Tagged

Since many have asked, here's the photo (originally taken by a poster on "The Bunker," an AuburnSports.com message board) I put up on my Twitter feed yesterday.  Dang thing went viral and got picked up by CBS.  It's not a Photoshop or a vanity tag, just a standard-issue Alabama license plate.  The picture was taken at the Shelby County tag office:

Also see this shot, of one of the tags "in the wild" (and yes, I believe that is a Toyota CAMry--H/T to The Auburner).

New at Rivals: Good Win, Fun Night

My Monday (er, Tuesday--hey, sue me) morning column for the It Should Still Be Called The Peach Bowl is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. Here's a preview:

Given the fact that Auburn and UVA share the same team colors (thanks to Virginia alum George Petrie having founded the AU football program back in 1892), it was often hard to tell who was Hoo in the crowd, but the scene and the game both wound up being a lot of fun, at least if you were wearing the SEC's correct versions of burnt orange and navy blue.

Whatever you thought about Gus Malzahn's Auburn tenure and/or departure to become a head coach, you'd have to like his last game calling plays for the Tigers. The only thing we didn't see in the Georgia Dome was Malzahn's Ludicrous Speed hurry-up game; pretty much everything else in the playbook came out against Virginia, resulting in more points than the Tigers had tallied against any other opponent (yes, including Ole Miss).

I must confess, Saturday night was the first time I'd seen the Cavaliers play this season, and I've read a bit of "ah, it's just Virginia" commentary since the bowl game, particularly regarding the UVA defense. Maybe so, but that defense was still good enough to finish third in total "D" for their conference (yeah, I know, it's the ACC, but still) and in the top four of most of the ACC's defensive categories.

Their defensive line looked pretty good to me early on, as the "O" in Auburn's O-line appeared more like it stood for "Ole!" than "offensive" (again). Clint Moseley didn't have much of a chance to do anything in his brief start before being injured, and Barrett Trotter spent an awful lot of time having to make something out of nothing in a bravura return to the field after six games on the bench.

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: Season of Struggle

My Monday-morning column for the Alabama game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

I think a coach at Auburn or Alabama has to lose that game at a point after they've won it at least once to really appreciate the position they're in. Very few coaches win it in their debut seasons, so pretty much all of them (who aren't named Bill Curry) get a pass on that first loss, especially if their team played well in defeat. Nobody at Auburn held the 1981, 1999 or 2009 losses against Pat Dye, Tommy Tuberville or Gene Chizik, and nobody serious at Alabama held the 2007 game against Nick Saban.

But that free pass is only good once. When Dye flubbed consecutive games he should have won in 1984-85 and Tuberville's 2001 team completely imploded against Alabama, the heat came on immediately. Last year, Saban had the cushion of coming off an undefeated season (as does Chizik today), but even so, few failed to note that Auburn's comeback marked the second straight time Saban and his staff had been decidedly outcoached by Chizik and company.

Saturday night, besides the obvious advantages Alabama enjoyed in terms of deep, experienced talent, that shoe was on the other foot. Alabama leveled pinpoint attacks at pretty much all of Auburn's deficiencies, most notably in pass coverage and up front on both sides of the ball, but they also got a lot of help from arguably the worst game Gus Malzahn has ever called.

Time after time, Auburn would come into a convertable down situation only to blow the opportunity with a goofy trick play, the very worst example being the terrible Wildcat call--after a timeout, no less--on fourth-and-a-foot late in the third quarter. It was an inexplicable decision. Alabama has a great defense, but you put Michael Dyer in a standard formation with a blocker in front of him, he's going to get a foot 49 times out of 50. "Getting too cute" is an accusation that's been leveled against Malzahn a lot this season, and it was never more appropriate than Saturday against the Tide.

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: You Are What You Are

My Monday-morning Rivals column for the Samford game is up at AuburnSports.com.  A preview:

Under normal circumstances, Homecoming gives a team a chance to get the starters a decent workout in the first half, then clear the benches all the way down to the waterboys by the fourth quarter, giving every long-suffering walk-on a chance to get at least a few snaps.

This being 2011, things didn't work out that way. Auburn never trailed against Samford, and was never in serious danger of losing the game, but played such lackadaisical and ugly football that the Tigers couldn't really declare victory and pull the starters until well into the fourth quarter. Coming after one of the most awful losses in the modern history of the program, it wasn't the kind of game to give AU fans a great deal of confidence for the season closer next week.

I could spend a few more paragraphs running down the issues in this team's roster, but the reality is, after eleven games, you are what you are. What Auburn is right now is, unfortunately, about what they were in the opener: mediocre and inconsistent. And while you can certainly point to holes at the "skill" positions (particularly at receiver and in the secondary), it still all starts and ends up front.

