20 Years

2008-11-14T18:39:00.004-05:00

I thought you had him neutered...

Auburn-Georgia week holds such special meaning for a lot of Tiger fans, especially for Georgia natives War Damn Zach and I, and also border-teetering Jay, not to mention about a quarter of our football team. We've certainly had fun with the cultural exchange with the Doggies this week, but on a more serious note, I thought we'd take a look at some of the most significant/dubious matches in the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry the last 20 years. And in the interest of detente' and to show I'm not a total homer, I've included games that we didn't even win. Please feel free to suggest your own games and/or add commentary to the ones I've mentioned. I fully expect Acid Reign to come in and add analysis to each game, as I am flying blind tonight with most of my reference material, which I left in my other pants/computer.

My Top 5, in no particular order, be you Barner or Fleabag...

1) 1996 The Overtime Game, 56-49 Georgia. THE reason why the NCAA adapted the 'must go for two' rule starting in the 3rd overtime. I believe this is also the game that Uga tried to take a bite out of Robert Baker--on OUR turf, no less. Uga must have thought that Baker kept his stash in his hip pads...

2) 1994 The Non-Pat Dye Tie, 23-23 all. Ruined our 20-game winning streak. Not a particularly strong Goff team--only won 6 games, but yet another example of the lesser team in this series exceeding expectations. Whatever happened to that guy? Gators LOVED him...

3) 2004 Clash of the Titans, 24-6 Auburn. Both teams highly ranked, Georgia poised to beat us for the 3rd year in a row, Auburn looking to stay undefeated and jump into the BCS top 2. This loss kept the Dogs from getting a rematch in Atlanta...

4) 2005 The Nail-Biter, 31-30 Auburn. Again, two good teams square off, both star-crossed to ever make it to Atlanta that year. Shockley makes a quick knee rehab to put forth valiant effort against a scrappy Tiger team. Brandon Cox completes 4th-and-forever to set up the game winner. A game where if you had to lose it, you don't mind going down like that...

5) 2002 Thank You, Jesus and Mark Richt!, 24-21 Georgia. Another clash of good teams and another very-close game, won by the slimmest of margins in the crappiest of weather. David Greene's throw to hit Michael Johnson in the end zone made for the only immortal Larry Munson call over the years that made me cringe. Gave the Pups their first SEC crown in 20 years. Somewhere in Dallas, Herschel smiled again...

So there you have it--our contemporary history as I remember it. Again, please feel free to give me your list or add on to my commentary.

Top 10 Additional 'I Hate' Topics for UGA Bloggers

2008-11-13T18:42:00.003-05:00

No freshmen or virgins shall pass through...

From the home office, slap dab in the middle of Dawg central, today's top 10 additional 'I Hate' topics for UGA Bloggers to consider...

10) I hate not having a real fight song...

9) I hate Sonny Seiler and his canine mafia...

8) I hate that Munson dates our coeds...

7) I hate that open end-zone in our stadium...

6) I hate that they won't name the stadium after Dooley...

5) I hate that Zeier shot to the top of the announcing crew, that no-SEC winning hack...

4) I hate that we're last in the SEC in graduating futbol players

3) I hate (insert obligatory defacing hedges reference here)

2) I hate that Richt can't pull the trifecta with Tennessee, Florida, and Auburn

1) I hate Michael Adams and so does the rest of college football...

Blogdom's Equivilent of 'Crying Like a Little Girl'

2008-11-12T22:59:00.004-05:00

Nothing stinks like a wet dawg...

Nothing gets the juices flowing for game week like going over to your opponent's blog (especially a SB Nation blog) and sampling a little of the commentary. It's also fun to do exchanges between blogs during game week. If you recall, Rocky Top Talk did a Q&A session with Jay before that game. Our sister blog, Dawg Sports, made contact with me a few weeks ago about doing a humorous exchange outside the normal fare, so we decided on Deep South's Oldest Rivalry Haiku, the little Japanese three-verse nature poems. Yea, yea, I know. You gotta harken back to those literary classes you took during freshman year. Ask Power of Dixieland. He knows what I'm talking about...

So I decided to cruise on over to their site today to see what was happening and instantly sight a Fanpost entitled I Really Hate Auburn. It's mostly tongue-in-cheek, but a little over the top. The Dogs have had their MNC dreams thrashed, by Florida of all teams, (who would have thunk it?) so you have to spot them a little PMS moodiness. One commenter recalls that he first started hating Auburn during the Pat Sullivan era. I then proceed to comment after that, as seen here:

Special Enmity for Auburn I have hated Auburn since I saw them beat our 9-0 football team in 1971. Pat Sullivan literally won the Heisman Trophy against us that day, 35-20. That MAY have been one of the luckiest days an athlete ever had in Sanford Stadium, with all the throws he made just as he was being sacked.

by Vinings Dog on Nov 11, 2008 11:33 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

What a coincidence... Bo Jackson literally won the Heisman that day in 1985, too, with around 180 yards and a 3 TD beatdown of the Dawgs in Sanford. Perhaps you’re upset because we never said thanks. Alas, 1985 was my first year picking hedges, and like any rookie is prone to do in such matters, I nearly tore off half a bush. However, I was able to perfect the craft when returning in ’87 and ’89.

by War Eagle Atlanta on Nov 12, 2008 3:40 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

War Eagle Atlanta, I try to be hospitable to guests in my house . . . . . . but I strongly recommend that, if you’ve participated in that despicable practice on a visit to Sanford Stadium for which the statute of limitations has not yet expired, you keep it to yourself.It’s called destruction of public property and it’s a crime. If visitors to our campus started ripping bricks out of the Tate Center, we wouldn’t tolerate it; we’d have the perpetrators arrested and prosecuted. Why we tolerate it in Sanford Stadium is beyond me, but the fact that we fail to press charges doesn’t make that act of vandalism any less criminal.The next time you’re in Athens, keep your damn hands off of our hedges. That kind of cheap crap is why I hate Auburn.

by T Kyle King on Nov 12, 2008 4:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Bricks don't grow back... Hopefully you needn’t attend an Ag school to know that. Besides, that was half a lifetime for me. I’ve matured since then, unlike some of the commenters on here…

by War Eagle Atlanta on Nov 12, 2008 5:42 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

No, but bricks can be repaired I’ll quote you the code section if you’d like, but what you did (three times, I might add) was a crime.If we started throwing you sons of bitches in the Clarke County Jail for that crap, I bet y’all would mature in a great big hurry, but that’s exactly the kind of l awless nonsense I would expect from an institution that chooses to honor cheaters like Shug Jordan and Pat Dye.

by T Kyle King on Nov 12, 2008 8:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Why don't... …you personally enact a citizen’s arraist on me next year, Barney? Jesus, will you pull your panties back out of your crack on the hedges?Just be thankful that you don’t have Florida at home every other year, or the shrubbery might look like a hurricane blew through it…

by War Eagle Atlanta on Nov 12, 2008 9:31 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

All right, that's it, War Eagle Atlanta I’ve put up with you long enough.You’re banned, asshole.Now get back to your double-wide and impregnate your sister while watching rasslin’.by

T Kyle King on Nov 12, 2008 9:42 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

So Neidermeyer blows a gasket over some shrubbery. I'm first taken aback by his ferocity over something so innane, so I relent a little. He then proceeds to keep hounding on it, like a Mormon missionary with an Amway franchise. I don't back down, and he does like any mutt would do and goes whimpering behind his blog. If you can't beat 'em, have them banned. Every one gets their lunch eaten occasionally while commenting on blogs, but not everyone gets to silence their critics. That's something I vow never to do here on TET. Assuming someone ever takes my lunch money first, that is...

So be sure to visit our fine friends over at Dawg Sports. And while I would never use my position here to encourage anyone to be rude or anything other than Auburnly, I probably won't mind if you pick the hedges...

And without further adieu, my Deep South's Oldest Rivalry haiku:

Dawg winds prevail
Westward across the Hooch
Will Richt blow O-for Alabama?

Game day smell of bourbon
Dawgs man enough in Auburn?
Pat Dye's liver inquires

Larry's echoes linger
Sugar falls; run, Lindsay, run
Bellamy-Strickland silent

Fall hopes fall wayside
A veteran coach twists in the wind
Sexton, get busy

A new OC beginning
Bidden not well, then farewell
Spread's dead, baby

How Do We Pull Ourselves Out of This Rut?

2008-11-05T19:34:00.003-05:00

Moments of brilliance tempered by moments of desperation...

What's the old adage? When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you should do is stop digging? It makes sense at first glance. That is, until you realize that to stop digging is counter-intuitive to human nature. To stop digging is synonymous with quitting, with giving up, and that's the one thing you learn from day one in organized football to never do--even if all your effort is merely spinning you in circles. In the real world, telling the difference between effective and frivolous effort is a lot harder than you think, especially when it comes to defining each as it applies to both players and coaches.

Ever since Franklin was fired, I've been waiting for the offense to settle down and come together. I hoped that some simplicity would right all the wrongs and cause the Auburn train to get back on the track. After all, this is basically the same young team from last year. We have the talent, but why has this team gotten worse with virtually every game? You would think that the drop-off in production would subside at some point, but it hasn't. We can't put together two complete halves of a game. Usually, we don't show for the 2nd half, but last week against Ole Miss we did. The problem in Oxford was that we didn't show up for the first half...

So far this year, we lack any semblance of a signature win, a quality victory over an opponent that we didn't probably expect, sort of like in Gainesville last year. Face it, our bottom of the 9th closing of Miss State is receiving top billing unless we get things in gear real fast. The coast looked clear in our schedule after we dropped the game to LSU. I figured the pressure was off a bit and the team could gel while playing some games that weren't going to be as difficult. But after we lost to Vandy and Franklin was ousted, the subsequent losses that followed made it became readily apparent that the LSU game was actually the high-water mark of our program this year. Our effort seemed to be dwindling down, and no tonic could cure our ills.

This is a odd place to be as an Auburn fan during the Tuberville regime. We haven't lost four in a row since 1999, Tubs' first season, when we lost five straight right in the middle of the schedule. A hallmark of his coaching prowess has been that we recovered quickly from losses--especially conference losses. I've never seen it spiral around the bowl like this, and it's very frustrating. Sure, we've had disappointing results after promising pre-season predictions; 2003 and 2005 come to mind, but I think this is the worse than all of them: a competent team expected to hold their own has had the wagon wheels come flying off. You can't even circle the wagons under that scenario...