From the very first game against Utah State, the Tigers have struggled to win in the trenches, and with a few exceptions--the South Carolina game accounting for most of them--those struggles haven't yielded much success. Put bluntly, Auburn still has a lot of trouble blocking on offense, and a lot of trouble getting off of blocks on defense. That's not a great combination.

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

I didn't write a column for the Georgia game; my mom passed away that Friday, and football hasn't been much on my mind since.

New at Rivals: Consistency Still Needed

My Monday-morning column on the Ole Miss game is up at Rivals' AuburnSports.com. A preview:

For all the griping about poor tackling or bad play-calling or the lack of this or that factor on either side of the football, Auburn's overarching problem this season is inconsistency. The Ole Miss game marked the third time in 2011 that the Tigers have jumped up to a 14-0 lead, only to see the other guys wipe out that margin while still in the first half.

I thought Auburn improved a good bit against Ole Miss, even given all the aforementioned buffoonery, but the Tigers still couldn't put together a four-quarter game.

The best of Saturday: Auburn's passing game finally reappeared after a four-plus-game absence. Clint Moseley had an excellent second start at quarterback, going 12-for-15 and four touchdowns, and Philip Lutzenkirchen added to his "human highlight reel" reputation with that ridiculous Lawyer-Tillman-flashback catch for Auburn's last score, but the straw that stirred the drink was Emory Blake.

Let's take it as a given that Ole Miss does not have a great defense, but the difference for Auburn with Blake in the game was still blindingly obvious.

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB. 

More of Pete Thamel's BS Exposed

Remember little Petey Thamel's breathless NY Times story about how Gene Chizik had a shouting match with NCAA enforcement honcho Julie Roe Lach?  Like most of Thamel's "reporting," the story was an innuendo-heavy piece sourced mostly by people with axes to grind against Auburn.  Also like most of Thamel's "work," it wasn't remotely accurate. 

Lach, interviewed recently by CBS Sports' Brian Fischer, had this to say:

Fischer: The SEC meetings, do you regret the run-in with Gene Chizik?

Lach: I have no regrets. I think a run-in is really a mischaracterization, it was a discussion.

Thamel, of course, made the exchange out to be an ominous sign of Auburn's impending doom at the hands of the NCAA. Instead, AU was exonerated by the NCAA a few months later. Oopsie.

Obviously, we're talking about the New York Times here, where editorializing and innuendo in the service of a pre-selected "narrative" is the order of the day, but one of these days, little Petey's penchant for exaggeration and innuendo is going to catch up with him.

Writing like he's working for the National College Football Enquirer is working for Petey, and his editors obviously don't care enough to correct him, but the real shame is that Thamel's buddies in the sportswriting world don't have the guts or the character to call him out when he runs this kind of garbage.

(Sort Of) New at Rivals: Dominated Up Front

My bad for not posting my Monday-morning Rivals column on the LSU game. It's been a hectic week. Here's the link and a preview:

It doesn't take detailed play-by-play analysis to see why Auburn couldn't hang with LSU on Saturday. All it took was seeing a couple of series: the Red Stick Tigers were just a whole lot better up front, on both sides of the ball.

For all the hoopla over Cam Newton, the real difference between the 2010 and 2011 Tiger Bowls was the relative performance of the offensive and defensive lines. Last year, Auburn owned the trenches; this year, it was LSU's turn to be dominant up front. The rest, as they say, is commentary.

But since commentary is sort of the whole point of this gig, here goes: the Auburn offensive line couldn't stop LSU's front four, most particularly end Sam Montgomery. At all.

Clint Moseley had somebody in his face the entire game, and running room was a rare occurrence for either Michael Dyer or Onterrio McCalebb. Give the level of pressure up front and a left tackle who would have had a great performance if he'd been a matador, I'm actually a bit impressed that Moseley only had one pick-six.

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.

New at Rivals: Ugly, But Winning

My Monday-morning column on the Florida game for Rivals' AuburnSports.com is up. A preview:

The recurring meme in the wake of Auburn's 17-6 win over Florida is, "winning ugly." I must object: anybody who tries to tell you that notching a third-consecutive win (and fourth of the last five) against an ancient rival like Florida isn't a pretty sight obviously missed the second half of the 1990's.

There's no such thing as a bad win over the Gators, no matter what the score or stats sheet might look like after the clock runs out.

But yeah, okay, if you want to get all picky and aesthetic about it, this wasn't the kind of game you'd want to have on a permanent replay in your football museum. For all the 21st Century trappings, Auburn-Florida 2011 looked an awful lot like both teams, at least on offense, had slipped into a time machine set for 1989.

Other highlights include a gratuitous shot at Charlie The Hutt, aka Mr. "Decided Schematic Advantage."

The rest is on the subscription side. Rivals is offering a free first month to new subscribers coming over from FTB.