I record the Auburn Football Review each week, but admittingly, I don't watch the whole show if we lose. I can't bear to. I only watch the beginning when Tuberville addresses the team. At first, his speeches after losses were very motivational. The one after LSU was top-notch. He had me wanting to go suit up for the next one. But gradually, the length of the speech and it's message has diminished after each successive loss. Granted, a lot of these have been on the road and the only thing you want to do after a road loss is get cleaned up and get on the bus, but I think I see the competitive fire waning quite a bit. It has to filter down to the players. Yea, I know, I shouldn't read too much into it, but with everything else that is happening, most prominently the effort on the field, I think the team has reached a crossroads at this point.

I now think that the problems with this team go so deep that the only way we're going to correct it is by having the season end and regroup for the next one, with fresh talent coming in and having some fresh faces with some of the coaches. No, I'm not talking about giving up. We have the capability of springing an upset, especially now that Georgia's hopes have been dashed and Alabama's might soon be, they might not be expecting a hook thrown by an off-balanced Auburn team. We've got to get a signature win somehow, and Amen Corner would be the time to do it, but our opportunities to build on top of something are running out. I don't know if a resounding victory over UT-Martin would serve as a big enough springboard to launch major upsets of the Dawgs or the Tide, but I hope we try. Some have suggested that Tubs has lost the team. I don't know about that, but I think that the time has come where we might want to stop digging, whatever that means...

2008-11-05T11:29:00.004-05:00

In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.' --Dosteovsky's Grand Inquisitor

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage. --Alexander Tyler

So this is how liberty dies. To thunderous applause...

.

Your 1980s Video of the Week

2008-11-04T15:25:00.003-05:00

An other of my favorite videos that were minimalist in their arrangement. Just show the band under good lighting, let the lights swing in unisome, and put Robin Zander on a merrygoround and film him lip synching. By God, I could have been a 80s video director!!!

.

What Really Happened to those Budweiser Wassup Guys?

2008-10-30T16:11:00.003-04:00

Wow! All the wassup guys are Obama supporters. I guess after sitting around having a Bud and watching the game for the last eight years, they need a government nanny to take care of them...

Who's sitting at the Kid's Table at the BCS Family Gathering?

2008-10-29T20:16:00.003-04:00

Pass the Orange Bowl, please...

Boy, it sucks to no longer be relevant in the college football world. We're reduced to fighting for our lives for a bowl appearance and to playing spoiler for two BSC-bound teams--actually, the 11th and 12th holes of our schedule that make up Auburn's famed Amen Corner. Normally, that's a tall order in itself, but playing the roll of speed bump is something we don't normally relish. We prefer to call it playing for pride. But to add a little more damper on our season, we might soon be invoked as the poster child again for BCS reform as a few teams are poised to be left out of the BCS picture and perhaps left out of the championship game. Getting Auburned is slowly making itself into the CFB lexicon again, four years removed from the scene of the crime. True, none of them will be an undefeated SEC team, but they might be left out in the cold nonetheless.

Curiously, half of the teams ranked in the Top 10 of the third BCS poll still control their own destiny. Granted, ALL of them should own that possibility this late in the season, but again, all conferences are not created equal, and certainly not all teams. The Big 12 is certainly getting mad props for being the strongest conference thus far, but unlike the SEC, most of their top teams have yet to play. Still, their conference has four teams in the BCS top 10, although Oklahoma and OK State need a little help to push further up the ladder. Strangely, all four of the teams come from the south division. Talk about being unbalanced and eating your own.

The one thing that both conferences share is that they both have a conference championship game to play at the end, and there lies all the difference. We'll know who'll have the inside track to represent the east in Atlanta after this weekend in Jacksonville with the World's Largest Outdoor Game Where you Can't Mention Alcohol Anymore... The west's leader will be determined in two weeks down on the Bayou. Looks like the Gumps may hold the inside track regardless unless we retain our lifelong winning streak in Tuscaloosa or they get Croomed for the third straight year...

So with those two conferences sorting themselves out, who does that leave? Utah and Boise State are 10th and 11th, the highest ranked teams from non-BCS conferences. Yea, I'm for giving them a shot, but please, don't try to compare their conference schedules to the big boys. They better be hanging a hundred on everyone to even get the thought of a nod. When they sneak into a BCS Bowl, their season is just one game--that's all the have to get up for. And with a 50-50 shot, occasionally they can catch the likes of Oklahoma napping. Not so with Georgia and last year's Cinderella, Hawaii Twelve-O.

Okay, now that we covered the BCS' attempt at affirmative action with the non-automatic qualifying teams, where does that leave us? Oh yea. Representatives of the two dinosaurs of the BCS club, the Pac-10 and the Big 10(11), Penn State and USC. Say what you will about Goliath USC dropping occasional games to Pac-10 Davids on their way to Miami, or Penn State only gradually emerging as the top dog in a dogged-out Big 10(11). Allow me to tell you why they're irrelevant and exposed for all of CFB to see: they refuse to modernize by expanding into a divisional format like the Big 12, ACC, and SEC has. The word is out. They have an inferior product. They don't have to peel away that extra layer of competition that virtually insures that your champion is MNC potential. They're holding back the rest of CFB and impeding a playoff and this year might finally be the year they're held accountable for it. Both of their dominant teams may be left on the outside looking in.

Even if they run the table, I believe that a 12-0 Penn State and a 11-1 USC will not be in the BCS championship game, not together, nor either or. This is the year where the outright dominance of the Big 12 and SEC will ensure their champions play for all the marbles even if one or both have one loss, based solely on the level of competition that their teams will have to go through to get to Miami. Couple that with the fact that the Pac 10 and Big 10(11) are miserably weak this year and I think we get a perfect storm of factors that will finally show the rest of the country the light as to what constitutes the new acceptable level of achievement in CFB. Many already saw this coming, too. The most quoted stat in the blogosphere this last week is that on four occasions in their history, an undefeated Joe Paterno Penn State team has been denied a share of the national championship, in 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1994. Talk about foreshadowing. Edgar Allen Poe had nothing on CFB bloggers...

So who's going to meet in Miami? Sorry, I'm not a prognosticator. My picks are usually uglier than a Brandon Cox bootleg, and my reasoning is as long and flawed as Nick Saban's resume'. But I think I know who it won't be, and the reasons for it. Granted, it's going to be hard to overcome the sexiness of a resurgent USC, and really hard to deny JoPa number one on his Bucket List, but I'm hoping what's left of the human polls will author the writing on the wall that if your conference isn't playing a CCG, then you might not get an RSVP from the holders of the crystal football.

Your 1980s Video of the Week

2008-10-29T17:15:00.002-04:00

In addition to being my favorite 38 Special song, I always thought this video had great imagery--and I just don't mean Julianne Phillips. It just moved this 15 year old, and made me want to own a herd of wild horses and get married in a knee-deep wheat field. Amazingly, it didn't make me wish to play guitar like Jeff Carlisi...

Spread's Dead, Baby. Spread's Dead...

2008-10-25T00:03:00.004-04:00

It's a chopper, baby, not a chop-block...

You don't know how pleased I was to see us line up with two backs and two tight ends to start the game Thursday night. I thought for just a second that we were really going to make an attempt to revert back to the basics of power football. I jumped for joy when Kodi lined up under center in that first drive and we then proceeded to not only run the ball, but throw in a few passes--to the tight end of all people. Brilliant! Granted, that first drive stalled after three straight running plays up the middle. Why not try and run at least one to the outside? Okay, fine. We took the three points. An impressive drive for us, all things considered.

But there was more to come, after Pat White threw his 2nd pick. Another impressive drive, this time capped off with a TD--from a screen pass, no less. I thought we forgot how to throw those. Did we even manage one against Arkansas? And more rushes to the outside--with pulling linemen, too. Couple that with another blocker from the backfield and the runner has time to wait for his blocks to develop, then cut back. Yards are gained. It definitely made more sense than running one lone back up the middle out of the shotgun like we've been doing to no avail. And QB bootlegs and roll outs are twice as effective when you have two backs going the opposite direction--not to mention that all of this ate clock--a lot of clock.

Cut to our next drive, another solid effort, culminating in a touchdown. Then cap it off with a bit of trickery, the onside kick, one of our Thursday night traditions. We got these guys on the ropes! But no, we get a little conservative and go three and out. We could have had a knock-out blow with another TD. We end the half with blown coverage giving them a 42 yard TD pass, one of roughly six plays they had over 30 yards, eerily reminiscent of the Arkansas game again. But overall, a very solid offensive performance to start things out.

So what do we do in the second half? Perhaps a second helping of what we did in the first? Uh, no... Seemingly, we try to re-implement our version of the spread again, also known as the spackle. Sure, defenses are going to make adjustments, the offense can make them, too. But don't throw out the entire playbook you just used and go back to what you know is going to fail.
Why are we trying to do this? Like someone mentioned, what are we trying to prove by going back to it? Are we worried about recruiting? Do we have to show all these top-notch spread athletes that we're still giving it a try? Are we trying to show the next spread tactician we're going to hire that we're still committed? Power football got us leads in the Vandy and Arkansas games AND this one. Then we just squandered it by reverting back to that crap.

We're desperate for some offense. We have to keep it simple. Our personnel is not suited for the spread, especially since no one is around to coach it to them any longer. They've had a tough year, but all of these guys know power offense. We can do it. We just have to stick with it. Run our stable full of backs. Let Kodi run. Throw in some passes. Tight ends and screen passes are good weapons to choose. Chuck it long every so often--it opens things up. We attempted virtually no long balls against WVU. Why?

But here's what I'm advocating: I'm sooo tired of this. Let's scrap this spread once and for all. We don't need it, it's NOT us, and it's not Tuberville. It's a failed social experiment, like giving mortgages to poor people. We've had to write-off our season now, like a portfolio of mortgage-backed securities hawked by Wall Street. Face it folks, we're in foreclosure. Can't we file it under lessons learned and move on with our lives? Why did Tubs feel pressured to try it out in the first place? Sure our offense had waned in recent years, but you change OCs, not your whole way of life. Why is everybody so pass happy anyway?

What's wrong with the run being your primary mode of attack? Anybody notice what Paul Johnson is very quietly doing at Georgia Tech this year? Granted, it's still early, but he didn't decide to change up his entire offensive philosophy just because he moved to a team with considerably more talent than he had at Navy. Who says it has to be pass, pass, pass? I'm considering going to watch them play Virginia tomorrow. They still have plenty of tickets available--at the box office. It might be fun to watch a team again that knows how to run the ball--a team with less talent than we have, BTW.

.

Alumnus, Hired Gun, or True Believer: Which Kind of Coach Do You Want?

2008-10-22T17:21:00.005-04:00

Real quick: How many alumnus coaches are there currently in the SEC? How many coaches have ever coached 20 years or longer at one SEC school? It's not easy to answer, is it? Only one, Phil Fulmer, is an alumnus of his school, ever since Houston Nutt pulled a Chinese Fire Drill with Ole Miss this past winter. (and he wasn't technically an alum, having started at R-Kansas but finishing his career at OK State) What about the second question? No coaches lately have that kind of tenure, so you have to dip deep into the historical haversack to find the answer.

Coaches with that kind of longevity are what I call the Legend coaches. Most teams in CFB have them, but they are definitely an anachronism. In the SEC, Shug, Bryant, Dooley, and Vaught all reached a quarter-century at the same school, and certainly Robert Neyland would have gone over that at Tennessee had he not had the pesky business of a few wars to fight. Also, Bill Alexander of Georgia Tech had 25 years at the Flats, back when they were in the SEC (remember?) Curiously, only Shug, Bear, and Alexander were alumni of their respective teams. The others were initial hired guns who went on to demonstrate tremendous longevity and success at their schools and on the way to becoming legends, transitioned through another subset of coach that I call the True Believer.

True Believers are reborn and baptised with the blood, sweat and tears that they expend with each new crop of teams. They're converts, and the bond may be even stronger than it is with an alumnus coach. These guys choose to be a part of your family. The biggest examples of this are Neyland, a West Pointer, and Dooley, an Auburn man. Both are the signature coaches of their schools, but it was a family that they weren't born into. I've often said that if I ever met Coach Dooley, I'd ask him if he had a little War Eagle left in him. I think he probably does, somewhere deep down inside...

But not all True Believers go on to become Legends. Look at Pat Dye. No one thinks of him as being anything other than an Auburn man. And he was just on the cusp of becoming a legend on the Plains. Actually, that's still debatable. Maybe he does. He does have a field with his name on it, but he didn't come close to eclipsing Shug. Had we not gotten screwed out of a MNC in 1983, I definitely think that Dye would be a legend on the Plains. What prevents it in my book is the cloud of NCAA probation that he left under and the losing of his pants in Lake Martin, which wasn't discovered until recently. See? Some secrets get buried for decades...

But it is possible to have more than one Legend at a school. They've basically had three at Alabama, with Wallace Wade and Frank Thomas preceding you-know-who. Wade and Thomas were sending the Tide to the Rose Bowl back in the 1920s and winning all those back-dated National Championships they think they got. Georgia Tech has had two, with Bobby Dodd joining Alexander as the legends of North Avenue. Georgia has had not only Dooley, but Wally Butts as well. You could even argue that Tennessee has had three, with Johnny Majors having a 16 year tenure and Fulmer now in his 17th season. If the Phil coup is successful this year, I think that Vol fans may soon be waxing nostalgic about Fulmer, clamoring back to the good old days of losing to Florida and in the SEC championship game...

But at least they'll have that. Be grateful, teams who have your legends. Most schools in the SEC are virtual coaching graveyards, going through legions of them, assuring anonymity, not greatness. Vandy, Kentucky, MSU, and South Carolina all come to mind. Heck, Paul Bryant is the 2nd longest serving coach in Kentucky history. At least that's not where his shadow was cast, though. Florida was (and still could be) a coaching carousel. Believe it or not, Spurrier's 12 years in Gainesville is tops, and if you're a Gator, you'll always wonder 'what could have been' with that, watching the OBC struggle in Rooster Land. For Auburn fans, that would have been like watching Shug slug out his last days camped out in Starkville. LSU has had it's fair share of coaches. Charlie McClendon put in 18 years in Red Stick, but you'll never hear his name mentioned over a dinner table full of etouffee. The purple Tigers now seem more fixated with how Saban wound up in Tuscaloosa and if/when Miles might leave them. History on the Bayou dictates 'not long'...

So that leaves us with the hired gun, which is virtually your only choice these days. Lest you forget, CFB is a business, and we need the best available man to lead the company to greatness and produce record dividends for the fans. Getting an alumnus coach is sooo 1970s and virtually impossible in this multi-cultural football world of instant gratification and extended contracts. Alas, the lure is still strong. Look at the hoops Michigan jumped through last year in an attempt to lure Les Miles back to Ann Arbor. I guess the more telling question would be why did he stay? The call to go home is equally as strong. Perhaps Les'ticles is on his way to becoming a true believer?

Even Auburn fans have felt the twinge of patriotism with openings in our own program. How many of you thought about trying to lure Pat Nix back with a offer of OC? How many entertained the idea of trying to get Pat Sullivan back home after the ousters of Dye and Bowden? See? It's very strong, even when you know that your favorite son is either not qualified or not ready to step up to the standards of your program. Imagine the withdrawals and delirium tremens that Alabama has gone through in this respect. After Bryant, there was no way that they could allow the reigns of the program to be held by hands not washed in the wisdom of the Bear. But they realized that their potential gene pool of coaches was limited, so they went back and forth for a while, alternating between alumni and hired gun coaches--something that has extended up to the present day. I think that the idea of alumnus coaches might be past them now, but you never know with Bammers, especially when they strap on their leather helmets...

So let's look at our own coach now, the much-maligned-of-late Tommy Tuberville. Technically, he's a hired gun, but for how long? No, I don't mean his possible ouster, that's silly. I mean, when is he going to transition into the True Believer? Some think he already has. I think he's damn close. Probably the one thing left, the last hurdle to clear, is the dark lord of Samford tower who still casts his shadow over the campus, waiting to take form again as he gathers strength. Okay, all LOTR references aside, seriously, that's probably the one thing holding Tubs back. He's also seen how fickle some of our fans can be, and maybe that abates his complete conversion to blue and orange somewhat. I think we would be extremely lucky for Tubs to become a true believer in the Auburn faith. He could go on and do even greater things for us. We just have a few little bumps in the road to smooth out. Auburn fans shouldn't expect lofty aspirations every year--that's not the way it is in CFB--especially the SEC. We've had a measure of success under Tubs by any standard, but that's what we expect from members of the Auburn family.

Your 1980s Video of the Week

2008-10-22T14:31:00.002-04:00

This was my favorite Men at Work song. What ever happened to these guys? They had two HUGE albums, then proceeded to fall off the face of the earth. They could have been the biggest band of the 80s...

I liked the somewhat serious tone of this video, even know I still don't know what the hell the song is about. A lot of their videos were rather silly--even for a teenager, like I was. I like the closeups of the guitar and sax playing in the middle of the song. At first it appears to be black and white, but if you look carefully, there are actually images being played inside those close-ups. It took me a few years to figure that out...

Fanblogs Milestone Approaching

2008-10-21T14:44:00.000-04:00

from Fanblogs, 10.21.08

With the adaptation of the Disqus system into Fanblogs a few months ago, which not only made the tracking of comments a lot easier, but allowed wholesale character assassination through it's clout rating feature, we've now arrived at a point where the first milestone is about to be passed. A feature that some of you may not be aware of is that the number of your comments is now recorded and can be accessed through the main site to see who the most prolific commentators on this site are. And the first person to register 1000 comments is: Our very own non-BCS conference advocate, BEN PRATHER!!!

Ben is now bestowed the ceremonial title of Fanblogs' biggest whore Top Commentator. Actually, the site shows 993 comments for Ben, but since it only updates every few days, he has most certainly already turned over on the odometer, so congratulations are now in order. The rest of the top five are shown here:

Top Commenters

Ben Prather
993 comments 64 points

War_Eagle_Atlanta
970 comments -56 points

Zac
797 comments 159 points

Clemson_Joe
758 comments 40 points

Lennie Collins
719 comments 59 points

So give Ben a pat on the back or a golf clap, because through his consistent commentary on this site, he of all people has demonstrated that his employer is probably not getting as much bang for his buck as he would like. (Like I should be talking...)

And stay tuned in January as we will present the first annual Fanblog's achievement awards, otherwise known as the Fannie's. They will fall in between the crowning of the MNC champ on the field and the MNC in recruiting. We are currently considering nominees for the following categories:

Best verbal slam

Best verbal slam in a supporting role

Most likely to eat his own crow

Longest comments with no paragraph breaks (aka the Tommy Trojan Typing Trophy)

Most creative moniker

Troll that we actually kind of miss

Best attack on Kevin Donahue by a new poster

Best thread hijack

Best thread hijack into a SEC discussion (yes, again, we need two separate categories....)

Most complimentary post by TE

Longest post cut and pasted verbatim from another site

Best interpretive YouTube insertion

Biggest homer

Biggest SEC homer (again, TWO separate categories are necessary...)

Best commentary by a female poster (must be on site for at least 3 days)

Best commentator we miss who couldn't figure out Disqus and be with us any longer

Most elusive pirate (posters who's allegiances are unknown)

Nominations will be taken here in the comments section:

<>

In Bobby Lowder's Office in Auburn

2008-10-16T18:52:00.002-04:00

This is funny! Even if it was done by some Bammers! If you never saw the original one done after the cowboys lost to the Giants in last year's playoff's, you can see it below!

Lips, Inc.

2008-10-16T16:29:00.004-04:00

Sometimes the best commercials are the simplest ones. Saw this last night on the Discovery Channel and I really liked it. Took a while to find. The girl is soap actress Lindsay Hartley and the song is a slowed down version of West Coast Blues artist Job Striles' Coffee...

With no eyes shown and a tress of hair in her face, you're forced to look at her perfect lips and teeth. Ahhh. Seduction on the half-shell...

That's the second pretty set of lips used prominently that I've seen recently. The other is UK artist M.I.A.'s on her latest album cover:

Although using sex to sell will never go out of style, this type of display is certainly more classy than most of what you see out there--bolt-on boobs and it's ilk. How refreshing...

Cosmo Quiz: How True a College Football Fan Are You?

2008-10-16T12:24:00.003-04:00

What's the measure of a true college football fan? How do you demonstrate your fanhood? What separates a real fan from a lessor one, or even a (shudder) bandwagon fan? Perhaps we can help you determine this. Take our little quiz below that looks like it could have come right out of Cosmopolitan magazine and rank yourself accordingly. It's real simple. Give yourself 5 points for each of the 20 statements below that apply to you and add up your score. We'll interpret the results for you below.

For the first group of statements, please determine which the following apply to you in your lifetime:

1) Is anyone in your immediate family an alum of the school?

2) Are you an alum of the school?

3) Know all the words to the school fight song?

4) Have you ever gotten into a fight (you define) with opposing fans at or near the game, before, during or after?

5) Ever committed an act of vandalism during a game weekend either to exalt your team or disparage the other?

6) Road-tripped to an away game?

For the second group of statements, please determine which of the following apply to you in the last ten years:

7) Have you watched every single televised game in a season?

8) Watched a game on pay-per-view, either purchasing it or see it at a bar?

9) Attended a home game in person?

10) Held a season ticket, either purchased directly or on the secondary market?

11) Tailgated before the game?

12) Travelled to an away game (including bowls)?

13) Been to a Bowl Game?

14) Taken or ridden on a RV to a game (not partied on one once it was there)?

15) Shown up to a game without a ticket, intending to actually go inside the stadium?

16) Does your vehicle have any permanently affixed displays of your team?

17) Wear partisan clothing on game day?

18) Belong to or attend functions of a booster club, including going to see the coach speak?

19) Donate money to the athletic department (outside of purchasing tickets)?

20) Visit an opposing team's blog sites to scout it out?

RESULTS:

75-100: You're a damn good fan!

50-70: You're going to have to run wind sprints after practice!

0-45: I'm really surprised you're on a college football blog. Did you make a wrong turn on eBay?

What did I leave out? Also, be sure to leave your score in the comments section. And since honesty is such a lonely word, it's mostly what we need from you!

.

I Finally Kicked Time Magazine to the Curb

2008-10-15T16:14:00.005-04:00

It was a long time coming. For seventeen years I've subscribed to this magazine, since I was 23 years old. The reason? Well, the short answer is because it's a liberal rag. But I didn't wake up last week to that conclusion--I've known that for years. Up until now, I've artfully dodged and avoided the partisan stories where I knew their bias would be most apparent. I also never read the large feature stories that had been thoroughly hashed out the week before in the electronic media. No, finally I realized that once I omitted both of those types of articles, there was simply nothing left.

Not that they didn't do some things well. Joel Stein columns are funny. He's a liberal guy, but he's always an enjoyable read. Liberal people aren't necessarily uninteresting, but they have to be intelligent for me to like them. That's the reason I can enjoy a guy like Stein--because he's smart. Unlike someone like John Stewart, who's a smart-ass. I can't watch the Daily Show because of him. The writing on that show is funny, but I hate that smug little bastard.

And Time did little factoids well. I need to know who's dying and who's crying--most of the time. Their celebrity news was generally well-intentioned and not simply worship like you find everywhere else. Those type articles would usually center around that particular celebrity employing their craft--like acting, for example,as opposed to when they branch out into areas in which they are not qualified--like being Hollywood Weapons Inspectors. Usually...but not always. I always cringed when they gave a top 100 list of some sort, like influential Americans, and there are celebrities on there. Are people who really are influential supposed to be flattered? Can't you just imagine Ben Bernanke saying Oh, I'm so glad to be on the same list as Angelina Jolie!

The bigger reason I've kicked Time to the curb though is because I no longer trust the media. This election cycle and the continued fawning over liberal candidates has convinced me that I will no longer subsidize big media's efforts by spending money on it, or even paying attention to it. THAT's why Time has to go.

Looks like Forbes and Car and Driver will be the only two horses left in the stable. I've subscribed to CD for the past 22 years and Forbes for the last 6 years. Neither one is what anyone would consider to be a news magazine. I don't think I'll audition for another one of those, now that I know where to go on the Internet to find what I want. Kinda hard to read in bed, those online stories, but I'll manage. Forbes has been my favorite for years, and I never subscribed to it initially. It just started coming to the office one day--it and a few other magazines. Seems that an employee of mine thought it would be a good practical joke to subscribe me to a few magazines on a trial basis. I think I received it for a year or two before I had to start paying for it. By then, I was hooked and had to...

My next clean-up project will be to dump the AJC--the local paper, right after football season. I can read it online, too, and get more credible stories from other sources. But what will I read at lunch? I'm thinking about subscribing to the Wall Street Journal again, which was my daily paper for years back in the days when I had a real job and would travel all over the country. At least I know they will have a more conservative agenda and will keep the celebrity worship to a minimum--for as long as there still is a Wall Street...

.

Your 1980s Video of the Week

2008-10-15T14:44:00.004-04:00

Very strange. One of the first videos I ever saw on MTV. It was the first and last time I ever heard of Utopia. Maybe they would have had more success had they worn the insect costumes in concert?

I Admit It. I Turned the Falcons Game Off After Chicago Scored That Late TD

2008-10-13T15:13:00.003-04:00

I wasn't going to watch another coup de grace, especially after I left Jordan-Hare Saturday night after Auburn's fourth-down gasp fell short. I picked up the Falcons game in the early third quarter, and thought they had it in the bag until they decided to play conservative ball following that fantastic kick-off return in the waning minutes, which culminated in Elam's missed chip shot field goal. Chicago promptly drove down the field and scored a TD, going up by one, with eleven seconds left. Screw that. Way to drop a game, rookie coach. I went up to take a shower and head out to my mom's.

It wasn't until about 8pm that evening when I learned what only Paul Harvey can describe as the rest of the story. One of my mom's neighbors was over and asked me if I had seen the Falcons game. I told her I had and that I was complaining about it to my mother. She said "wait, you didn't see the end?" I said that I did, but that Chicago had come back to score a late TD to go up by one and that perhaps she didn't see the end. At this point, I was called a silly goose (female football fans) and explained that the Falcons had managed to come back and kick a winning 48 yard field goal all within 11 seconds. Imagine that. And as it turned out, only the third team in NFL history to accomplish that feat within such a sparse interval of time.

I'm still not a pro-football fan. I will take some free tickets, however...

Be Careful What You Wish For, Auburn Fans

2008-10-13T00:21:00.002-04:00

Let's Take the Lear home, Casey...

This week has been two wishes come true for a good number of Auburn fans, Tony Franklin and the spread he rode in on got run out of town mid-week and Kodi Burns got the start on Saturday to work his miracles on turf. The lingering effects of the former will take a while to judge, but the results from the latter were on display for immediate review.

Whatever the kind of offense we're going to be, we better decide real quick and get on with it. If we're going to run a true spread, it's NOT going to be this year. We're going to have to wait for the next guru to come along and teach us. Are we going to go back to conventional power football or stay with the what I call the Spackle (a real slow moving-spread that sticks in place, especially between down-markers...) Let me tell you--I'm done with the Spackle. It looks abysmal. What good is a hurry-up type offense if half the time you're getting set, then all getting back up to cluelessly look over to the sideline en masse to get the play from the guys doing the YMCA? How many times Saturday did I see where their defense was caught off guard, trying to shuffle people in and out after a play, but we didn't do a quick snap? WE HAVEN'T DONE THAT ALL YEAR. That's one of the many problems of this offense--predictability.

I was looking forward to some more power football similar to that we layed on Vandy in the first quarter of last week--you know, the one that worked so well that we abandoned it? See, although Arkansas had the worst defense in the SEC, they were going to stack up eight in the box and force us to throw, so we DIDN'T EVEN TRY TO RUN. Come on! That's complete defeatism. You gotta at least try! Line up in the I-formation with a tight end or two and at least see if we could knock them in the dirt. Do you think they were going to be fooled by the one back with the QB in the shotgun? Half the times we saw that set, you knew Burns was going to take off running. My mom knew that, and she was at home watching Law & Order reruns...

We need to stop this finesse crap where the QB gingerly hands the back next to him the ball or does some sort of half-ass option and start pounding people. THAT will open up the pass. Heck, it'll open it up for Burns. If there's three guys in the backfield, it's a little easier to sell the QB keeper. Other than that, every play is going to be a QB draw or a pass. And maybe Burns can settle down in the pocket if he doesn't have to constantly run for his life.

You got to see what Burns could do for almost the entire first half, and although I wasn't really impressed, I don't blame it all on him. I'm convinced that Todd is a better thrower, but Burns has the running threat was was totally un-utilized Saturday night because of this Spackle offense we keep lining up in. Granted, Burns needs to learn to try staying in the pocket a little longer before he takes off, and learn to look other places besides the home run ball. I saw next to no passes out into the flats or any screens. That's totally inexcusable to not try those. Everything was across the middle or an intermediate range slant to the outside.

And poor Chris Todd. The guy feels like that when he does make it into the game, he has to do something miraculous quickly and he ends up trying to force something. You know how you give a guy like that some confidence? Let him establish a drive through a few rushing plays. The longer he stays out on the field, the quicker his confidence grows. All the boos for him were pathetic. For a minute, I thought I was in the Vet in Philly. Sure, even I was upset with some of his forced throws, but give me a break on booing him. We Auburn folk have our fair share of loser fans.

And what use is a good defense is we're going to leave them out there the whole game? They didn't have a chance. At one point in the third quarter, I noticed that the time of possession had Arkansas up by about 13 minutes. They ended up with a 35-25 advantage. That's pathetic. That's also what you get when you don't attempt to run the ball. Those guys couldn't keep chasing down that little guy Smith for Arkansas all night. He looked about five foot nothing, but he had some wheels. When you're pulling overtime on the defensive side, you have to collapse at some point, and we kept giving up the big plays--at least 5 plays over 40 yards, I think...

On the lighter side, your humble contributors, Jay, Acid Reign and myself met for lunch before the game to talk about all you behind your backs. Actually, we had a good time and discussed a lot about how the site is evolving. We had a big week last week in hits, probably owing to the Franklin firing, so I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your patronage. We regulars don't always agree, but it's starting to become a nice little community to hang out on.

One thing I will say, and I think I can speak for the three of us, is that we really don't endorse all the calls for Tuberville's head after every poor showing. Like Acid Reign commented yesterday, it would take a government guarantee to raise Tubs' buyout, so it's highly likely that he's going to be our coach for the foreseeable future and I'm perfectly fine with that. The man is deserving of our respect and you fair-weather fans that call for his ouster after every loss can go tell it on another site. Perhaps try Roll Bama Roll. You might find a sympathetic ear there. Either that, or I'm going to start putting up a Fire Tuberville thread every week where you can confine your vitriol there--kinda like the smoker's aquarium at Hartsfield airport in Atlanta. I guess it's best that we do that instead of some yay-hoo going out and starting a Fire Tubs website...